Transient Pleasures.

Today is what a spring Sunday ought to be! It's warm, its sunny, and the crocuses are in full tilt beauty on the flat and on the hill in the neighborhood. I was spared the feeling of "I ought to be doing yard work" by having a day trip planned to Hiram College for an Irish music session anchored by fiddler Liz Carroll, who was brought in just for the event. With windows open, it was a lovely hour singing car trip down, taking just a basket of soda bread. I'd helped with the benefit that had financed this luxury, and at this event they went through my soda bread as completely as they'd done at the benefit.

The large room was filled most of the afternoon. There were musicians and former dancers I'd not seen in years who turned out. Participants and listeners came a farther than I did, from the western parts of Ohio and PA. The wide range of ages and sorts of people was astonishing. A wee girl with her fiddle was fit for an illustration of "cute." There were older gentlemen with their accordions, telling tales of folks long gone. There were several fiddlers, flutes and whistles, a couple bodhran players of some talent. I teased Bill about his sitting with his mandolin: "are you going to play that thing, or just hug it all day?" The button box player and his wife got some songs into the mix, particularly "Wild Mountain Thyme" which got good group participation. Mazur did one of his spot-on channelings of Tom McCaffrey, a recitation and a raft of quips about marriage, when the conversation turned to the Toms. Hiram college girls wandered in to listen, like a herd of spring fawns, gawky and graceful all at the same time, in that beauty of youth.
All that fun, and I still have more music to make tonight.