• Recent Paperbacks (in good condition)
  
• Mysteries
• Westerns

"This land is your land,
This land is my land,
From California
To the New York Island..."

I suppose it all starts with Woody. Woody Guthrie, that is, author of that most famous song above, most prolific a decade before people began to really think much about Folk music, gone now for nearly half a century.

And almost certainly forgotten if not for the tireless and prolific lifetime work of his friend, Pete Seeger, gone now just weeks ago at the tender age of 94, and writer himself of more folk classics than can be fathomed by mere mortals, including "Guantanamera" and "Turn Turn Turn".

Pete, besides nearly single-handedly keeping Folk music alive long enough for its glorious 50's/60's revival, was also instrumental in popularizing and keeping alive the name and legacy of Woody Guthrie. And indeed, who among us did not learn "This Land is Your Land" in school, back in those days when music seemed so much more a part of one's education? It seemed, as do all things to fresh new ears, as if the song must have existed since the dawn of time, and taught on the first day of the first schoolhouse, to the first children ever invented...

Indeed, the Folk Revival that Pete Seeger helped will into existence back at the dawn of the fifties was an influence on more than just college campuses. Those wonderful old 78rpm children's records we older folk used to get were chock full of folk songs, old and new, a full decade before Bob Dylan would journey off to New York to invent himself. I myself learned so many songs as a child in the late fifties and early sixties, between hearing those great old records (including personal favorite "Big Rock Candy Mountain"), and thrilling to brand new radio hits such as "Puff, the Magic Dragon".

Fast forward 50-something years to the present: We just had a house guest, who came out to visit California from the New York island, and who is a big folk fan, herself. She wondered aloud if the schools nowadays even included any music at all in their efficient modern curricula. I could only shrug.

The next afternoon I was driving six-year-old Clara home. She wanted to hear something for our two minute ride, so I put on a disc with none other than "Big Rock Candy Mountain". It ended and I was about to park, when Clara asked for another song. I started the next one. It was Woody.

And then, from the back of the car, a lovely little six-year-old voice began to sing along:

"This land is your land,
This land is my land,
From California
To the New York Island..."