Art, I definitely concur.

Almost twenty years ago, I was sitting in the break room at work when I ran into a fellow who knew me from my singing in the coffeehouses during the Sixties. We got to talking, playing "What ever happened to old what's-is-name?" He asked me if, in my perambulations, I had met any of the "biggies" like Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, etc., etc. As we conversed, we were joined by a girl just fresh out of high school and on her first job. She followed the conversation for awhile, realized we were talking about some "Golden Age" back in Ancient Times, and at one point, she asked, "Who is Joan Baez, anyway?" I suddenly realized that even though I was fairly well known in the Pacific Northwest (at least a couple decades back), if this kid didn't even know who Joan Baez was, then certainly my hold on fame was pretty darned tenuous. The whole concept of Immortality had suddenly become strangely ephemeral!

I also realized that even though there was a terrific amount of folk music activity in the Pacific Northwest in general and Seattle in particular during the Fifties (long before the Folk Scare began) and on into the Sixties and beyond, the rest of the country seemed to be unaware that the upper left-hand corner even existed. Case in point: on page 124 of Baby, Let Me Follow You Down, by Eric von Schmidt and Jim Rooney, (University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, 1979, Second Edition), one finds Humbead's Revised Map of the World. The Folk Music World, that is. One finds Berkeley, Cambridge, New York City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. With the aid of a magnifying glass and after much searching, one finds Chicago—as if it were located in somewhere in New York City. Seattle? Nope. Not there at all.

What was going on here during this whole era was much too good to be allowed pass into the oblivion of unrecorded history. I set about to write a history of the folk music scene in the Pacific Northwest. It was not long before I realized that even in this one area of the country, it was just too huge. I wasn't up to the job. I don't think anyone is. It would be like the classic story of the four blind men and the elephant. Reminiscences, or a "memoir" might be more like it. So, bit by bit and paragraph by paragraph, I started writing about people I knew and things I remembered. The more I wrote, the more I remembered. Soon, I discovered I had about 100,000 words—and I was only up to 1959!! That's when I got serious. It'll be awhile yet before it's finished, but it's coming together. I'm researching a lot of stuff that happened back then, learning a lot I wasn't aware of at the time, and in the process, I'm looking up and becoming reacquainted with a lot of old friends. And I'm having a ball! It's one of the most enjoyable things I've ever done, both a fantastic nostalgia trip, and a real learning experience. Bob Nelson has read most of what I've written so far and in addition to helping me with fact-checking, he's been enthusiastic and encouraging. I, in turn, am leaning on him to write things up the way he remembers it. We shared a lot of experiences, but we had different experiences also. He could fill in things I missed. I would like to see those who were there to be one of those people groping around the elephant. In the troubadour tradition, tell the story, even if it's in the form of writings rather than song. Write it up.

Art, I highly recommend it. Contrary to the silly map, Chicago was one of the major centers. But although I had heard of the Old Town School of Folk Music, met Bob Gibson on a couple of occasions, heard of people like Win Stracke and Frank Hamilton, I really know very little about what was going on in Chicago back then. I would really like to know. I would be highly interested in your personal experiences and observations as you moved through all of this, Chicago, Oregon, wherever your travels took you.

It's obvious from you postings that you write well. Don't feel obligated. Don't fell pressured to do something you don't want to do. But—if you have any inclination at all, then, by all means. . . .

Don Firth