I first became acquainted with Sandy Paton in 1952 (give or take a couple of months) while I was attending the University of Washington. I'd just caught the folk music bug from a girl I was dating at the time, and it was because of her that I first took in a concert by Walt Robertson. At about the same time, I met a whole bunch of other people:   Sandy Paton, Ric Higlin, Dick Landberg, Bob Clark, several others. . . .    Most of these folks lived in a ramshackled old rooming house in the University District generally referred to by its inmates as "Cockroach Manor."

Sandy was into acting and painting at the time, and he was also busily learning folk songs, mostly from song books as I recall, and teaching himself to play the guitar. It wasn't very long after I first met him that he decided to head Back East to make his mark in the world.

A couple of years later, in summer of 1954, he hitchhiked back to Seattle. While he was here, we had lots of good song fests (we called them "hootenannies," or simply "hoots," a term we used to refer to free-for-all folk music jam sessions, not public performances).

Word was that Sandy had arrived in Seattle with what he was wearing, and carrying his guitar case, in which he also had a couple of packs of cigarettes and a change of socks. As I recall, he stayed with Ric Higlin and his new wife, Freddie (Alfreda), in Cockroach Manor. It was said that, periodically, in the dead of night, he would sneak down to the local Laundromat in the dead of night in a borrowed bathrobe, wash his clothes, and sneak back. In fact, I think it was Sandy who told me so.

Late in August of 1954, Sandy decided to hang out his thumb and head Back East. The night before he left, we had one helluva "hoot." Toward the end of the evening, one of the attendees, Donnie Logsdon, a former childhood street-corner preacher (who had long since de-frocked himself), preached a sermon about the sin of sending our brother Sandy out into this wicked world with a minimum of funds, and took up a collection for him. While the sermon was going on (a real tour de force on Donnie's part) Sandy sat there with his face in his hands and shaking his head, highly embarrassed. But—we did manage to send him off with a fair amount of funds. Sandy told me later that he was able to eat a lot more regularly on the trip than he would have otherwise. In the words of Donnie Logsdon, it was a love offering.

The next time I saw Sandy was in 1958. I was flipping through the folk records in Campus Music and Gallery, and there he was, looking up at me from the front of a record jacket. "The Many Sides of Sandy Paton." He'd obviously been busy since I'd last seen him.

In 1960, I attended my first Berkeley Folk Music Festival. The list of performers was impressive, including Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl, John Lomax, Lightnin' Hopkins, Sam Hinton, the New Lost City Ramblers, others—and Sandy Paton. All day workshops and evening concerts along with many informal gatherings. A marvelous experience all the way around. I congratulated Sandy on his Elektra record, but he said he was not real happy with it. As I understood it, apparently they'd been a bit dictatorial about what songs they wanted him to do and how they wanted him to do them. I didn't know Elektra did that sort of thing, but I was also told later that this was one of the reasons that Sandy co-founded Folk-Legacy:    to let the singer do it their own way.

During the Berkeley Folk Festival, there were a fair number of "off-campus" activities, including late-night parties and get-togethers after the evening concerts. Sandy buttonholed me and took me to one of these, where I wound up having a chance to meet and chat with Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl.

A long time after that (late 70s or early 80s) Gordon Bok sang a concert in this area, and he mentioned to me that Sandy had had a heart attack.

And it was sometime after that, I recall talking to Sandy on the phone. He was contemplating the possibility of coming out to the Pacific Northwest to see what all was going on in folk music in this area, possibly, as I understood it, with the idea of recording a few people for Folk-Legacy. But unfortunately, it never came off. I would have loved to have seen Sandy again.

Once we encountered each other here on Mudcat, we exchanged posts and PMs from time to time.

Although we've known each other for 57 years, we really didn't know each other closely for that long. Nevertheless, Sandy has been a strong influence on me all this time. His abilities, his enthusiasm, and his dedication have been, and will continue to be, an example to follow, along with his just generally being a friendly and generous person. I regret that I have never had a chance to meet Caroline or any of his young 'uns. But having known Sandy is one of the things in this life that I truly value and cherish.

Don Firth