Fiddling Around in the Past

Rae Huffman probably knows 200 tunes on her 61-year-old fiddle and she’s never had to consult a piece of sheet music.

“I’ve put everything to memory,” said the lifelong member of the Ventura County chapter of the California State Old-Time Fiddlers Assn. “I could play all day and you’d never hear the same thing twice.”

Huffman of Oxnard is one of a few dozen old-time country and western music enthusiasts who gather twice a month at the Oak View Community Center.

On Sunday, they listened to each other play, cut a rug on the dance floor and remembered when life seemed a bit simpler.

“They sing a lot of songs I remember from long ago,” said Lloyd Beckett, 76, who was decked out in a black-and-white cowboy outfit. “It’s like living yesterday.”

Beckett, a native of Arkansas who now lives in Port Hueneme, was raised on old-time country and western music and has loved it for as long as he can remember. He started getting involved in the local club about 14 years ago.

“It really takes me back,” he said.

That was the idea, said Ben Champman, who helped start up the local group in 1974 after a buddy of his noticed a similar club in Oregon.

Another goal of the club--grown from its original 30 members to more than 300--was to ensure their favorite music didn’t fade into the history books as the modern, pop-oriented country and western style took over.

“We want to be able to pass it on to the younger kids,” Champman said. “It helps keep italive.”

Most of those who tapped their heels to the nostalgic, twangy melodies Sunday were senior citizens, but a number of young families and kids are involved in the group, Champman said.

One of them, 11-year-old Joshua Galyon of Camarillo, placed fourth in a national fiddling competition last month in Oroville.

“We are so proud of him,” Huffman said as she showed off the group’s photo album.

Despite the name, the association’s members are by no means just fiddlers. Many are guitarists, vocalists and bassists who make up the rest of the old-time band.

Others, who don’t play an instrument, provide the audience. Still others get their weekly exercise on the dance floor.

Ojai residents Elaine and Lloyd Ferguson have been married 25 years. They’ve danced together for 26.

The duo gracefully twirled and two-stepped nonstop for hours Sunday.

“We were already crazy in love before we found out we could dance,” said Elaine, 67.

Lloyd, 85, says it’s the only venue in which he’s the boss.

“But I’m no good with anyone else,” he said, flashing her a wink.