One festival completed and one to go ... The Second Annual Rosie the Riveter Home Front Reunion is but days away ... .

This is a photo taken at last year's event, and those are some of the hundreds of Rosies who came from far and wide to celebrate together. They came with children and grandchildren in a grand reunion weekend.

This year our "poster girl" is 93 year-old still performing folk singer, Faith Petric, who worked in the Hoboken shipyards during WWII. She is a legend in the folk music world; a friend and contemporary of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert, and the late Malvina Reynolds of "Little Boxes" fame -- a friend Faith and I shared. We currently share kinship with my performing son, Bob Reid, an ardent admirer of this amazing woman.

This year's reunion will be a celebration not only of the Rosies, but will bring together the music-makers of the folk music world as well. Faith is one of the founders of the almost half-century old San Francisco Folk Music Club with members scattered throughout Northern California. Members of the club will spend the day with us and they'll bring their voices and instruments with them to the newly-restored and magnificent Ford Building (now called Ford Point) where we will spend the entire day in song.

I will be properly uniformed and hatted along with my ranger colleagues -- with special duties as one of the co-hosts for the stage show. I'll also do impromptu interviews among the members of the audience with my roving mike. Last year those Rosies almost wrestled it away from me -- they were so eager to tell their stories. This year should be the same, but this time I'll be better prepared for their enthusiasm; hopefully. We'll see.

That's the weekend of October 5th here on the beautiful shoreline of Richmond, California. For more information, check out the Home Front Festival website -- or the Richmond Chamber of Commerce has a link to the information as well as a schedule of the weekend of activities. One day I predict that our Homefront Festival will rival the New Orleans Mardi Gras celebrations, or, the Mummer's Parade in Philadelphia. (Jus' you wite, 'enry 'iggins!)

Congressman George Miller (seen here welcoming the crowd at Kaiser Shipyard III) joined the festivities.

All-in-all this has been an extremely busy several weeks. Squeezed in among all the usual and unusual busyness was another birthday. I'm at that stage in life where birthdays now come every six weeks. Funny how that goes ... .

Mostly, it was just another Monday. I'm increasingly grateful for each one of them.