I’m sitting here with my mom watching a PBS celebration of Pete Seeger’s 90th birthday – you know, one of those shows they only do during pledge drives – and Joan Baez starts singing Jacob’s Ladder a cappella.  Now you can’t get much better than Joan but I’m not really listening because I’ve been catapulted back to a moment so surreal that I’m not even sure it really happened.

It was the night after the wedding of my beautiful daughter Elizabeth and the equally beautiful Emmet at the Kerrville Folk Festival.  The Festival is a surreal thing in and of itself  – the hill country of Texas, 18 days of amazing music, grace-full people, and a loving glow that just kind of settles on you the moment you walk through the front gate.

I’m sure there were many wonderful performers that particular night but I only remember Judy Collins (the Joan Baez connection) because, what with my baby getting married and all, I was kinda nostalgic for the years I spent lying on my bedroom floor with my head under the stereo and the base turned up.

Now Judy was not my absolute favorite folk singer – Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell and Marianne Faithful all had a little more edge to them – but Judy was at the festival and they weren’t.

Truth be told I loved rocker Neil Diamond more than all of them but Neil’s never gonna play on the side of a hill in Texas when he can sell out 50,000 seat stadiums in Australia.

So here I was under the stars surrounded by my daughters, my new son-in-law, his family and lots of hippies swaying to the music when Judy Collins walks out with her guitar and all that hair.

My god, she’s like 70 and she still has all that glorious hair, which now that I think about it makes me feel better about not getting mine cut this summer -  although I’m thinking I might look more like Loretta Lynn than Judy Collins.

Now Kerrville is a really laid back kind of place with benches in front of the stage – no assigned seating and absolutely no security that would even think of keeping you from moving up closer to the stage.  So I’m inching closer and closer until I’m having a group hug & sway with about 10 other fans right next to the stage when I thought, I bet I could just sit on the stage!

What the hell was I thinking?  I mean I would never even think of sitting on any stage that Neil was occupying, but I don’t know it just kinda seemed like it was okay – not just okay – it seemed right, like I was supposed to be on that stage.

I’m not quite sure but I think I walked up the stairs on the side of the stage and took about 10 steps toward Judy and sat down. I mean I know that’s where I wound up, I’m just not completely sure how I got there!

So I sat there for her whole set and two encores – you do know that encores are planned out ahead of time don’t you?  I worked on the stage crew at another festival and was devastated to find out that all the clapping and glowing lighters don’t mean shit.  If the stage director and the lighting person and the sound person don’t know it’s coming it ain’t happening no matter how much you clap.

After Judy’s set I couldn’t wait to get to my daughters and tell them about how I got to literally sit at her feet – I mean I was almost breathless with the absolute wonder of it.

You know what?  They didn’t even know who she was!  I mean they knew who she was but they didn’t know who she was to me and every other woman who bought Wildflowers and laid on the floor with her head under the stereo – and even when I told them they were like, Yeah . . . that’s nice mom.

I guess every generation knows thing that the generations that came before and will come after just simply don’t know.  I mean I still don’t understand what the big deal was about Kurt Cobain other than he committed suicide.

Then there’s my mama, who when Pete Seeger walked on stage during his birthday bash, turned to me and asked, Well who is that old man?