Chip Fielding Ewing Lamason, Jr.

Kip Lamason remembers his brother

“Chip” Fielding Ewing Lamason, Jr. (February 20th, 1954 – July 23rd, 2015), former Vashon Taxi owner, environmental lawyer, and accomplished musician died unexpectedly of C.H.F. at home on his beloved Vashon July 23rd.

Born in Bryn Mawr, PA, raised in Villanova (Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Eagle Scout), a graduate of St. Paul’s School in Concord, NH, Princeton University, Villanova University School of Law, and the Masters program in Environmental Public Policy at the University of Maryland.

Ultimately he would live, work, and play in D.C., New Orleans, and finally, Vashon.

Following graduation from law school, Chip clerked with the late Judge Peter Paul Olszewski of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania (1984-1985) prior to his career as an enforcement attorney at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C. (1985-1997).

At the EPA Chip would develop a lecture series on personal ethics and global warming for civic groups in Washington, D.C., the Anacostia River Watch Program, and a graduate program at the University of Michigan, to create an environmental curriculum for public school students k-12.

In 1997 Chip left the EPA to immerse himself in the traditional Appalachian music scene in the Washington, D.C. area. In 2004, after witnessing firsthand the health and socioeconomic issues facing Appalachian performers, Chip moved to New Orleans to serve as director of special projects for the New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic (NOMC), a non-profit providing affordable health care to musicians throughout southern Louisiana. After Hurricane Katrina, he relocated to Vashon where he ran Vashon Taxi, raised his daughter Fiona, and played music. With the island’s rolling hills, tall trees, winding backcountry roads, and rich creative life, views of the Olympics to the West and Mt. Rainier to the East, Vashon was home.

Chip delved passionately into his interests. He was a playfully competitive “gentleman” sportsman, and a socially-conscious member and contributor to whatever community he joined. He would readily help another in need using what resources he had in education, intellect, physical strength, finances, or humor – whichever the situation called for.

The best way, however, to describe Chip is to share some of the anecdotal stories my parents told about him from an early age:

As a toddler, my mother would watch Chip take off to look at something that had caught his attention as children do. What distinguished Chip’s behavior from other children, however, was that he did this without ever looking back for approval or reassurance from his parents. That self-confidence guided much of his life.

His single-minded tenacity also revealed itself early on when, at age two, Chip decided he would learn how to swim. His parents took him to a friend’s pool, where, within a short time of arrival, he jumped into the deep end sinking immediately to the bottom. Dad dove in to retrieve him safely to land. Relieved that Chip was all right, the adults returned to their party. But Chip was determined and so plunged in several more times.

In 5th grade, the public school district told my parents that he was an extremely bright child and would benefit greatly from a challenging private school education. Chip chose St. Paul’s in Concord, NH, joining the “six-year club,” a rarefied handful of boys who attended St. Paul’s from 7th to 12th grade.

Chip’s first year was touch-and-go and nearly disastrous because he enjoyed fun and shenanigans with his schoolmates more than studying. With the help of my parents and the school, Chip’s attitude was “spruced up,” reversing the tide on his future at St. Paul’s and for all endeavors to come. What struck me during these years was how much he loved studying drama and comedy. He wrote papers on Buster Keaton, award-winning plays, read books on Zen and the comic spirit and practiced jokes on everyone.

Football, ice hockey, lacrosse: Chip was an exceptional athlete. He would tell stories of how he played hockey on the frozen ponds at St. Paul’s in minus-degree weather as if this were the only way to play pure hockey. His St. Paul’s experience imprinted on him his stoic character.

Combining joys, in this case hockey and comedy, Chip’s best joke ever played on my parents was with his senior year ice hockey team photo. When the photo arrived at home it showed him with a big smile and two front teeth missing. My parents’ heightened disbelief mounted quickly into hysteria whereupon they called the school only to learn that Chip was just fine—or perhaps even better than given the success of his joke in blacking out his two front teeth with electrical tape.

