* * * HIATUS * * *

Sorry, but this is going to be a long one.   We leave about noon today for the West Virginia State Folk Festival in Glenville, WV, one of the oldest continuing folk festivals in the country.   The thing I like about it is that it's really small-town.   It's mainly old time music contests, contras and squares and jamming in the motel parking lot, but they do have a parade (no bands) and I plan to enter the spelling bee.   It's so small-town that the local restaurant doesn't even raise the prices on their offerings.   . . . and they do have elephant ears!  (not at the restaurant, at the festival).   Not those crummy funnel cakes, real elephant ears!  (fried dough to the uninitiated).

We'll be there until Sunday when we drive on down to Marlinton, WV, for a week of music workshops at Allegheny Echoes.   Betty will be taking dulcimer and I'll be taking clawhammer banjo.   We've been going to these things so long that these are all our people and it's like a big family homecoming when we get there.   We'll return home then sometime Saturday, the 24th.

A couple of DNA newsy bits:  We got our 70th member yesterday when Michael Dwain Berry ordered his Y-DNA37 test; and our 71st member early this morning, Michael J. Beery, Y-DNA12; Another batch of 67 marker upgrades arrived last night but still not Brian's.   It'll probably show up while I'm gone.

So, in the meantime, click here to Think Peace!