There was a different ethic "then", wasn't there? For many in the folk revival of the 50s--60s--70s--80s a few could command big bucks but so many others did the music anyhow, no matter what it took. (As Buddy Mondlock said in his song "No Choice", we really didn't have a choice. The music was all there was for us. And there were many-a-month with more open squares on the calendar than gig-filled ones. It meant sleeping on floors or couches like Harvey's in Springfield, Illinois where the barnyard and H.'s livingroom were one entity. Summers the door never closed. Chickens came and went and often sat on your bod and head while you slept (or tried to).
Then in New York being guided to Manhattan by your blind passenger who swore he knew the way to his parents house on Broadway up around 125th St. I swear we took Broadway all the way from Hartford, CT to Manhattan. On arriving "home", went in to greet your digs for the night but coming out the junkies were sitting all over the car and you couldn't dare to open the trunk to get the instruments out for fear of showin' 'em what all was in there. Your host had no idea, him being blind, that the hallways were covered with garbage. But maybe he did know. My nostrils provided enough proof for me.

THEN Kansas trying to get to Winfield. A maniac driver on the interstate (35?) coming at me going the wrong way in the southbound lanes, tore past me, made a U turn, caught up to me and started rear-ending my old Buick until I hit the water-filled median strip and tore up about 200 feet of muddy muck. (The guy, a total stranger, disappeared in the distance. After being towed out, I went to Eldorado and found me a wash-your-car place-----one with high-powered hand-held water wands to extricate half the mud in all the Flint Hills from hanging down under my undercarriage. When I pulled away, there was a earth mound behind me that rivalled the Pawnee Rock outcrop on the Santa Fe Trail further west near Larned, Kansas for height. Got to the Winfield Festival not much worse for wear. Just another day on the road.

And I'd do it all over again. These and other "great" times were truly "the best of times". The music made it all wonderful. The comaraderie cemented it all. And best of all, Carol went along with me for 35 years (so far) even though there wasn't all that much cash in it. We were our own boss ---and that made all the difference.

ADVICE----Like the beatniks, develop spartan tastes. Be satisfied with the cheap seats at the concerts. Like the folks in the first 3 rows, you'll hear all the music. If you're lucky, they'll give YOU money to make the msic for THEM. It really is like alchemy: You sing your songs into the wind----and, miraculously, it turns into the rent. As Buck White told me once when I opened for him and his daughters at Charlotte's Web in Rockford, IL-----"I ain't never had less, or enjoyed it more !"

And that reminds me of another road story...

Art Thieme