Lessons to LearnDear Friends,2020 has been an off-year for the Robin and Linda Newscast, but there have been a few headlines - at least in our own minds. For instance, the top line of our latest mental press release reads: "Robin and Linda Williams had a gig last week, their first one since February." The second line of the press release reads: "The crowd loved them." For the behind-the-scenes story, the daughter of a Robin and Linda fan called up and offered to pay for us to go sing as a surprise for her mother's 70th birthday. As Geoff Muldaur once told Robin, "small-time gets bigger every day," so we jumped at the offer and off we went to play for Mom and Dad, they on their front porch sitting ten feet away with masks on, of course and us on the sidewalk next to their front steps. We had a ball, and judging from the avalanche of emails we received the next day, the crowd loved it. The lesson you should take from this is, if you have a special occasion needing some music, Robin and Linda might be able to help you out." An extra benefit of the gig was tailoring our songs to the mother's life and tastes. We found out she was a quilter so we sang "Home, #235" with its verse about Linda's great-grandmother's quilt face. She was also a fan of the musical we wrote, "Stonewall Country," and we sang three or four songs from it. Familiarizing ourselves with some of these songs from decades ago and realizing how strong they are made us feel good about ourselves. The lesson you should take from this is, Robin and Linda may not be much but they're all they think about." A second mental headline would be: "Robin and Linda Williams have finished recording another CD's worth of material." The backstory to that headline is our buddy, Kevin McNoldy, left the safe confines of his home in North Carolina and, trusting fully that we were COVID-19 free, spent four or five days with us during which we finished recording eight original songs and five from other sources. This next recording will be our 24th, not counting two with the Hopeful Gospel Quartet and a kids CD, and it's interesting to look back over the years to the changes in recording technology. For years we've driven to towns far away and recorded in big rooms filled with monster recording consoles, tape machines, baffles, sound booths, etc. This time Kevin showed up at our house carrying a satchel with a couple of pieces of gear, a few microphone stands, two mics, and a laptop computer and we set up In our living room and got a CD recorded. Yes, yes, we know, this technology has been around for a while. But, as with every other aspect of our lives involving anything digital, this is the first time yours truly have participated. So, we're floating along on a pink cloud of amazement that we can record a CD in our own house and sleep in our own bed. Now we're doing a lot of listening and making decisions about mastering and mixing. Believe us, we know just enough about all this to get into real trouble. The lesson you should take from this is, Robin and Linda are greatly indebted to Kevin McNoldy for his expertise, hard work, humor, and patience. Bumper Sticker of the Month: If this is a slowdown, why does time move so fast?" How about this for the third non-existent press release: "Robin and Linda Plan Future 'Virtual' Endeavors." The first paragraph reads, "This year Robin and Linda will be joining up with some amazingly talented folks, Tim O'Brien and Jan Fabricius, Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer, and the Bumper Jacksons for The 24th Annual Hank Williams Tribute Show. The date is December 27th and final details will be included in their December newsletter."" The second paragraph reads, "Robin and Linda are making plans to join with Garrison Keillor of 'A Prairie Home Companion' fame for a documentary-style evening of stories and songs. They are in the preliminary stages for the show but will, of course, keep the loyal readers of their newsletter abreast of all developments." And speaking of Garrison, as usual, he, being one of the hardest working people we've ever met, has used his enforced quarantine time wisely and efficiently and has written and released two books, "The Lake Wobegon Virus (the first Lake Wobegon novel since 2009) and his memoir, "That Time of Year: A Minnesota Life." Both of these have received the Robin and Linda "5 Star Seal Of Approval" and for information, you can go to http://www.garrisonkeillor.com/press/two-new-books-from-keillor/ From the "One Thing Leads To Another Department," the absolutely brilliant musician and our longtime friend, Peter Ostroushko, has a new podcast, "My Life and Time as a Radio Musician." It is just plain wonderful. Peter was a frequent guest on A Prairie Home Companion for most of the 42 years it was on the air and spent several years in the early '80s as the musical director. He suffered a debilitating stroke several years ago and is now unable to play, and Garrison, the good guy that he is, turned over to Peter all the live recordings of him playing on the show. Peter has put an immense amount of work into editing, researching, and recording entertaining tidbits of information, and the result, ongoing as we write this, is an awesome, panoramic podcast of the length and breadth of A Prairie Home Companion and, more importantly, Peter's importance to the world of music. He tells us that one whole episode will concern itself with his days playing with us. Go to his website, www.peterostroushko.com. We doubt you will be disappointed. A final and probably the most important R & L headline is: "We've voted." Since we knew who we wanted our next elected officials to be and were sure of our positions on local initiatives, we said "why not?" and, on the second day of early voting, we headed down to City Hall and got it done. There was no line but we did see a friend or two that we were unable to visit with because of pandemic angst. Always the elephant in the room, COVID-19!! The lesson you should take from this is, if you haven't voted, you should. The end of Daylight Savings Time means, no doubt about it, fall is in the air here. We hate to give up on our little garden and are still trying to protect some greens and our jalapeņo peppers from frost. But the writing is on the wall and, though we may still have some comfortable days ahead, it will soon be time to rearrange the closets with the short pants and short sleeve shirts going to the far reaches of shelf space. We hope this finds you all healthy and in good spirits and that this letter has held your attention. At least, it's long.
Your pals,
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