Let me tell you guys, that song circle on Saturday night was the highlight of the weekend for me. Mudcatters galore, and every one of 'em "did us proud," as my mother used to say.

I was prepared to be impressed (as I was) by Peg's singing, since so many had told me to expect it to be fine. The one who knocked me out was John B, because I wasn't prepared in advance for that one! He gave us a splendid presentation of "The Trooper and the Maid." It was as fine as anything offered on the stage, by golly, and you know there were some fine performers there with which to compare it -- Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson, Alison McMorland and Tom Speirs (although Alison's husband, Geordie McIntyre, wasn't included in the roster of hired performers, the two of them shared a few songs with us at the Folk-Legacy booth on Sunday and Geordie proved to be a smashing singer in his own right), and The Finest Kind, to name only some of the non-U.S. participants. Sara Grey treated us to more of her fine banjo-accompanied ballads than she had offered the last time we heard her, and they are always a great treat.

We brought home both jars of leftover pesto sauces contributed by Susan A-R, bless her heart, which went so well with the pasta provided by Animaterra at the Mudcat picnic behind the Folk-Legacy focal point. The rain may have kept the ravenous Mudcatters from finishing them off before they ran for cover. Meanwhile we were trying to cope with an ankle-deep stream, about four feet wide, sweeping through our booth. Managed to get the extra CD stock up onto the tables before all the boxes were washed away in the flood, so I still had plenty of good traditional CDs for Burke to choose from as she made her excellent choices. Thanks, Barb. My shoes, however, were still squishing with every step I took the next day. Ah, yes -- echoes of Fox Hollow, as Hollow Fox has pointed out. She, by the way, gave us Heather Wood's "Foolish, Incredibly Foolish" at the song swap, and she did it darned well! Our Barry Finn was astounding! He sang with the same power that he showed us at the Getaway and at NEFFA last year.

I can't take the time or space to give a full report, but Andy Spence came by at the end of the day on Sunday to tell us that she had heard a lot of good reports about the Saturday night song-swap. That really pleased me, because it was a comment, as I saw it, about the contributions of the Mudcat crew, which were all splendid. I felt the need to run a pretty tight ship that night, tighter than I might choose to run normally, because some of the more agressive performers might have grabbed the floor and that could have kept us from hearing the good songs presented by those who were a bit more shy about singing. I tried to make sure that anyone who wanted to share a song with us had a chance to do so, and the result was one serendipitous discovery after another. As they say, you shoulda been there! Maybe you'll be there next year?

Sandy