Maggie, in times past, there was a fellow in the "hoot crowd" who didn't sing, but he was mightily enthusiastic about folk music. He threw his house open practically every weekend for singers to gather and bellow their lungs out 'til the wee hours of the morning. He also had one of the best record collections around. Over 600 folk records gathered over time. And if he felt sure you handled records carefully, he would loan them to you so you could learn songs from them. A fair percentage of the songs I know, I learned from his records.

Someplace in the mid-1960s, he got married. Nice lady, liked folk music, but nowhere near as gung-ho as he was. He died about twenty years ago. A great loss of a good friend.

A question came up about what she was going to do with that marvelous record collection—which by now included many earlier records that were (are) no longer available. His widow suggested that one of us come over to her place, go through them, and decide what should be done with them.

Within a couple of weeks, before either Bob Nelson or I had a chance to get over to her place, her son hit her up for help with his college tuition. Without mentioning her intentions to either Bob or me, she sold the entire collection to a second-hand record dealer. For $300! That's 50¢ apiece!

Bob and I were positively sick when she told us.

Since she was (and still is) a good friend, we kept our cool, saying only that we were very disappointed that she had done this and really wished she hadn't been so precipitous. We manfully refrained from killing her!

Bob was having wall-eyed fits for some time afterward. He said, "Three hundred dollars! I would have given her three thousand dollars for them!"

Sort of like selling the Smithsonian to the philistines for the price of a dog house.

Oh, well, whatryahgonnado?

Don Firth

P. S. I'm perfectly amenable to any alternative to jewel cases that meets my requirements. I still question the durability of cardboard. I've got lots of cardboard sleeves (with vinyl records) and I'm very careful handling records, sleeves, et al, but they're still subject to general wear and tear. There's a reason they don't build car fenders out of cardboard. . . .