August 31, 2024
Many of us who follow our calling in the performing arts are blessed with fans in many places who become friends. I met Chris Nicholson in the late 90s when he and his then toddler-age son Andrew would come to the weekly singer/songwriter series at Starbucks near his home in Sterling VA. Through those years he befriended many of us, as he introduced his two young sons to music and creativity, up close and personal. When he learned that I had spent much of my childhood and young adult summers hiking in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, he shared that he had lost his only sibling Sarah in an ice fall a few years earlier in Mt. Washington's Tuckerman Ravine - a place I knew quite well. Our displaced New Englander connection, having both grown up in Connecticut, was a regular thread in our friendship.
When I met him, he was working for a prison fellowship which engendered an immediate and deep respect in me. In addition to being a devoted family man, I learned over the decades that Chris was many things; a wordsmith who wrote plays and edited books. A magician. A chef. A political enthusiast. A committed Christian. A fisherman. An auction enthusiast. A juggler. A dedicated folk music fan. Someone who “ran off with the circus” when they came through town for a few weeks every summer for many years. In short, a fascinating human with a wide array of interests and curiosities.
His family's announcement of his passing on Facebook last week drew hundreds of comments from people from within those many social circles as well as childhood and school friends. Together all of those heartfelt expressions paint the picture of his greatest attribute, as a wonderful human and steadfast friend.
Chris became intrigued by this Mountville Folk Festival thing that many of us gathered for every June. Once he started being a regular attendee, he offered his considerable talents to feed the performers. He viewed it as a way to give back something to the people who made the music that he enjoyed so much.
As “Mountville” grew over the decades, so too did his involvement. He became one of the inner circle involved with the planning and overall vision of the festival with his characteristic insight and dry wit, coining his job description simply as Food Czar - a title which remained henceforth. He befriended my somewhat shy and reserved wife early on as she struggled to manage all of her many Mountville responsibilities each year, and he started a tradition of relaxing and celebrating finishing their hard work over a glass of Bailey's Irish Cream together after the main stage - his “one drink for the year.”
Chris has been a friend to me in countless ways, but also one of my most enthusiastic supporters. In the mid-2010s, as changes in the music world became more challenging to my livelihood on the circuit of smaller independent artists and venues, I invited him and three other friends to be my Mastermind group. We'd meet once or twice a year over dinner and whisky glasses at my house to brainstorm about new opportunities for me to bring my music and words into suitable settings and grow my business. It was from one of these Mastermind sessions late in 2018 that the idea developed to turn all of the incredible things that had come from my recent forays into my family history into the Treasures in My Chest into a book as well as an album.
Chris volunteered to be my editor for the book, and we worked back and forth through much of 2019 creating and shaping it. His skills as a grammarian, together with his understanding of the way I like to say and present ideas and stories, were absolutely invaluable. As an adoptee, his perspective about family and heritage offered insights that helped make the whole work better. I don't think I would have pulled it off without his skill, heart and encouragement.
The Treasures Celebration Concert for the book and album release was March 6th, 2020 - the last show at our local theater before the pandemic shutdown. It was an incredible experience, and it was incredible to share it with him, even as we were beginning to understand that my “life work” project was being released into a mighty storm that would swamp my career and the folk music business for a long time to come.
When he was diagnosed last summer after Mountville, none of us knew what was going on until he'd nearly finished his rounds of treatment. He knew from the outset that his odds with his rare neuroendocrine cancer weren't good. He let me know that he'd like to join me for one of my Skyline Drive/Shenandoah National Park cruises, and of course I was happy to do so. We had a beautiful September day, talking about all kinds of things.
During our drive Chris told me his doctor said his treatment had about a 20% success rate, and that he might have weeks, maybe a couple months. Displaying my limited grasp of statistics, I said “you know, every case is different, and they don't know what differentiates success. The way I see the world, either something's gonna happen or it's not. It's gonna work, or it's not. That seems a lot more like 50/50 to me.” He liked that idea a lot, and when his PET scan results came in clean the following week, “50/50” became our mantra.
No one was surprised when the cancer came back this spring, but Chris continued to enjoy life and take advantage of all the feeling good moments he had. As he went through the next rounds of treatment he set two goals for himself - to get one last mid-summer family vacation in at his favorite lake in Maine, and to serve as Mountville Food Czar one last time for the 30th anniversary in June. The family vacation ended up in the hospital at the end as the tumor made it hard to eat, breathe and pretty much anything else, but he got to do both of those things and was ever grateful and happy that he did.
We got to see Chris and his family a final time in hospice. I sang a few of his and their favorite songs, shared some beautiful memories, and stumbled our way through the farewell that we never wanted to say. He passed Monday morning as the sun rose; just a few hours before, unbeknownst to me or any of my family, my only sibling passed Chris's sister Sarah's plaque as she hiked Tuckerman Ravine to the top of Mt. Washington. That eerie coincidence hit me pretty hard, but offered some small strange comfort too. That night, Michelle and I sat on our porch, quietly weeping and laughing through tears as we shared remembrances and raised a Bailey's to our dear friend.
I am sure that the memorial service will be an amazing reminder of all the many circles Chris leaves behind in his amazing life. I am also sure that each of us there will treasure knowing him for the rest of our days. Here's to you, and Godspeed my amazing friend.
