Dollars to donuts

On a Friday in mid-1969 Bill Thompson, the manager of Jefferson Airplane, had a problem. His band was supposed to play before thousands of fans at Woodstock, and he wanted to make sure that they would be paid, and paid fairly, for their upcoming performance. But the event managers just kept talking, as he later put it, "about peace and love and all that stuff." So Thompson brought one shoe down, hard. "Hey," he told the event planners over the phone, "we got everybody [in the band] in the motel here. And we're not going to play unless we get the money."

The Airplane got $15,000, on cold hard cash, on the day of their show. Only Hendrix, apparently, received more for his appearance at Woodstock.

Today Cleo, tired of winter and nonplussed by what seems like a relentless stream of upcoming school days, asked when her next holiday would be. Valentine's Day? she wondered. Well, yeah, I answered, I guess you could call that a holiday, but it's not a school holiday. But we might, I added, be taking a short trip to Ohio and Kentucky in the spring. Kentucky? she said, dubiously. "I know three places," she added, and listed them: Baltimore, North Carolina, and West Virginia. "I don't want to go to other places."

Well, I said. You mom and I love to travel, and we love to go to places that we've seen before, and we also like to go to new places. And we know a terrific potter in Ohio, who might let us see his kiln, and I've read that there are a lot of good donut stores in Kentucky.

Cleo turned this over, in her mind. Did the potter make her Peter Rabbit cup? No, I answered truthfully, but he did make us a large and beautiful vessel. More silence. And then, emphatically: "If there are hundreds of donuts in Kentucky, then I will be happy to go there."

There are. And, arguably, in some ways it almost resembles Woodstock.