So I guess I’ve been at this a while…The top shot was taken at the South Florida Folk Fest, and always reminds me of one of my favorite stories…The night before I’d played a house concert (with Deidre Flint) at Julia’s Aunt Susan’s home, The Heart’s Desire House Concert run by the wonderful Susan Moss who also helped organize the Festival. I’d met Julia & her mom Mari at the festival the year prior, so we were old friends by now…The show was big fun and afterwards some of us went out by the pool and soaked in Susan’s hot tub…January in Ft. Lauderdale. Julia decided she wanted to go in the pool..well, she wanted to be in the pool, but not get wet because the water was cold, so she wanted someone to hold her over the water while they were in the pool. I was the volunteer, could you resist that smile? As we stand there in the pool there’s an amazing blanket of stars over us and I’m telling Julia about the constellations (been doing that a while too). I point out Orion, and show her the 3 stars that form his belt (Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka) and I tell her that later in the weekend I’m going to ask her to find Orion for me so she should try and remember what it looks like. She said she would…
So 2 night’s later at the festival, before I’d gotten a chance to quiz her, Julia’s mom Mari comes up to me laughing and says that they were just laying on their blanket by the stage and she was pointing out what she thought was the Big Dipper to Julia who corrected her with “It’s the belt Mom…”
I have wonderful memories of playing the South Florida Folk Fest and the musician friends I made and reconnected with there (Eric Schwartz, Michael McNevin, Carla Ulbrich, Jack Williams, Leonardo, Chris Chandler, Doug Stambler, Jack Hardy, Rich Grula, Grant Livingston, Dave Nach, David Roth and so many others) as well as the organizers and volunteers & listeners and singalongers at the all night campfire circles which ended up with sunrise at the beach. I remember that feeling of not wanting it to end and so we all just refused to sleep…
Last year I got to play once another Heart’s Desire House Concert. When she heard I would be down in FL for opening for Susan Werner at David & Leni Engles’ great series (and surfing) Susan (Moss) kindly invited me back for a “9 years later” show at her series (which she’d stopped doing except for special occasions). Once again I had a great time at the show and was thrilled that her sister Mari and niece Julia had traveled down from Georgia since they were celebrating Christmas early and I got to see them too. After the show Julia asked for a CD and I said I’d trade for “9 years later” picture…
Good times. Good people. Good music. That’s why I’m still doing this after all these years…
Here’s to you South Florida…