A new year- and first day back to school. I was here last night trying to finish the last of my grading but did not get that far. It is a little bit surreal to come back after two weeks away. I remember looking at the empty seats last night and thinking- "In a few hours these all will be filled." And now here they are. I cannot help thinking that this is my last semester of teaching. Awesome!
Only a few days ago I played music at Camp Newman. The San Francisco Folk Music Club has been part of my life since 1978 when I arrived in California. Many of the generation of young people that I knew at that time are old like me. The beautiful people of 1978 now often walk with a limp or too much excess weight. But we all still love to sing, dance and perform. And the other age groups are starting to take their place from the infants, to teenagers, to twenty and thirty somethings.
One of those people is Katie, who I knew when she was four. She now organizes and runs the whole show at Camp Harmony. The music this year had the usual mix of old folk music, old tymie, Irish, French and Balkin music. Swing and jazz are becoming a little more prominent. The overall quality of musicianship seems to have improved over the years. Our professional song writter, Lisa Ashmann still blows me away with her great songs. I bought one of her CD's and gave it to Anna. At first she didn't like Lisa's low voice, but agreed that she did have some nice songs.
I returned home Saturday. Then Sunday went in to school for a few hours to catch up on my work. By 5 PM I started home and Donna drove by coming from her Hubbub practice. We had invited Amy over. Amy has a few rough edges but a great heart and she dearly loves my family. First she and Joey played accordion tunes, then Donna joined the group. By 10 PM she spent one to one time with Anna. I had to turn in early because of school today but- a truly splendid evening.
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