Then there were the lingerie songs, the drunken maidens regaled at least twice, Paddy West's School of Improbable Navigation, but, alas, no wedding celebration songs for Brett and Wakana.

I sang my Appalachian version of C. Fox Smith's "Limehouse Reach," which logically led to a discussion of minor and modal mountain tunes, and I then was intrigued by Jeri's description of visiting a music reunion at the Oak Grove near Staunton, Virginia, back in the late 1970's. The Oak Grove is a magical place that has been run by Fletcher and Margaret Collins for years, old family friends of my parents from their days of teaching at Arthurdale, WV, in the 1930's.

My other holiday song, other than "Snow Shanty"(words by Eileen McGann by the way), was a new arrangement of "Christmas at Sea" by Robert Lewis Stevenson in which he described the trials of a sailing ship trying to escape "the impervious horrors of a leeward shore" while embayed between two rocky heads.

Nice to get together once again with the Press Room folks.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble