My wife and I decided to attend an open-mic night at a caf that often provides evening entertainment, generally in a folkie venue. We invited two other couples to join us.

I dropped Peg off at the door and parked the car. As I drove into the slot I recognized an old friend and called to her as I got out of the car. We hugged. Inside the Antique Sandwich Company we sat together at a round dinning table. When full, the room held about a hundred people, with some sitting on the carpeted stairs that led to upstairs offices and bathrooms.

Our friend Karen and her husband John were there as drivers for a group of Columbian teenagers from Bogota. The group was there with their headmistress, Johns sister, a nun. They were on a three-week tour of the Pacific Northwest. They were in Tacoma for a week and had just come from the city council chambers. I had just seen them an hour before on community TV. Just catching a few seconds of them dancing with a graphic overlay of proclamation I had no idea who are what they were.

We were joined by the two couples originally invited and we all squeezed in and around the table for a nice folksy evening. During open-mic anyone can perform that wants to. There is no judgment.

The first entertainer up was an African-American man who was mentally challenged. I dont know what he was singing about, but he accompanied himself on the guitar. Then he did his second song, which sounded remarkably like the first. He was followed by a succession of singers who accompanied themselves on piano or guitar. The Columbians performed two numbers and were an absolute delight. They could sing and they moved rhythmically with the beat. They had people on guitar and drums.

We were entertained for about two hours straight. There were a number of angst filled young men who growled and howled. There was a baseball-capped young man with a huge patchwork leather jacket and jeans that hung down too far. He had a beard and sang a song about the Seattle Seahawks. He and a couple of others seemed to have brought along their own cheering section.

We ended up buying a CD from a duo. Waterbound, an over-sixty gentleman on viola and a banjo-looking instrument; and a middle-aged lady playing autoharp. They performed Scottish/Appalachian sounding fiddle tunes. There was also a middle-aged man with a red face in a black tee-shirt and black pants, who played well. Had he stayed around we would have talked to him about his music and bought a CD if he had one. He sang a song about being lucky. It spoke to me.

The evening was interesting and fun. As I sat back drinking a glass of apple-berry juice and eating a sprouts laden sandwich, I thought about how much the open-mic night resembled a modern day small business seminar. The disabled were represented, as was diversity and cross-culture Spanish-speaking individuals, young people, old people, and people in the middle. They were all speaking their minds. They had ideas and passion. They shared their joys and frustrations. Participating, being part of a greater whole, was just something they had to do.

Some would succeed. Some would fail. Some people left their audience wondering. Some met wild applause, some saw mild applause, and some just gave us things to think about.