Ripon CC Championship - De Camptown Races on Dulcimer
950 views · Published 22 October 2009 · 3:34 · Indexed 8 October 2026
Channel: John Bennett · 2009 · Music
De Camptown Races. Again, please forgive a dads pride. But then again, perhaps some are tired of looking at my mug. Regardless, last weekend the Wisconsin Private Colleges held their annual State Cross-Country Championships. My son finished 3rd on the team and 9th overall out of 104 runners. Ripon College posted 5 runners in the top 11 all of them making first or second team all state. I thought that was pretty cool! I was even more impressed with A.J.s finish when I learned that someone tripped him up at the start and his shoe came untied. He had to stop and tie it mid race! He was pretty miffed, but I was pretty proud. I figured De Camptown Races would be appropriate for this video, seeing that the race is 5 miles long. The tune was written in 1850 by Stephen Foster and one year later, in 1851, Ripon College was founded. Stephen Foster is broadly known as the father of American music. The mountain (Appalachian or lap) dulcimer can also be described as one of very few truly American instruments the banjo being the only other one that I am aware of. Also, this song is written in stereotypical African-American dialect (of the time). Ripon, WI is where the Republican Party started in 1854 by anti-slavery activists, and yet the Republican Party receives less than 15% of the black vote? The times sure change. (I bet none of yas thought you were going to get a history lesson from watching a cross-country race now did ya!) Anyway, I am fairly certain this will be the last video of this type from me. In order to get ahead of the men running, I had to take a short cut up a seriously steep hill. (Well, steep for an old man who smokes, has twinges of plantar fasciitis, and is just a little more than a bit over weight and out of shape) Thank God for the college girls who kept me motivated in climbing the mountain. I certainly didnt want to appear out of shape to a college woman. But I did - there comes a time in life when a man just has to damn his pride to hell. That day I did, when I sat down on a bench (that was noticeably empty) at the top of the hill wheezing like an asthmatic with pneumonia. Let me put it this way - I didnt have to wait long at the finish line when I tumbled to the bottom where, thankfully the race ended. Good gosh, I hope you enjoy this video, as it nearly killed me in capturing it.
