After I wrote the below on Monday morning, and looking at my day's task of driving to Philmont, NY, it occured to me that I had the time to say hello to my favorite Middlebury College professor, David Littlefield (it's been curious that I should end up singing with another Dave Littlefield in the quartet Forebitter out of Mystic Seaport!). I checked the phone book, made a call and set up plans for a visit. On the way, I stopped off in Burlington to see a graphic art exhibit by David Powell, husband to my niece Liz. David creates digitally manipulated collages from scanned images, focusing in this show on "nostalgic" images, mostly from the 1950's. His written introduction, and the effect of the pieces he's created are to explore the notion of nostalgia, and to make some very pointed comments about the state of the world today. Really a fine exhibit.
David Littlefield and his wife Jean live in Cornwall, just south of Middlebury, so en route I drove around the campus of my alma mater, recognising much of the old and startled by some of the new, like the very modern library. After wonderful talk, a tasty lunch and a few songs from me, David brought me back to the campus for a tour of some of the newer facilities, and they are very impressive, particularly the library and the arts center. It almost makes you want to go back to college...almost.
From there, I drove to Philmont to the home of good friends Tom and Joanne Buckner, where I holed up during the storm (over a foot here in the upper Hudson valley) to work on liner notes for the Seaport Sea Music Festival CD. I got a lot of work done, had a lovely visit, and then came this morning to Middleburgh where I've done music for a class and the school chorus, and am sticking around to participate in a school concert tonight.