The late Doc McConnell was best known for his "medicine show." (Contributed photo)
J*** This story was published Oct. 2, 2008 in the Bristol Herald Courier.***
JONESBOROUGH, Tenn. ? Jimmy Neil Smith didn't know Doc McConnell when he launched the first National Storytelling Festival in 1973. Smith, too, did not know that McConnell sat in the audience for that first festival in Jonesborough.
However, by the second year, McConnell joined the list of festival performers. And he kept on being a familiar face, year after year.
But McConnell won't be back ? this year, or ever again - to show off the charms of his old-fashioned medicine show.
Born Sept. 20, 1928, McConnell died this year on Aug. 16.
"I never thought this day would ever come," Smith said. "He was an institution at this event. He always seemed to have a special love for life. But everybody is mortal. And Doc was as well. And we are going to miss him ? more than I ever realized we would."
STORYTELLING LAUREATE
McConnell became a symbol - a patriarch -? of the festival. To many, his friendly face and folksy ways had, in turn, helped take the place of the still-missed Ray Hicks, a legendary storyteller from the mountains of North Carolina.
"I knew that Ray would go. I knew that he had been quite ill," Smith said. "But it never occurred to me that we would be absent Doc. And I'm not quite sure why that is."
Always fun-loving, McConnell provided a great window into the storytelling tradition. He brought his "medicine show" to Jonesborough for that second annual event in 1974. Then, year after year, he watched this festival grow into an attraction with about 10,000 annual visitors.
"When we started up," McConnell recalled during an interview in 2006, "there wasn't enough people to whip a cat."
Still, year after year, McConnell's show provided heaping doses of humor ? and a throwback to the vaudeville era of a century ago. McConnell's work also won acclaim. He had been named Tennessee's first Storytelling Laureate.
'FIXTURE OF THE FESTIVAL'
In recent years, you could find McConnell greeting folks on the sidewalk near the Chester Inn, showing off what McConnell once called "all kinds of little tricks and little old skits."
This year, Smith still wants to set up McConnell's cart in remembrance of the late Rogersville, Tenn. resident. Of course, Smith said the festival-goers "are going to be looking for him. There are going to be a lot of people who are going to be shocked that Doc is not with us any longer."
Susan O'Connor, the director of festival programs, had considered McConnell the festival's official greeter. "For years, he's had his medicine show out on the plaza of the storytelling center," O'Connor said. "And when he's not doing his show, he's always around where people can come and chat with him and visit. He's a fixture of the festival."
'WONDERFUL THING'
Ironically, McConnell's face shows up on the current brochures promoting the festival. All had been printed prior to his passing, Smith said. In turn, McConnell and his banjo also show up on the cover of the current brochure promoting Jonesborough.
"We are sad," Smith said. "But there's a happiness and a warmth - a kind of a good, fuzzy feeling - to see him on the cover."
O'Connor thinks the same. "It's a wonderful thing that he's on the cover," O'Connor said. "The cover is a very welcoming picture with his arms wide open. And that's how he felt about the festival. He wanted everybody to be here."
