I'm back home safely after an 11 hour drive, much of it rainy in greater New Jersey but it got better!

It was a fine weekend as far as I was concerned. It started with showing up Friday evening with hardly knowing anyone, and gradually got better. I'm great with lyrics and terrible with matching faces and names. I left feeling I knew a whole lot more people.

There were some old friends who were there, including Sally Rogers who I knew way back in Michigan. This time I got to know Calico Jack much better, actually talk with the amazing Alaska Mike, swap stories and songs with George Ward, and lead about a dozen songs at very workshops and concerts.

I didn't have the energy this time around to do the late night singing which is a real shame. That's where a whole lot of bonding takes place.

The C. Fox Smith workshop went quite well as Maryrrf kindly mentioned above, despite my concern about it being scheduled at 10 am Sunday morning. There were at least 20 people there, relatively alert and quite willing to sing along on choruses. And about 10 of the songbooks were actually purchased, in addition to some CD's. Severn and Terry (Leadfingers) did a good job of leading "Copper Ore" and "Tow-Rope Girls" respectively, and Terry kindly provided whistle accompaniment for "Lumber." My only regret is that Amos still hasn't learned "Port o' Dreams." Maybe we can lobby him to work it up for next year.

Other highlights for me were Kendall and Jacqui's mini-concert, Sally Roger's mini-concert, the Parody Session, Ballads, Sea Shanties (although some of what was sung were not work songs ;~)), Songwriting with Gordon Bok and Jud Marum, Inland Waterways with George Ward, the Pub Sing with Amos, Old-Time Songs with Debby McClatchy and Molly Andrews, and Challenging Chrouses with Bill Day and Claire Norman. Of course I missed a whole lot of other competing workshops and mini-concerts.

Dennis Cook did a great job of managing sound for the evening concerts. But I'm too tired to try to describe them. Maybe tomorrow.

Cheerily,
CHarley Noble