Fifteen Years on the Erie Canal

A bit of Erie Canal history we visit several times a week

Or at least that's how the song went in my head last night as we listened to the High Kings play it at the Egg in Albany. They sang a slightly different, but also correct, version mentioning fifteen miles instead.

Can you believe that according to George Murphy they learned it just for our enjoyment at the show last night as they had made the trip from Albany to Buffalo so many times? How awesome is that! I sure enjoyed it, having learned the song in grade school and loved stories of the canal as long as I can remember. One of my favorite books when I was a kid was Molly's Hannibal, which you might enjoy if you like kids' historical fiction. The boss's great grandparents worked on the canal at one time.

There was plenty of other new-to-us material, as well as enough older favorites to get the whole crowd out of their seats, clapping, singing along, and downright enthusiastically at that.

Great fun, with the added treat of some lovely young Irish dancers from a local dance school performing to the rousing Whiskey in the Jar.

Thanks Becky for the tickets, and the boss for driving, especially for the trip home in greasy, gleaming rain that made it hard to see the road. I realized last night how many times these guys' songs are featured on the jukebox which plays pretty much continuously in the back of my mind. Not a bad thing.

Taken looking down at the water in one of the remaining locks on the canal