A couple of years ago Frank and I were at the Blistered Fingers Bluegrass Festival in Sidney Maine. We had to leave briefly to go get two new tires for our camper (blowout on the way up, stopped to visit Kendall, but that's another story). The ride for tires took us north along a beautiful road that followed the Kennebec River Valley.

As we drove along, a scene appeared before my eyes, just briefly glimpsed in passing. Then a song showed up in my head, fully formed with both melody and lyrics. I began to cry when I tried to sing it to Frank, and couldn't. We both saw the scene one more time on the ride home from the tire place.

Later that night, I wrote the words down and sang it for the first time (back at the festival) into Kendall's tape recorder. It's such a tear-jerker that I still can't sing the thing, so one of our band members sings it with Frank doing harmony.

I guess that scene was just waiting for me to drive by to catch the song "Hillside Home."