I hang around here from time to time. I don't post much. Nothing to say I guess. I'm not a member. I saw the membership form and I'm not sure what the red asterisks mean, and I like to remain fairly anonymos. I've played folk music since I was 14. I've played various instruments, but guitar suits me fine. At one time I had a list of 2 or 3 hundred songs that I could play all the way from traditional folk to pop music, and classic music. I came from a long line of classic stringed intrument artists, so the only was I could get a guitar was if I trained in classic music, so I would pack up my guitar and find a place where I could play what I liked, but the training proved to be an asset when it came to breaking the monotony of a long song with what a lot of my friends referred to as a guitar break. You know...there have been a lot of really fine songs written in the last 30 years, but my favorites still stand. "The Whistlin'Gypsy", "Four Strong Winds", "Scarlett Ribbons", and my newest favorite, perhaps a little bit out of place, "The Rose". During the past ten years I've watched my guitars age, sitting idle in my study, and my voice grow a little hoarse from too many cigarettes, but once in a while I still pull my guitar out and play a couple of studies by Fernando Sor, and sing a couple of my favorite folksongs. To make up for what I have missed in the last few years, I come to this website and read some of the posts, and remember what it was like to hear laughter at something I said, or applause for a song or piece I did particularly well. So I would like to thank this bunch of like-minded artists who have reminded me that the art of folk music is not dead, and that there are still a few people left to pass on this legacy of story-telling and music on to the next generation.