Time:— the early 1980s, during The Dark Years, when I worked as a telephone operator.
Scene:— the break room at Pacific Northwest Bell.

It's lunch time. I'm sitting and talking with a new-hire whom I am sure I recognize, but I can't remember from where. He refreshes my memory. He's a non-performing folk music enthusiast who haunted the coffeehouses twenty years before when I was singing just about anywhere and everywhere in the area. He had heard me many times. We get to talking about the Good Old Days and begin playing "What ever happened to old what's iz name?" Then he begins asking me about famous folk singers I have met during my perambulations to folk festivals, etc. Pete Seeger? Joan Baez? Doc Watson? Jean Redpath?

As we converse, another new-hire walks in. She's about eighteen, fresh out of high school, just beginning her first job. She listens respectfully to the old geeks for awhile, and soon realizes we are talking about folk music and folk singers (I learned later that her mother had some Peter, Paul, and Mary records— that's how she knew). She also realizes that some of the names being mentioned are The Gods of Yesteryear. At length she asks,

"Who is Joan Baez?"

I felt old. I felt very, very old.

Don Firth