Some days I surprise myself at how old-fashioned I can be and how much fun I can have doing things that people have done for hundreds of years. Last night was a good example. Usually on Tuesday nights a smallish group of us get together for an old-time music jam. When the weather is nice, we play outside on the patio at Ragtag CinemaCafe; when it’s cold or wet, we play at someone’s house. Although most of us can read music, we generally play old-time fiddle tunes by ear, and we’re always excited when a new fiddler shows up in town and can teach us some new tunes. All of us dance as well as make music, and two of the musicians also call dances, so we have in the last few months talked about starting a “callers jam,” as well. Why waste all that good toe-tapping music, when people could be dancing while we’re playing?

Finally, last night various forces converged, and we were able to hold our first callers jam. Even on short notice, we were able to gather about a dozen friends to make music, call, and dance together on a dreary November evening. It was way better than getting all worked up watching the Election 2012 returns come in. We had already voted, and there was nothing more could be done about that. Might as well dance!

Lucky for us, Krishna and her husband own a house that is for sale and is currently vacant, so no one even had to clean house to host our dance party, and there was no furniture and no rugs to move out of the way. In addition, we had a beautiful hardwood floor to dance on, and miracle of miracles, the people who had recently moved out of the house had left an upright piano that was in decent condition and mostly in tune. There were a few notes that wouldn’t play, but it was great fun pounding on that old honky tonk piano, while Pippa and Will played fiddle, and the dancers kept rhythm with their feet.