28 October 2016, Friday
Today’s destination is Bethlehem, PA where we plan to attend a concert celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Godfrey Daniels Coffee House. John McCutcheon and Tom Paxton are playing, accompanied by Robin Bullock. We arrive in Bethlehem a bit early, which is good because it takes us awhile to find a parking space that doesn’t have a ‘permit required’ sign posted. Then we need to get oriented and find our way to Fegley’s Bethlehem Brew Works (great beer and good food) and next we need to find the concert hall.
The concert is wonderful. For us folk music lovers these people are icons, the folk music equivalent of hiking above treeline in the Canadian Rockies. Tom Paxton wrote Ramblin’ Boy, Last Thing on My Mind, Marvelous Toy and even (for those of you who remember the TV commercial for Kennel Rations) My Dog’s Bigger than Your Dog. John McCutcheon writes songs that tell stories and inspire. He also sings many of Woody Guthrie’s songs and is a virtuoso on hammer dulcimer. The concert goes on for over two hours. Some songs bring laughter, some bring tears. After the concert John and Tom hang out in the lobby to sign CD’s (we were informed the CD’s have to be signed in order to “activate” them) and to chat. John asks if he’s met O and me in the past. I tell him we are groupies – he corrects that to “stalkers.” We also let him know that we travelled over 11,500 miles just to attend this concert. He replies, “If we’d known you were coming that far, we would have put on a really good concert!” We all laugh. Tom Paxton signs our CD “Happy ramblin.” Perfect end to a perfect trip!