August, 1973. Saturday night at the Fox Hollow Festival. I was dead tired and consumed quite a bit of product. I snuggled into my thick down sleeping bag to FINALLY get warm. I was so tired, the ground felt like a feather bed. The rain drizzled down on the roof of my tiny pup tent, and I believed the campsite across from me just MIGHT quiet down. Then they got a new arrival - fresh blood - and things got rowdy again. I found out the next day it had been David Bromberg, accompanied by the rain, singing me to sleep.

Parties and concerts and campsites with remarkable people singing remarkable songs, and sometimes just being silly. It's hard to remember them because after a while, they all tend to blend together. Jean Redpath at a party, John Roberts and Tony Barrand singing 'Barbara Ann' at some ridiculous hour in a campsite, Ali Bain and Utah Phillip having a piss-take war at a campsite because one of them was going to bed, Jane Voss evicting Ali Bain and the guy from Sweet Potato Pie from in front of her tent because she was trying to sleep and they were playing Orange Blossom Special, sitting in a teepee at Fox Hollow with a bunch of other kids and all of us realizing we didn't know any folk songs, so we sang the Eagles, John Denver and the Beatles because, dammit, we wanted to SING. Hearing kids I went to school with singing and thinking "Wow, they're GOOD!" Going to a folkie retreat and having Tony Saletan direct a bunch of us in playing 'Nonesuch' on George and Vaughn Ward's baby son Pete's tuned (with water) pull-apart plastic 'beads'. Finding the Press Room session in August of 1987 and feeling like I was home again. I guess the last big one was Toronto, June '03. Not just getting to play Stan Rogers 12-string - the electricity in the air in Fielding's back yard could have jump-started the space shuttle. Oh - and hearing Elizabeth LaPrelle and her mom at the FSGW Getaway this year.

I make a real effort to realize magic is happening WHILE it's happening these days. Sometimes I don't think there's that much left for me to discover, and I want to notice everything I can.