Most of these gatherings were held in Seattle's University District. There were several places in the U District that were frequented by folk music aficianados (Howard's Restaurant, the Pizza Haven, the Blue Moon Tavern, etc.). The word was always left at these places that "There's a hoot at Elmar's tonight." Lot's of people we had never seen before came to many of them. Some came with someone, many came just because they heard about it. Private home, yes. But the gatherings were open to anyone who wanted to come.

I know that would scare the pee out of some people, but that's the way we did it. Problems were extremely rare.

The parallel holds.

Don Firth