Peter and I have known each other for more than forty years.
The thing that drew us together was folk music. I remember back in 1982, I went to my first Hoot-in-nanny and there he was with his parents.

Peter and I were born in the same year.  He lives in a nursing home near where I live.
He has cerebral palsy and a learning disability. He lived with his parents all of his life, until about 12 years ago when They moved into an assisted living facility. Then he got an apartment through the state.
He’s never had a girl friend. For that matter he’s hardly ever had a friend. His family were his whole world. They were cultural Jews, not often participating in religious services, they celebrated both Hanukkah and Christmas, Passover and Easter. 

Peter is an eccentric, and a genius! 
He’s also a poet.  
For as long as I’ve known him he’s carried spiral notebooks filled with his words. Actually, they’re more like lyrics. Because of his love for sea shanties, he often writes lyrics to the Cadence of sea shanties.

He has his favorite performers, like Gordon Bok, Ed Trickett and Bill Staines. He often hums the songs he heard them sing.

Peter became a born again Christian in the 1990s. I remember the “Hoot” I attended and him proudly showing me his Star of David with the cross in the center.  He hasn’t always understood everything that being a Christian means, but he knows what’s most important; Jesus is real. Jesus died for his sins and someday Jesus is coming back. He comes to church with us about once a month and enjoys the Bible studies that happen at the nursing home.

Peter’s parents both escaped Europe during WW11. His father arrived  from Germany right before events like Kristallnacht occurred. Peter’s mom arrived in 1942, after having escaped a concentration camp in France. Considering how insanely difficult the quota system was that allowed some Jews in, It’s a miracle they got in!

Once here they set themselves up as chicken farmers in rural NJ. They brought their love of folk music with them and there  because of their leaning towards communism, they rubbed elbows with such people as Woodie Guthrie and Pete Seeger. 

Once here they set themselves up as chicken farmers in rural NJ. They brought their love of folk music with them and their  because of their leaning towards communism, they rubbed elbows with such people as Woodie Guthrie and Pete Seeger.

More good and kind hearted people have never existed!
I was blessed to be friends with almost eveyone in the family.  
Mike was a great singer and player of many instruments. He also wrote songs about living in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey.

Kenny lived in New Hampshire with his family. I met him at family gatherings my husband and I were invited to but I never got to know him.

Jackie, the only sister, lives in PA. She loves sheltie dogs and enjoys folk music but doesn’t participate in making music.

And then there’s Peter, the baby of the family, born two months premature.

Very sadly, both Mike and Kenny passed away from cancer.

Peter didn’t do too well living by himself. He’s a diabetic and wasn’t taking care of himself or taking the medication he needed to keep him alive and a few years ago he nearly died. That’s why he lives in the nursing home at the age of 64.

It is my privilege to spend time with him every week. We talk about folk music and what he gleans from the sitcoms he watches.  Who knew that the “King of Queens” and “Everybody Love Raymond” were such wells of wisdom!

At the end of each visit I give him a big hug and I know that’s what he’s really been waiting for. 

Have you heard the song written and performed by John Prine: “Hello In There?” Do yourself a favor, It’s gorgeous, and might make you shed a tear. 

Allentown, PA is about a two hour drive from our home  Down the Shore. Debbie, a dear friend from high school lives there with her husband, Peter. He’s a Scot. He’s a real Scot, bred and born.

Several years ago I noticed that on Debbie’s FB page she’d mentioned being a member of the “Scottish Society of the Lehigh Valley” and that they were throwing a “Robert Burns” dinner at the end of January.

Robert Burns was a poet who lived in Scotland back in the 1700s. 
He was a formidable talent as well as a formidable rake. (Look it up!)

He wrote hundreds of poems about love and what a wonderful place Scotland was and he was famous for having done so.  But, for all that, he and his wife and children lived mostly in poverty.

About 9 years after he passed away, a group of friends got “into their cups” and were reminiscing about their friend and they decided to have a dinner in his honor. And low and behold, people who love Robert Burn’s poetry continue to honor him.

The dinner began with a cash bar and moved on to the main event, the presenting of the haggis. Burns wrote a long and vivid poem about haggis. Here it is:
​

Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great Chieftain o’ the Puddin-race!
Aboon them a’ ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy of a grace
As lang ‘s my arm.
The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o’ need,
While thro’ your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.
His knife see Rustic-labour dight,
An’ cut ye up wi’ ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like onie ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin, rich!
Then, horn for horn, they stretch an’ strive:
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,
Till a’ their weel-swall’d kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
Bethankit hums.
Is there that owre his French ragout,
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi’ perfect sconner,
Looks down wi’ sneering, scornfu’ view
On sic a dinner?
Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckless as a wither’d rash,
His spindle shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit;
Thro’ bluidy flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!
But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He’ll make it whissle;
An’ legs, an’ arms, an’ heads will sned,
Like taps o’ thrissle.
Ye Pow’rs wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o’ fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies;
But, if ye wish her gratefu’ prayer,
Gie her a Haggis!
For those of you who are uninitiated, haggis is an old and revered dish created for hearty people who worked hard and couldn’t afford better.
​

Here’s the recipe:
Take one sheep stomach, well rinsed.                                                                                                Fill it with oatmeal mixed with organ meats from the above sheep, like heart, lungs, liver kidneys and such.                                
Tie up the incision tightly with twine and place in a boiling pot of water and turn it down to a simmer.     Watch the pot so that it doesn’t boil or the sheep stomach might burst open and ruin the haggis.                                                                                                      For a 2 lb. Haggis, simmer for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Put it on an attractive plate and have your Scotland Laddie recite the Address to a Haggis! Spoon it up and see what all the fuss is about!