"Come And Go With Me To That Land"

     This past Saturday night Tom and I,

...and our friends Kevin and Barb,

...headed over to scenic downtown Westerville, Ohio,

...to the Java Central coffee house,

...for a folk music sing-along with Columbus's wonderful folk duo, Carl Yaffey and Bill Cohen,

...The Folk Ramblers.

    As everyone knows, Tom and I are Bill Cohen and Folk Ramblers sing-along super-fans, so if there's a Folk Ramblers or Bill Cohen concert happening in town, as there is several times a year, we'll be there, often with some friends who we've brought into the fold of the folk song sing-along faithful.
         We started off the evening with dinner at a cute little restaurant down the block from Java Central,

...the Westerville Grill,

...that had a pretty outdoor patio,

...where, the weather being nice, we opted to sit.

     The food was really good and attractively presented,

...especially good-looking- and tasty - was the chicken pesto sandwich with home fries that Barb ordered.

     Also very good was Tom's tilapia,

...and the turkey Reuben, which both Kevin and I ordered.

     After dinner we walked over to Java Central,

...where we ordered some drinks and yummy sweet treats from the friendly wait staff,

...then we headed down the hallway,

...past a cute little over-flow room which would be filled by the time the concert started,

...to the music venue,

...which doubles as an art gallery where local artists can display and sell their work.

     As the time for the concert approached the music room filled up,

...as did the over-flow room,

...and the hallway,

...and the patio, where the music was shared via speaker.

     All  the areas were crowded with folks of our generation,

...the grown-up Flower Children.

    While Carl and Bill were setting up I asked them if I could take a picture of them,

...and their sound engineer, Randy Cohen, Bill's wife.

     They were more than obliging.

    Then began the sing-along,  with The Folk Ramblers leading us in the folk songs and ballads from the 1950's and 1960's, the golden age of the American Folk Music Revival:

Songs on the subjects of peace, justice, freedom, civil rights, anti-war protest, the human struggle,

...and the human experience;

...songs that were born in our country as well as songs that came  from all over the world;

... songs that brought us back to the days when it seemed that everyone had a guitar and could play the two or three or four strummed chords required by most folk tunes;  back to when young people did sit around on a Saturday evening singing together those simple, beautiful songs while we dreamed of changing the world into a better place;  back to when we really believed we could.
     "Come and  go with me to that land,"  beckoned the words of one of those old songs.

      And for three lovely hours, we did.