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Matt Kirwan, graduate student, Nicholas School
Mountain Music and Muskrats
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Kirwan is not, by appearances, all that unusual. He wears plaid
shirts and jeans and a pair of tattered white tennis shoes. His
hair is a light red, his skin fair and freckled, his eyes hazel.
He speaks English. He's in a band. He likes to read. All in all,
a fairly vanilla profile not uncommon on many college campuses.
But get Kirwan to talk a bit and you will discover, when the conversation
turns to hobbies, that he is quietly distinct. His home in Blacksburg,
Virginia, in the Appalachian mountains, though just a few hours'
drive from campus, is culturally distant. Kirwan returns whenever
he can. He misses the food and the way people talk. And he misses
playing with his band, "The Loose Gap Loafers," winner
of the eleventh Annual Maury River Fiddlers' Convention. Kirwan
plays the fiddle. "Sometimes, when we're practicing our songs"--"Arkansas
Traveler," "Forked Dear," "Whiskey Before Breakfast"--"we'll
play for hours and hours, maybe twelve or thirteen, just stopping
to eat."
At the age of eight, Kirwan learned to play in the Appalachian
style of "Old Time," the precursor to country and blue
grass. His father, who volunteered as a fire fighter just so he
could play the fiddle in the fire-department band, introduced him
to the instrument. "There weren't any other bands and he didn't
know a lick about fire, but he wanted to play. He was always praying
they'd never get a call."
Kirwan liked to practice in quiet places where no one could hear
him. The woods around Blacksburg were a favorite. He hiked and
played, all the while taking note, if only subconsciously, of the
land around him. "I was taking a geology course at William & Mary.
One day I realized how familiar I was with the area. So I made
the Appalachians near my home my focus. I guess fiddling led me,
in a way, to my academic pursuits."
Another hobby led Kirwan, in similar fashion, to pursue a master's
degree in geomorphology: trapping muskrats. The unlikely source
of his inspiration can be found anywhere there is water--ditches,
ponds, lakes, rivers. Marshland, though, is the muskrat's habitat
of choice, which is where Kirwan first discovered the joys of trapping
them. "I learned from my cousin. He's a professional muskrat
trapper. He's very good." Trapping, in turn, led Kirwan to
his current field of study. "The marsh: How it formed. How
it evolved. How it responds to changes in sea level."
Kirwan says people tend to look at him with amazement when he introduces
muskrats into the conversation. "All I can talk about is what
I like to do, and that isn't really normal around here." But
he is happy to educate: "You have to feel around under the
water for the tunnels. If the walls are smooth, it's probably in
use, and you just stick a trap in there."
Does Kirwan eat his catch? "Oh yeah. My church has an annual
fund-raiser and they serve a big muskrat dinner: $10, all the muskrat
you can eat. It tastes good," he says. "Tastes like ...
tastes like squirrel."
--Patrick Adams
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