Mudcat with Art? Ya gotta be kidding..

Five or six years ago I was invited to perform at the Big Muddy Folk Festival in Boonville, Mo. My friends Dave Para and Cathy Barton are the organizers. The first evening when we went to supper, I loaded up my plate and looked for a table where I didn't know anyone.
I enjoy doing that whenever I can, because you end up meeting some wonderful people. I asked if I could join the folks at one of the tables and they welcomed me warmly. During the course of our conversation, Don Stevens showed me a thick three-ring notebook he'd brought with him, catalouging his record collection. It was in teeny print, and must have been four inches thick. Don has over 8,000 albums. He asked me if there was anything in particular that I was looking for and I told him that I had tried to find more records of the Phipps Family. I have one treasured album and had only seen one other one (which I didn't have the money to buy at the time.) All of their albums are long out of print, and I had just about given up on finding any. Don flipped through his book to "P" and showed me that he had nine albums of theirs. I was too excited (almost) to eat. He asked me for my address, and shortly after I got back from the festival a large box arrived in the mail. In it were cassette copies of all nine Phipps Family albums, and several videos of other groups that he had copied for me. There were close to twenty pieces in the box.

Just about the time I was so overwhelmed with Don's generosity, another package arrived in the mail from Jim Hickam (a fellow Mudcatter.) I had casually mentioned that I really loved Lonnie Donegan, and Jim sent me the whole Bear Boxed set of Lonnie on cassette, along with a few other cassettes of Lonnie when he was with the Chris Barber Band.

Now mind you, Don and Jim were complete strangers when I sat down with them and out of the kindness of their hearts, they bombarded me with music. They became friends over the years, and we all had a great time when I brought the Gospel Messengers out three years later.

Some people don't take time to become friends. They just skip over the preliminaries and open their hearts to you.

Hey, I could keep going on here, and have a couple of people I still want to talk about. Howzabout someone else sharing an experience you've had with someone who overwhelmed you with their generosity?
If no one else does, I'll tell you about the chicken before I let this thread die.

Jerry