I've spent this Friday in the home office (except for a brief excursion to give the dogs a run). Some would say I decided to commence spring break a day early. I would say I chose to spend the day engaged in reading and writing. In particular, I was doing preps for tonight's Willow Creek Folk School (No. 163). This involved not only follow-up research on the featured ballads, running through the songs, and scripting, but most particularly, working out a new method for organizing content. Over the past few weeks the keeping of a journal has been a habit I have deployed for furthering and improving my writing and, in general, stirring the intellect. I like the results. This week I extended use of the journal to organizing content and commentary for the folk school. The black book will appear on camera tonight.

The middle of the session will be devoted to the cowboy ballad, "Goodbye Old Paint." I've always been a little confued about the lineage of the song, but today's work sorted it out for me. A remarkable story of migration and tradition--an English song dating from the early 1700s that traveled to the American South, was absorbed and appropriated by African-American slaves, and was taught by one of them to the son of his ranch boss--who, in turn, embedded it in the country dance culture of the southern plains. And who recorded it for John Lomax and the Library of Congress.

The more I sing and reflect on the ballad, the more haunting it becomes, and the more I am reminded of the privilege of working with such material. It's like serving a sacrament.

The commencement of the Willow Creek Folk School nearly four years ago, and the more recent commencement of journal-keeping, are, I now realize, similar initiatives. Approaching and then surpassing my three-score and ten, I sensed the need to pursue new endeavors and new methods in order to maintain accuity. As I read on the subject of mental abilities among people my age, I learn that my inchoate sense touched a confirmed reality, that the exercise of new things--mental processes, physical manipulations, imaginative pursuits--is essential to retaining, even restoring and improving, mental accuity. So, I still can't remember the words to my songs, but I suspect I now know more about them than anyone else in the world, and I have lots of fresh insights about them. I give thanks for this every day.

The depth of gratitude for such things--this is new knowledge, too. One thing I haven't learned, however, is what "retirement" means. And it's not anything I'm investigating.

My foot in the stirrup, my pony won't stand
Goodbye, little Annie, I'm off for Montan'
Goodbye, Old Paint, I'm a-leavin' Cheyenne