Like others it was a family tradition. In my small town we would go to our friends camp on a saturday, the old timers would come out of the woods, bring the beer barrel, hotdogs, and their instruments, play songs with no names, other songs like flop ear mule. Play and sing all night long for nothing more than a good time with friends. The friends gathering turned into a town event about every saturday. People came out of the woods with their guitars, fiddles, banjo's, mandolins ...

and to quote John Sebastian .. and everyone can pick a damn site better than I will