Spaw -- I've no doubt that old posts have value. History is also something that folk music is very much about. I've had an experience very similar to the reading old posts.

Near the end of yhe 70's I wrote for a short lived entertainment weekly called Chicagolnd Spotlight. It folded with the publisher owing almost everyone money. He paid me back in a most unique manner.

He went to the office closet and took down a stack of faded mimiographed sheets of paper that were stapled together about five or six sheets at a time. He apologized for not having any money and said that he was leaving town and didn't have any good way to pack the papers and that he was sure that I would give them the care they deserved. the sheets turned out to be a nearly complete run of the folk music magazine Broadside (New York).

I have gaurded them fiercely ever since.

About six months ago, I got ambitious (meaning that I had a three day weekend with nothing to do and was bored out of my skull)and read the entire run end to end. It was a remarkable education both in the evolution of songwriting and politics as we know them today.

Nobody will ever be able convince me that writings of the past have no value.