Jean/kytrad, you and Art are among the 'Catters I most hope to meet one day! I have been privileged to meet a good number of my online favorites.
A Patons story: I had met Sandy & Caroline a couple of times at festivals, and had been told (by K.C. King I think) that they had some new, good Folk-Legacy releases (OK, so good and F-L is redundant). I was under the impression from what a couple of other musician friends had told me that they had, not exactly a store, but a place one could just browse over their stuff. I was visiting a friend (and one not even much familiar with music but interested in learning a bit more) in northwest Connecticut, and on a whim decided to call Folk-Legacy. Caroline answered the phone, and said, "I just drew a bath, give me an hour, then here are directions to the house." (Come to think of it, every time I call Folk-Legacy to order something, she has just drawn a bath.) We drove up, and Sandy met us at the door. I was not even sure they thought I looked familiar, but they invited us in, made tea, brought out boxes of CDs, and entertained us for a good deal of an afternoon with tales of their early days in music, some of the causes they have been involved in, many of the musicians they know (and luckily I knew enough musicians to maintain some participation in the conversation). Their young grandson Kaelan (for whom Larry Kaplan named his "Kaelan's Ceilildhe") had his trains set up in the room making tracks to race downhill, punctuating the tales. What gracious and fascinating people! No one sang a song any more than the line or two needed to identify a song or a variant in conversation, but that afternoon lives on as one of my favorite 'music events' ever. Thank you!