bert--feel free to swipe away any of my rambles. (especially if it gets someone to open their mouth!!)
jen, aren't grandfathers great? i have this great picutre of my grandfather in the car with me ma, brother and i as we're driving to boston, singing the battle hymn of the republic over and over again, all the verses we could remember, with me squealing the harmony part i'd learned in school chorus. his voice was all gravelly and wonderful with a texan twang...sweet!!

and ted, as to your comments about the ethnicity-thang, i recently went to hear maya angelou speak and she said some things that fit right in with that. she bade the audience to go read the work of african-american poets, saying that you don't have to be black to read them, you don't have to be black to love them, they weren't written for black people alone. their poetry is inherently human, that's what makes it good--how it touches those emotions that are the same in everybody. i think that goes for singing folk songs, too. for all forms of art, to be sure, for the essence of humanity is the same.