Confident in his abilities senior year, he only applied to one college: Princeton (sending my parents into another tizzy). They strongly insisted that he apply to a backup. Chip being Chip he applied to Barnum & Bailey’s Clown College. He was accepted at Princeton and rejected by clown school.

But the rejection didn’t deter him. At Princeton Chip became president of Princeton’s Triangle Club, the university’s renowned original musical-and-comedy theater, producing two theatrical projects and a national tour. He graduated from Princeton with a degree in anthropology.

Between academic pursuits Chip worked with the blast furnaces at Alan Wood Steel in Conshohocken, PA and spent a summer assisting with the establishment of land rights for a Native American tribe in Maine, traveling across the state in his sporty little red MG visiting reservations and gathering facts.

Much of his love for the outdoors derived from his experiences with the Boy Scouts, our family’s summer holidays in Vermont and New Hampshire and the many back-packing adventures on the Long Trail in Vermont and the Appalachian Trail in Maine.

I joined him for the last 60 miles on the Long Trail in Vermont and the 280 miles from Maine’s Mt. Katadin to the New Hampshire border. On the Applachian Chip tagged us as the “silly boys” for our trail moniker, used to leave our musings in the trail journals at each campsite.

Out of all the thrills that month in Maine, the most exciting arrived after two weeks of hiking, once our sore muscles had eased and our endurance increased. On pulling into camp one evening, we dropped our packs, looked at each other and agreed that we wanted to see the sunset at a lookout point a mile back. We then raced at full speed over the broken rocky terrain as if we were flying, saw the sun go behind the mountains and then raced back to camp before the light faded completely. It was exhilarating.

I was forever in awe of my brother’s musical endeavors, which began at age seven with piano lessons at the Settlement Music School in Philadelphia where he learned to read music. At home I would listen to him practice his homework until perfection.

At home during school breaks from St. Paul’s he would pick apart songs from records note-by-note on his guitar, jotting each note in his staff notebook, plucking another note until he found the right one, and then jotting that note down. He would do this for hours at a time until he had mastered the music. That boy who spent such long hours perfecting his art would become the accomplished musician heard on Vashon.

Chip never stopped exploring music from around the world (Blues, Jazz, Western Classical and Baroque, Old-time, West African, Middle Eastern, Blues, East Indian, Persian, Middle Eastern, world funk) continually mastering new instruments such as the mandolin, violin, viola guitar, mandola and mando-cello. One of his musical highlights was creating his CD All Young, a recording of traditional Appalachian, Scottish, Cape Breton and Scandinavian music for mandolin chamber ensemble—a six-year endeavor for which he played all the instruments. He played with numerous bands including the Washington Mandolin Quintet, the award-winning contra dance band Screech Malone and the Chaos Bubbas, and, most recently, the Rumble Strips on Vashon.

Professional and creative pursuits aside, however, Chip’s most important accomplishments remain his two daughters, Sara and Fiona, each one reflecting the best of him.

In addition to his father and stepmother, Fielding E. and Nancy Lamason of Bryn Mawr, PA, Chip is survived by his two daughters, Sara Joan of Arlington, VA, and Fiona Frances of Seattle, WA, his brother Clifford Longley, sister-in-law Katherine Dewey Lamason, nephew, William Marshall Ewing, niece, Christina Lynne of Havertown, PA, and sisters, Mary Palmer of Media, PA, and Margaret Lawrence in New York, NY. 

To all those on Vashon who loved Chip, our family thanks you. Our time on the island after his sudden departure, meeting some of those who knew him, helped ease our hearts.

Chip, his gentleness, acuity, generosity, music, playful joie de vivre and mischievous humor, is and will remain deeply missed.

“May peace find him on a beach – that Old-time music blasting – with a fish on the line and a Chesapeake Bay Retriever at his side.” And may the angels accompany him.

In honor of Chip’s life, the family suggests contributions to the New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic, http://www.neworleansmusiciansclinic.org.

Paid Obituary.