Glad to hear that the paper work is working out. Wouldn't want to hear that your flight back here had been shunted to Bangor for inspection and interrogation.

On the lighter side, you will be surprised to hear that last evening in Richmond I shared the music stage with two Japanese traditional musicans from northern Japan. It seems their town has a sister/sister relationship with our neighboring town of Bath, dating back to the 1870's when a Bath ship piled into a reef off their harbor. They managed to save four sailors and have been doing periodic visits ever since. Bet there's even a song to commemorate the event.

The two musicians were both playing what I'd describe as 3-string fretless banjos, picking some of the notes off the strings high on the neck with the left fingers while strumming with the right hand with a large tortoise shell pick. They also sang a few songs and one of their wives danced. They were all traditionally attired.

I sang two Southern Appalachian ballads and the "West Indies Blues." There was also a 10-year old local fiddlers who did a great job, and I sat down with him later swapping contradance tunes.

I gave one of the Japanese musicans one of my CD's.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble