“Our place is a great big doghouse, and everybody needs to know that,” Mrs. Pamela Rice tells us wryly. “Everything functions around the dogs. We have two standard poodles - one is Zorro David. I call him 'Zorro' and Tony calls him 'David'. Yes, we have a dog named David, and a bird named Dinah!”

Xo`i, the other canine in the Rice household, is the main reason that the Rice household is going to the dogs. When we first interview Pam, Xo`i (pronounced like Zoë) is just days away from delivering puppies. “I wish I had a witness for the way Tony is acting over this pregnant dog,” Pam chuckles. “It's worse than the overreaction of a expectant father!”

The Rices have known each other since they were children, even though Tony grew up in California and Pam in North Carolina. “Tony spent summers here, dividing his visits between his grandparents' house and ours. He used to sleep on the sofa and play the guitar, and I couldn't get him to do anything else. At the time, he was working on his G run… I nearly lost my mind over that G run. I couldn't get away from it!”

Tony and his uncles spent parts of their summers working on Pam's family tobacco farm to earn spending money. “Our early times were spent together covered in black tobacco gum, sweat and red mud,” she recalls. “So far removed from the romantic chance meeting on the Riviera some fans imagine!”

Pam never dreamed she'd fall in love with the hyperactive little boy she'd known as a child, but they reconnected as adults in the late 1980s, and were married in August 1987. As owners of two adult poodles, four vocal cockatiels, and a quarter horse named Thunder Bearhorse, the Rices laughingly call their home the Ark, and themselves Mr. & Mrs. Noah. They moved there just after losing their house in Florida in March 1993.

“Usually you associate floodwaters like that with a hurricane in Florida, but it wasn't,” explains Tony. “It was a pretty intense tropical storm that just happened to coincide with an extreme lunar tide."

With his little dog Pokey huddled in his leather jacket, Tony fled by boat in 100 mph. winds (Pam was away at the time) and found high ground at a local restaurant. Their friend Mark Johnson, banjo player with Clawgrass, and Tony's brother, mandolinist Larry Rice, eventually rescued the gold records and the Grammy. And Tony's guitar, the fabled 1935 Martin D-28 that once belonged to Clarence White, was saved when Tony gave a newly homeless man $45 - all the money he had in his pocket - to rescue it. Though it had already taken on water, talented luthier Harry Sparks eventually managed to revive it.

“Very few people are fortunate enough that when they have one place instantly wiped out, they have another to go to,” says Tony. Luckily, the Rices had been renting a house in North Carolina for their youngest son, who was attending law enforcement school. After the flood, they moved in and bought the place. Located just below the Virginia line, near Pam's childhood home, the three-story, four-bedroom house is filled with heirlooms and furniture that once belonged to her forebears.

Both of the Rices have intriguing hobbies. When he isn't experimenting with his guitar, Tony's attention is often focused on different aspects of a single hobby: photography. If he's reading something, it's likely to be a book on the medium. And if he's tinkering, it's likely to be with a camera that he's taken apart to clean or repair. He prefers manual focus Canon F1s, and estimates that he has about 33 lenses for the eleven F1 bodies in his collection. “I consider myself to be a serious amateur,” he says. “I'm on the borderline now of being able to have a book out of my color wildlife and landscape photography.”

Like Tony, Pam enjoys photography, and she says her favorite subject is her husband. She keeps her collection of foils, rapiers, and katanas in a rare antique sword cabinet in her dining room, and loves oil painting and sculpting in clay. She creates homemade bath salts and soaps and gives them away to her lucky friends. Pam also writes humorous stories and dabbles in songwriting; her gospel tune, “Beast of the Field,” was recorded by the Isaacs. She was a producer of the 1993 documentary film One In The Spirit. She likes to cook, but misses her house manager Antonius ZandBoer, who lived with the Rices for a time and prepared extraordinary gourmet meals. “Tony was actually starting to get fat!” she laughs. A Belgian national, Antonius had to leave after 9/11, and the Rices hope he will return soon.

Tony's slender physique can be attributed, at least in part, to great metabolism. However, Pam says their freezer is stuffed with coffee beans, and that her husband can drink coffee way beyond the lethal dosage for human consumption.

“Two pots a day is my norm,” Tony confesses. “I drink a pot of coffee over a few short hours after I get up. Then come mid-evening, 9 or 10:00, I'll start on another pot, and will generally finish it by 1 or 2:00 in the morning. That ain't something that the chief recommends!”

His beloved java no doubt provided him with the fuel to finish a new Homespun Tapes instructional video, due out this month. Fans should also look for a compilation CD of bluegrass instrumentals from Tony's various Rounder projects, to be released later this spring.

As we wrap up several weeks of correspondence about this column, Pam sends an email with happy news. During a long, intensive 12-hour period the day before, Xo`i has successfully delivered eight bouncing puppies. “Tony is beside himself with joy,” Pam writes. “And I need a vacation!”

Visit Tony Rice online at www.tonyrice.com.

From the Kitchen of Tony Rice:
Tony's Favorite Garlic Spread

“This easy recipe is from Antonius,” says Pam. “Tony would get some and eat a whole loaf of bread!”

1 stick margarine
¼ cup of dry parsley
1 tbsp. McCormick California Style Garlic Powder with Parsley

Mash all ingredients together, spread evenly on crusty bread, and toast under the broiler for 5-10 minutes or until golden brown.