This is my first post to the Mudcat in about ten years. I'm sorry Skarpi has decided to leave but it is the same conundrum I faced when I got out of the VA hospital in 2012. I had just missed being offed by Pancreatic cancer, but that organ literally blew up and scattered the necrotic cancer throughout my body, but it did not metastasize. Thus, the gook in the 'Nam who shot me eventually saved my life. It was at that point that I wrote Joe Offer telling him that my view of the written kerfuffle's in the Mudcat were akin to the proverbial tempest in the teapot. I also discovered that while every person who subscribes to the Mudcat (as I have since 1998) good people come and go, while the assholes accumulate... generally because they do not have the intellect to consider the world from any other viewpoint but their own.

I realized that my world is much larger than the 3"x7" Reply to Thread box, and those who willfully stew in their venom remind me of the old joke about the difference in political parties. It goes that if a man was drowning 50 feet from shore, the liberals would throw him 50 feet of rope with both ends. The conservatives would throw him 25 feet of rope and demand that he swim the other half. My own view is I would take 60 feet of rope, throw him 50 feet and tie the extra ten feet to a large rock. If, after several minutes he was making no progress, I would throw him the rock...

I do miss some of the contributors such as Rick Fielding, DougR, Terribus, Little Hawk, LR Mole and a few others. But to those trying to date the alleged demise of the Mudcat, I would suggest that the music died when Rick passed away. Joe had to divide the Musical threads from the ones labeled BS. Those who had legitimate folk music chops were buried by poseurs whose vituperation was presented as edification. But I still believe that, as the Chinese proverb says, "If you live long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float under the bridge".

I was the only Marine Corps Lieutenant drafted in late '67 as a college sophomore, who went through all of the enlisted training at Parris Island then was commissioned from the ranks, going to the Nam as a LT in '69. I was also the only Marine in the Nam with an autoharp (which was kept in the "Rear with the Gear", along with a banjo and a guitar). I do believe I was the probably the only Marine Officer to sing "Draft Dodger Rag", while under shelling at Con Thien, who then conducted a wire sweep with my platoon, killing some 20 of the NVA. Go Figure!

In any case I will, after many years, try to use the Mudcat for it's original purpose, and start a thread about the existence of any jams/sessions in the Winston-Salem and Outer Banks areas of North Carolina. My oldest grandson is playing several of my better guitars and I wish to see him complete a short list of my Grandfather wishes. I realize at this point I have limited input into his life choices, but he knows I have several goals for him. That would be to use a magnetic compass to find his way in the dark, put ten shots into a three inch group at 50 yards, beat me at chess, and play a musical instrument. He has achieved the first two, is working on flute and guitar, and will win $200 dollars the day he check-mates me.

I feel sorry for Joe and Max in that, at some point each day, they have to stare at the shower drain-hole and wonder how much can be scrubbed off. But they persevere, leaving small specks of musical life across the barren landscape. If, as some have indicated above, there is an examination of the inputs into the Mudcat in some future world, I suspect that they will be wise enough to know that much of the musical life they planted still exists because assholes do make the best fertilizer...