Excerpts from a letter I shared with some folks around Mother's Day, May 10th, 2020 which took me a minute to get the date clear on and then count up days accordingly in the week. As it turned out when I wished someone well for their grown son's birthday, that parent was caught offguard thinking it was 'tomorrow.' So that's another reason to think out loud...to help someone else keep track of special occassions if not just the day and date!
There was a nice write up last year in Rolling Stone about Folk-Legacy going to the Smithsonian Folkways. I intend to review that more carefully and listen to more Folk-Legacy recordings on youtube.com, Why not? Maybe more younger kids can learn their folk music and help keep a good thing glowing. For a sampling just see our late teen Kaelan (Palmer) Paton's Memorial tribute on youtube.com which now that I think of it might make a nice edition to the Smithsonian Collection of related materials, along with the services held for his grandparents, (Charles Alexander) Sandy and Caroline Paton, the founders of Folk-Legacy Records, Inc.
On a lighter note, I call this 5/10 date 'World 60 year old day" which comes on the heels of those folks ages 51-59 on the dates from 5/1-5/9... then in June it'd be 61 year old day on 6/1.
We can include those who 'would have been those ages as well' as part of the ways to acknowledge who was born when and how they are part of an ongoing legacy...
I like to picture some brave souls from the past as 15 years older being more silver-haired and taking one adventure after another...maybe they'd be a counselors helping people 'face their fears' via skydiving, riding motorcycles (with safety in mind) or thereabouts.
Not everyone is 'into that idea' whether as an outreach, wider recognition or thinking of those who have journeyed on in particular ways (I know I was not familiar or really that interested in trying to consider such things before I had more people 'pass away' then got more curious having read a lot of theories from around the world, traditions and more...)
So 'whatever works' for someone is fine...'take it or leave it or thereabouts...' Meanwhile Ralph Nader has a whole outreach along these lines, maybe tied into when people graduated from high school...but that leaves a lotta folks out of the loop.
I basically would have a way to acknowledge people born in each year (and Maybe that's more of what Ralph does too. I'll have to see.) The point of that effort is to think about being part of HumaniTeam...and now does seem to be the time such ideas can help more people join forces on many fronts...
Take care, and on with the mid May adventures... With love and easy does it...,Catherin
