Confused there are you Fuse? Well as Patrick Sky once sang, "Reality is Bad Enough, Why Should I Tell the Truth?"...........But for you, I will.......Of course this is impossible without the mention of the possum....not all possums, just this one in particular. But we'll get to that later..........

First and foremost (now available in the bigger Fivemost size) Mudcat is about Music. To one degree or another we are all folkies....but typically we have different interests or different areas of expertise and knowledge. Sometimes we run a lot of BS threads, which aggravates the more serious scholars and sometimes the more light hearted ones are annoyed at the depth or number of lyrics type threads. Most of the time, there is a nice mix of both and you'll find that most of the active posters appear on all types of threads.

What this place really is is a little village. We are all bound together by our love of Folk Music, regardless of the branch.....and since the very nature of Folk lends itself to, and is indeed much based, on the "Human Experience," those things come up too. Sometimes great friendships are made here through these discussions. We ran a thread on VietNam era songs and Big Mick quite poignantly told of his combat experience and the aftermath of that time. Others did also. So did I. But my tale was of a different sort....I went to jail instead. On the surface of it, you'd think Mick and I would be worlds apart and a bit cool, if not antagonistic. Wrong. We are close and fast friends who have never met, a situation that's about to be rectified.

Last weekend, Karen and I met Rick and Heather Fielding at Niagra Falls and had a great time. All of us had a feeling of old and valued friends, though this was our first meeting in the flesh, so to speak. Actually only Heather got nekkid. Anyway, Rick and I came to the 'Cat about the same time and through a mutual love of the instruments of Folk began to get to know each other. We have a lot in common otherwise too, and at this point in our lives, I think our view of the world, and how it views us is very much the same. I have lots of other wonderful friends here too, but these are a couple of examples.

If you really want to know what this community is like, pick out some names you see a lot and go back and read some of their other postings on older threads. Also read the threads that Kat and others have mentioned. But do another thing too............Kat, another close friend, alluded to my "Near Death" experiences back in May. Type catspaw in the filter box and refresh for 6 months. Start reading. What you will find is a community of loving, caring, and humane people who band together for a friend at a time of crisis. Importantly, this is a "friend" that NONE of them had ever met!!! What they did for my family and I, the support, love, prayers, kindness, and friendship will never be forgotten by me...but even more importantly, they saw themselves too and each 'Catter was touched by what he saw of the group. In many cases, the closeness and bonding that occurred then will last a lifetime for all of us.

We recently had a very unpleasant experience that was a multi-part mess, with several story lines running through it. We survived. We survived because this is a group that loves and cares and we're willing to work our way out of hard times (come again no more). One of the post massacree survival mechanisms was a brilliant thread started by another good friend I've never met, Leej (Lonesome EJ), called the "Mudcat Tavern." It allowed fun, song, bad jokes, and jello to be a part of us again and now has taken on a life of it's own. Hell, I even got sick on that brew Leej served me last night.

I'll close this "epic" now. You will pick up soon enough on who's who....just join in any where you'd like. I'll tell you about the Possum in a different thread. Let me close here with something Sandy Paton once said. As you probably know, Sandy and Caroline are somewhat legendary in Folk and own Folk-Legacy records....they are also kind of Mom and Dad around here....we'll say that Art Thieme, a wonderful folkie and musician in every sense of the words (with a penchant for bad jokes and worse puns), well, I guess Art is like a crazy Uncle, the very best kind. Anyway, Sandy once said that he always wanted to live somewhere like this. It may be a cyber village, but now he does. So do I. And I'm proud and honored to be a small part of this place and share my pittance with the likes of Sandy and Caroline Paton or Art Thieme..........or Rick, Boots, Kat, Mick, General Banj, Leej, the Big RiB, Father Joebro (Joe Offer), Dan Milner, bbc, Duane, David, Seed, Jeri, Barbara Blessings, Bill D., Ferrara, El Swanno, PJ, bet, alison (the fair one), Peter T, annap, EZR, Vixen, Margarita, Bert, Susan, karenk, Cara, Helen, Animaterra, harpgirl, Alice, Fadac, dw, Zim, Charlie Baum, Bill Sables, MAG, Frank, the Pirts, Mario, Allen, Steve, Doug, mcmoo, and on and on.........and YOU. Thanks to Max, Dick and Susan, we have one of the best villages here one could ever imagine. Welcome back and welcome home.

Spaw (catspaw49)