Dear Friends:

In the rarefied air of USAir at 35,000 feet musing on these waning days of summer...

The last of the beans were picked yesterday, time for the fall planting. Asparagus is still coming up, witness to the mild summer we've enjoyed. Lots of corn in the freezer and still more to eat. Tomatoes, tomatillas, peppers of all varieties, and even our experiment with artichokes continue to bear prolifically. The beehives offered a bumper crop of pure gold and the young apple saplings even squeezed out a fruit or two. This laziest summer, touring-wise, on record has allowed unusual attention to more agricultural pursuits.

It's given me time to write, as well. There's plenty of new songs for my upcoming recording projects. Si Kahn and I met for the first of four scheduled writing retreats to complete the Four Seasons Cycle. We tackled autumn, though there's no real method to our madness. We'll be writing both remaining seasons in the next four months. Recording release dates will determine which is the next one served up, though. Tom Chapin and I woodshed this next week to write the balance of material for our duo live album. And, in the midst of submersing myself in the material for my upcoming traditional album, I've even penned a couple of songs that will likely be included in that collection.

Peter spent three weeks hiking the North Carolina mountains in July while Will took a month-long theater workshop will one of his favorite former teachers. Both are gearing up for school: Peter to middle school and Will to high school. Yikes! Both have played a lot of music over the summer and Peter, in fact, will be making his major performance debut next month when he joins me in performing (on the drums) with the Winfield Symphony...on his twelfth birthday. (How we gonna keep him down on the farm...?)

Water played a big part in our summer. The boys and I took a flyfishing/camping trip to the Virginia highlands. Families reunited at the beach. Pools were visited. Rivers explored. Determined to immerse ourselves in the immediate reality, we managed to avoid most of the Republican Convention while at the beach...though we did discover that the teacher's unions are the reason our schools have troubles. I guess Bob Dole is still steamed he couldn't get the British Embassy to arrange a Beatles concert at his daughter's high school back in '63 (I'm not making this up!).

At the same time Parthy and I celebrated our eighteenth anniversary, thankful of the fact that Congress has passed the Marriage Defense Act. Now we don't feel so threatened by all those homosexuals who are getting divorced....

The Dems convene this week amid threats of a replay of '68 now that Clinton has signed the bill to end "welfare as we know it." Of course, none of the people who voted on this bill know what welfare is like. But it's a perfect 90's bill: mean-spirited, vindictive, and polarizing. With a whopping 3% of our national budget going to entitlement programs, I find it hard to believe that taking food stamps from kids is gonna balance our budget. Well, we've got to find the money to fund that 15% tax cut everyone's excited about. If you don't pay taxes I guess it just doesn't mean much to you, so Clinton won't lose any votes from the poor. The buck will have to stop somewhere and when it lands on the doorstep of the state and local governments we'll all remember that someone has to clean up after the party. Once we've deported all the immigrants, imprisoned all the dangerous, executed all the violent criminals, busted all the unions, and cut off the benefits to the kids of all the welfare cheats, cut the capital gains tax, and things still aren't cleared up maybe we'll have to start figuring out what the real problems are. In the meantime we've got over two months of foolishness ahead. I'm drafting a bill now to end "elections campaigns as we know them..."

Talking about a different presidency, I'm preparing to assume greater leadership responsibilities in my musicians' union local by taking over the presidency for the next two years. Assisted by a wonderful crew of friends and activists that includes Si Kahn, Reggie Harris, Cathy Fink, Crow Johnson, James Keelaghan, Bob Bossin, Susan Lewis, John O'Connor, Bob Franke, Charlie King, and Ian Robb, we'll be entirely re-inventing the notion of what a Union local can be and how it serves it's membership and the folk music community. As always, I'll be generous with both my news updates and my commentary regarding these developments but, suffice it to say, I'm excited and committed to this new role.

The Orioles are on a tear, finally. Eddie Murray's hit his 500th home run. My in-laws gave me a pair of used roller blades for my birthday and Peter and I are tooling around the neighborhood each evening. Will and I have been whacking down weeds in the backyard and hunting for a new bass for him. My brother and I cooked up a batch of homebrew that is the best ever and my piano just got tuned! Good luck to all of you. See you on the other side.

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