About Me

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Lake Mathews (Perris), CA, United States
Born in Illinois, I grew up in Wilmette, a northern suburb of Chicago. I have one sibling, an older brother. I am married, for the 2nd time now, to Butch & got 4 children in the deal. They have gone on to make me grandmother 25 times over & great-grandmother to over 20!. After many years working in industry, I got my bachelors and masters degrees in speech communication, & was a professor in that field for 13 years. I retired in 2001 & returned to school & got my doctorate in folklore. Now I meld my two interests - folklore & genealogy - & add my teaching background, resulting in my current profession: speaker/author/entertainer of genealogically-related topics. I play many folk instruments, but my preference is guitar, which I have been playing since 1963. I write the "Aunty Jeff" column for the Informer, newsletter of the Jefferson County NY Gen. Soc. I work in partnership with Gena Philibert-Ortega & Sara Cochran as Genealogy Journeys® where we focus on educating folks about Social History. More about that: genaandjean.blogspot.com. More on our podcasts: genjourneys.podbean.com. More about my own projects: Circlemending.org.

Sunday, September 3, 2023

Sunday Singalong - Wasting Away?

 

Another weekend has come upon us and I'm feeling rather maudlin. I started the day learning about Jimmy Buffet's passing and then had to take my dog, Klondike (16 years old last June) to be put down. He was a fighter and though I thought the time would have come many years ago (his breed is not known for especially long lives, plus he had some congenital issues that made for difficult times) and he had some "False endings" (opposite of "False starts"?) over the last 10 months or so. But he kept coming back to give it one more try. That last try was Friday night so on Saturday morning, what would have been Butch's 85th birthday, had he hung in for another round, on 2 September, I said goodbye to the little old fuzzy baby and handed him over to folks who were going to give him a much-earned rest.

I am not meaning to say that any of the creatures just mentioned were wasting away on any level, but I've been listening to "Margaritaville" pretty much all day and that one line keeps going around and around. It's a fun song to sing, but the lyrics are very poignant and speak to situations where a passive giving up is suggested. So, lest I be thought of as one who is "wasting away," I will counter that with a non-waste-away song selection. Now to think of one.

How about a song about the virtues of Life? Written in 1975, this is a recording of Tom Paxton, singing his composition "Life" from a 1978 live recording. It's not my favorite version, but it still packs punch.

Your turn: any songs that can remind us of the many good things there are to live for? We need to sing those loud and long!

Jean Hibben, Tom Paxton
Good times - no wasting!
2015, Napa, California

 

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