Toast to Absent Friends

Subject: Toast to Absent Friends
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 25 Dec 02 - 10:45 AM

The midwinter holiday is a good time for a to toast absent friends, friends who are distant by miles and celebrating around a hearth away from ours and in the company of other friends or friends we haven't yet met.

And we have a lot of those and would be totally schnockered if we drank a separate toast to each of them -- but you know who you are!

But this year, perhaps more than others, we're also drinking a toast to those friends who are no longer making music in our circle here on earth. We lost too many good voices this year -- Ed Daigle, fine fiddle player and owner of The Fiddler's Fix; Peter "Chalkie" White, Liverpool singer "exiled" in the White Mountains of NH; Barbara Carns, wry wit, laughing soul and singular voice; and Jay Smith, founder of The Press Room (and the Friday night session) in Portsmouth, NH, major supporter of folk music and the arts in Seacoast NH, and possessor of one of the finest voices I've ever had the privilege and joy to sing with.

Here's to the circle of life and the circle of song. Those who've gone before us sing on in our hearts and memory. And the rest of us will keep the rafters ringing in the coming year.

Linn

Subject: RE: Toast to Absent Friends
From: Amos
Date: 25 Dec 02 - 10:48 AM

Ah, Linn, you have a goldern tongue and a foin heart in ya!! I'm with you in all those cybertoasts, and we don't even have to get virtually shnockered!


A

Subject: RE: Toast to Absent Friends
From: SINSULL
Date: 25 Dec 02 - 11:24 AM

And to you, Linn. And Tom. Merry Christmas!

Subject: RE: Toast to Absent Friends
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 25 Dec 02 - 01:36 PM

Raising a glass now!
GtD!

Subject: RE: Toast to Absent Friends
From: banjomad (inactive)
Date: 25 Dec 02 - 01:43 PM

Raise your glasses to, Woody Guthrie, Phil Oakes, Ewan MacColl, Keith
Marsden, Luke Kelly, Ciaran Bourke, Hamish Henderson, Bert Lloyd,
Jeannie Robertson, Lizzie Higgins, Alan Lomax and all who have gone before, we drink to their memory.
Dave

Subject: RE: Toast to Absent Friends
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 25 Dec 02 - 01:55 PM

Not forgetting our own LJC and Diva's Pa in law, Bob Hobkirk

I'm going to post this again, I don't care. It was written for days like these.

We gather here together, friends both old and new,
To share our songs and laughter, tell a stirring tale or two.
But time is rolling onwards, and the toll it takes is dear;
And every year there's one less voice, who will it be next year?

When first we met in company, when none the other knew,
We shared our songs and laughter, and friendships bloomed and grew.
In harmony and unison, our voices blended clear;
But every year there's one less voice, who will it be next year?

The songs we sang were old ones, songs of peace and war,
Of sailing ships and lovers' arms, the miners' life and more.
But all of them in common, were pleasing to the ear;
But every year there's one less voice, who will it be next year?

So raise your voices up boys, in memory of those now gone.
Give thanks for those who gather to carry on the song,
And keep it ringing out now, keep singing through the tears,
So every year there's one more voice, who will it be next year?

Tune: The Rose of York (My name it is Mark Fenner)
Sat 24 Aug 2002, for Fliss, Rod, Dave, Wally, Tony and all the others.
They aren't here but they know who they are.


LTS

Subject: RE: Toast to Absent Friends
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Dec 02 - 02:11 PM

My old mate Adam , rest his soul, summed it up with his Glasgow toast,

"Here's to us, wha's like us, there's nae many, there all deed..."

Cheers mate. Good luck to ye.


DtG

Subject: RE: Toast to Absent Friends
From: katlaughing
Date: 25 Dec 02 - 02:34 PM

Here's one for Graciela, love of Andres/Escamillo's life. Sadly missed, I know.

And, little john cameron, too. I really miss deciphering his posts!

Nice thread, Linn, thanks.

Subject: RE: Toast to Absent Friends
From: Sonnet
Date: 25 Dec 02 - 02:37 PM

I'll raise my glass to Malcolm Fox, from Rotherham; member of Jiggery Polkary, Red G'zunders and Toein' in the Dark;fine musician who was never afraid to stand up for what he believed was right and taught me how to eat spaghetti correctly! Miss you, Malcolm. xxx

Jay

Subject: RE: Toast to Absent Friends
From: pattyClink
Date: 26 Dec 02 - 12:18 PM

Here's a parting glass to Derek Bell and Paddy Tunney.

