When I posted to this thread in Sept. 2005 I had been a Mudcat member for 1 year and 1 month. I'm still living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and am still doing what I was doing then-though I'm doing some things more and I'm doing other things less and some other things that I was doing then I'm not doing at all.

I didn't mention it in 2005, but I've never sung professionally or socially, if you don't count the short phrases of (mostly call & response) songs that I weave into the adapted African folktales I tell at various venues. And I've never played any musical instrument professionally or socially.

I've come to think of myself as a community folklorist (a term that I picked up from reading it on the Internet). My "primary" interest on Mudcat and elsewhere is contemporary English language children's playground rhymes. I'm interested in the trying to track down possible sources and word meanings in rhymes. I'm also interested in comparing the text and performance activities of multiple rhyme variants over time and within different populations at the same time. Furthermore, I'm interested in speculating on the
psycho-social meanings of contemporary children's playground rhymes and cheers.

It would be interesting to see if there are other Mudcatters who aren't professional or social singers or musicians, but consider themselves to be (and/or are considered by others to be) folklorists.