What kind of excuse exists for an English teaching librarian who blogs about books and things related to books to write about what a great concert she saw this weekend. The two don't necessarily go together, the literary mind and country music, but I have been a Garth Brooks fan since his beginning way back in the late 1980s. He is the only artist for whom I have waited in line for hours to get tickets to a show (before internet ticket ordering was a thing, ouch!). The concert 20 or so years ago? Worth every cold and damp minute that it took to get those tickets. I have long since left most of country music behind. Not necessarily intentionally, but Brooks retired, and live moved on, and so did I. About a year ago, we stumbled onto the televised version of Brooks' Vegas show. Very quickly we were drawn into his story - the story of how his life was changed by music. When the opportunity came to seem in in concert again - much more easily this time through a gift of tickets, I was thrilled. For a couple of hours this weekend, I was nearly thirty instead of nearly fifty, with 20 years of opportunity sparkling ahead of me. So again, why do I indulge myself here? I think because, as I was singing along this weekend, I was reminded again that Garth Brooks is a story teller. Most of my favorite songs are short stories. And while they don't maybe illustrate my life, they have become the fabric of part of my life. Much like my favorite stories. I can pick up Laura Ingalls Wilder and remember clearly being snuggled up at my grandparents' house reading her for the very first time. The house, my grandparents - long gone, but the memories evoked by the book are so real. The same way with the music. Mostly as an educator, I just want to make my students to feel, even if just briefly, the power of the story to shape lives, to reflect our world, to change the way we see things. We compare that power in AP Literature to the power of music. I felt that up close and personal this weekend.