Common Ground

Last night, as part of my working on the entertainment committee for the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival in May, we went out for a casual dinner with our friends, Richard and Teresa, to a local barbeque place.  The owner is a big supporter of bluegrass music and a fine banjo player himself, so there is nearly always live bluegrass music on the stage.  I was hoping for the chance to talk to him about scheduling some good bands to play at the festival.  Unfortunately, he wasn't there last night, so I'm still working on that, but the evening turned out to be good for several reasons.  We don't often find ourselves in places where there might be live honky-tonk music being played, but that's what we got last night and it was fun.  (Plus, the barbeque was excellent!)  The band,  Kentucky Hoss Cats, played a good selection of what I would call "classic country" (Merle Haggard, Hank Williams, Sr.) and were quite good and entertaining to watch.  (I have little to no tolerance for the "new" country sound, but love the old-timers like Patsy Cline and Merle Haggard.)  So, here's what I'm finally getting to in the title of this post.  Feeling a little out of my element, what would you guess might make me feel I had something in common with the folks sitting around us?  Why, discovering another fiber person, that's what!  Just before our food arrived at the table, I was looking around the room and here's what I saw, sitting under the big screen television that was showing the University of Kentucky basketball game.

(Don't you love the glance from the guy down the way?"

This is Albert and as soon as we saw him, Teresa and I were all about getting to talk to him and admire his crocheting.  Albert told us that he knits too, but finds crochet more relaxing (it has the opposite effect on me, mainly because I don't know what I'm doing!)  When I asked if it would be okay to take his picture and blog about meeting him, he didn't even hesitate to give me his okay.  In what other context would that have been possible?  Not many that I know of.  I feel like I made a new friend in the fiber community and the whole experience makes me smile every time I think about it.

It also makes me think I need to haul out my yarn and knit pretty much anywhere I feel like it.  That doesn't make me quite as brave as Albert, but I'm going to work on it.  Who knows how many nice people I might get to meet!