I would be remiss if I didn't say thank you to Ferrara (Rita), Nancy King, Carly Gewirz, Charlie Baum, momnopp (JudyO), Dennis and Judy Cook, and anyone else who helped make the Getaway possible.

Thanks to Bearded Bruce for the candied ginger and the variety of chocolates. BB, you are the soul of generosity.

Thanks to Dick Greenhaus and Susan Friedman (sp?) for handling the complex task of getting rainbows of Mudcat T-shirts in various sizes. Those of us who wore them were very well dressed.

I was humbled by the unusually good musicians (instrumentalists) and thrilled that I had the chance to play with them. This year's Getaway had the best collection of instrumentalists of any Getaway I've attended.

This was my first time to jam with someone on the Uillean pipes -- thank you, Lorcan. (My apologies for any misspellings.)

It was also my first time to hear Icelandic music, which I loved immediately -- thank you Skarpi.

I had such a good time sitting on the porch of the white house and jamming with Sorcha on the fiddle, Carol (?) on her new flute, and Andrew on the squeezebox. Andrew started by saying that he hoped that we could find some tunes that all of us knew. We sure did, and we learned more tunes from each other quickly.   

There was an unusually large group of people who played various squeezeboxes, and they all played them so well.

Leadfingers is the opposite of what that name implies. Maybe he should change it to Quicksilver Fingers. He plays so many instruments *so well.* I never would have believed that the whistle could be used as a blues instrument, but he did it.

I was really impressed with the informal accordion lesson given by Greg and George to Carol C. She has not found an accordian player who could be her teacher where she lives, and she has learned how to play accordion by getting teaching sessions at Getaways and exchanging emails and tapes with the people who have helped her. Her husband is actively helping her learn. Teaching music is giving one of the greatest gifts, and Mudcatters have done an outstanding job.

I loved meeting so many Mudcatters that I had previously known only online. I was not happy, though, that I had to learn two names for many of them. That's a real challenge to my memory.

It's always good to see MMario, talk with him, and hug him. Wow!

Playing music with Big Mick, Claymore, Keith, Lorcan, Greg, Dick Greenhaus, Lucy, David, and others whose names I don't remember -- that was the biggest thrill of the weekend for me.

I learned so much about all kinds of things from Charlie Baum by sitting near him at meals.

I set a new record for myself by staying up and jamming until 4:30 AM Saturday. I couldn't help it. The musicians I played with were so very good. You never know in advance who will be there, what instruments they play, or what style of music they play. These are musicians who play outside the box. Then everything comes together as we catch on to each other through music. It's awesome. Jamming is one of the biggest highs for me.

One of my students, who is eight years old, recently told her mother that when she plays, magic comes out of her violin. I couldn't express the thought any better.