" Such fear of drinkers. Funny"

No fear, Conrad. It's just that normal people don't like loudmouthed drunks disrupting whatever is going on and barfing on their shoes.

"Fear?" Well . . . perhaps a touch. A drunk is a graphic demonstration of just how low it's possible for a human being to sink.

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As far as music is concerned, the "lifeway" of most people is to turn on the radio and listen to their favorite station as background music for whatever else they happen to be doing. Polls show that most people listen to rock music, then "easy listening" elevator music, country stations, and somewhere down the list are classical music stations.

A very, very small percentage listen to a local college radio station that may play a couple of hours of folk music a few times a week.

As Walter Cronkite used to say, "And that's the way it is."

It is the "elitist" "fat-cat" "jet-setting" "professional" singers of folk songs who are the ones keeping the tradition alive. After all, the folk music that the small college stations play was recorded by these elitist, fat-cat, jet-setting professional singers of folk songs.

So without them, Conrad, things would get awfully damned quiet in the world of folk music. And it might really fade into oblivion.

Except for the huge stock of song and ballad collections in libraries, both public and private, song books (many from the repertoires of elitist, fat-cat, jet-setting professional singers of folk songs you seem to loathe so much), not to mention the record collections of traditional singers in the Archive of American Folk Song in the Library of Congress, and in the collections of the dozens of local folklore societies, PLUS the many, many recordings in private collections, recorded by those same elitist, fat-cat, jet-setting professional singers of folk songs.

It's all there and readily available to anyone who wants to take a look and give a listen.

And who keeps the fact that there IS such a thing as folk music before the public?

Elitist, fat-cat, jet-setting professional singers of folk songs.

You can't cram it down people's throats, Conrad. If you try, they will not only wind up hating your guts, they'll hate folk music as well!!

You have to arouse their interest by entertaining them first. Then, if they're interested, you can teach them. Not the other way around.

Conrad, go do something you're good at. Pop open a brewsky and go glue some crap to the hood of a 1955 Chevvy.

Don Firth