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My lunch yesterday at Steelton's Blue Front Lounge: beef bologna, hard cheese and hard pretzel, plus mustard, for $3.70. A pint of Yuengling, brewed in nearby Pottsville, was only $2.50 and, miracle of miracles, I had just one. This bar has been opened four years, and the owner told me business was going OK, though when I came in around 3PM, I was the only customer. Live music fills up the joint, though. There's blues with the Nate Myers Trio every Tuesday, and another blues band on Saturday. Steelton is home to the Blues Society of Central Pennsylvania. The owner worked 34 years at an oil company, for three generations of a family, but when they moved him back to the field from his office post, he quit to open his own business.

I told him about The Music Maker Foundation of North Carolina, but couldn't think of its exact name. Do check it out.

I asked the owner if the economic crisis has found its way into new blues compositions. Though he couldn't say, he thought it was an interesting question.

There ought to be plenty of blues or folks on how focked up everything is. Hey, you must check out Al Perry singing Fish Karma's "American."



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