Subject: RE: Toast to Absent Friends
From: Wesley S
Date: 26 Dec 02 - 01:48 PM

I'll raise a glass { of ginger ale } to my son Patrick Smith. Here for only a short time but never forgotten.

Subject: RE: Toast to Absent Friends
From: nutty
Date: 26 Dec 02 - 01:54 PM

I'll raise my glass to Fred Jordon .....sadly missed this year.
But I'm sure that wherever he is he'll have a glass in his hand. Cheers Fred

Subject: RE: Toast to Absent Friends
From: David Ingerson
Date: 26 Dec 02 - 01:57 PM

I'm remembering Liam Callen and Ashira Belsey, two fine singers from the Portland area. I'll lift a pint for Joe Heaney and a teacup for Paddy Tunny, too.

David

Subject: RE: Toast to Absent Friends
From: CarolC
Date: 26 Dec 02 - 02:04 PM

Opening a virtual bag of Chee-tos for the dear Mr. LR Mole. May he have cheeze and good music wherever he finds himself in his new adventures in consciousness.

Subject: RE: Toast to Absent Friends
From: Just Amy
Date: 26 Dec 02 - 06:32 PM

"Eat, Drink, and Be Merry as long as oil remaineth in the lamp, for, who knows, if in the other world there be a tavern."

Subject: RE: Toast to Absent Friends
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 26 Dec 02 - 06:48 PM

And "To our noble selves -- there's damned few of us left."

Linn

Subject: RE: Toast to Absent Friends
From: Morticia
Date: 26 Dec 02 - 07:26 PM

Raising a glass to David and my aunt Fin, so very sadly missed.

Subject: RE: Toast to Absent Friends
From: EBarnacle1
Date: 26 Dec 02 - 09:13 PM

Stand to your glasses ready, Lift up your bumpers high;
Here's to the dead already, hurrah for the next to die.

Subject: RE: Toast to Absent Friends
From: Noreen
Date: 26 Dec 02 - 09:23 PM

*chink*

Subject: RE: Toast to Absent Friends
From: Allan C.
Date: 26 Dec 02 - 10:03 PM

I will toast those who have gone before. I will also toast those who are still among us. I do this latter because I have come to know how suddenly our friends can be taken away and for this reason, I will never forget to celebrate their presence in my life.

Subject: RE: Toast to Absent Friends
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 26 Dec 02 - 10:32 PM

Here's to Bobby Clancy, singing with his two brothers.
"So fill to me a Parting Glass,

Goodnight, and joy be with you all."
Thanks, Bobby.

Seamus

Subject: RE: Toast to Absent Friends
From: catspaw49
Date: 26 Dec 02 - 10:33 PM

A wonderful thread Linn................

Allan my friend, you are so right and as the old saying goes, we get too soon old, and too late smart. It's been a different year for the 'Cat and for many of us who have been around 4 or 5 years or longer, a year where the real world caught up with us. It's inevitable that in any group of people there will the joys and sorrows of this life. Previously we had the joys and a few scares, but in the past year or so we have lost ones we loved, 'Catters and friends. But it does make this place even more like the real world.

The friendship, love, and memories of friends fill our heart and when they leave us, though it is tough at first, the feelings come flooding back and fill our hearts again. I've come to believe that it is the stuff of which our hearts are made. None of these folks will be forgotten and as they have enriched our lives in life, their memories enrich us again after death.......and as we pass on those stories, the tales, the songs, the words we shared, we give to them the final gift of immortality. It's the least we can do for what they have given us.

I got a little computer time in down here in sunny Florida and this thread I just had to post to.......To our friends, to my friends, to all of you have and will continue to fill my heart, may the best be yours....and I thank you for all you have given to me.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Toast to Absent Friends
From: Mudlark
Date: 26 Dec 02 - 11:53 PM

A toast to John Ross, husband of 40 years, who always knew he came from stardust and accepted with true equanimity that someday he would so return. I miss him every day...but thank my lucky stars for friends old and new, and a love of music to see me through.

Subject: RE: Toast to Absent Friends
From: vectis
Date: 27 Dec 02 - 09:48 AM

A bottle of rum raised to Brixton Bert Reid.
And now Jake Thackery has joined that great skiffle club in the sky.