Conrad, the only excuses around here are being made by you. You want others to do it all for you. And at their expense.

There's no problem having a folk music gathering. Just call up a bunch of people you know and invite them to your place for an evening of just sitting around and singing. It's that simple. If you want to be a good host, you might provide a case of beer and some snacks, but that's not essential. You could always make it BYOB. That's what a lot of the hoots around Seattle have been, and they've been going, off and on, since before I got involved in the early 1950s.

The first hoot I ever attended was in 1952. There hadn't been any for a few years. Then one evening while sitting in The Chalet restaurant with Walt Robertson and a couple of other people, Ken Prichard, the proprietor of The Chalet, came up to the table and said, "Hey, why don't we throw a hootenanny?" Walt broke into a grin and said, "Fantastic! Let's do it!" I said, "What's a hootenanny?" And Chuck Canady said, "It's an informal gathering of folk singers. They get together and sit around singing for each other. The word 'hootenanny' is one of these indefinite words like 'thingamajig,' but it usually means 'a noisy contrivance of doubtful utility.'"

So the following Saturday evening, Ken closed The Chalet for business and we had a hootenanny. About a dozen singers and seventy-odd other people came. Started at about 8:00 p.m. and lasted until well after midnight.

Subsequently, hardly a weekend would go by but there wasn't a hoot somewhere. Sometimes in the Friends (Quakers) Community Center, but more often in someone's living room.

And you know what? The East 42nd Street Arts Association developed out of that. That was US! The arts association organized a street arts festival, and you know what? The University District Businessmen's Club provided the funding and got the necessary city licenses for us. They even got the police department to block E 42nd Steet between University Way and 15th N. E. You see, one of us went to them and suggested that an event such as this that would draw lots of people to the U. District was just good business. EVERYBODY benefitted.

Then, we formed the Pacific Northwest Folklore Society. No dues, just a mailing list. It went dormant for awhile, but others sprung up in there place. The Seattle Folk Music Society, which used to get together a couple Saturday evenings a month at the University of Washington YM/YWCA. No charge, and they let us use the big lounge on the first floor.

Later came the Seattle Folklore Society, which started the Northwest Folklife Festival, a free event that draws thousands of singers and musicians, and hundreds of thousands of spectators.

A few years back, when the Seattle Folklore Society seemed to be interested in sponsoring concerts for singer-songwriters only, Stewart (who frequently posts on this forum), Bob (Deckman) Nelson, and I resurrected the Pacific Northwest Folklore Society. The PNW Folklore Society sponsors lots of folk music events (primarily consisting of traditional folk music).

Look, and be AMAZED! ———> CLICKY.

This is what one can do if they are so motivated, stop whining about the way things are, and get up off their lazy butts and DO something themselves, instead of begging others to do it for them.

Go thou, and sin no more!

Don Firth