As I read the section of "Folklore and Cultural Worldview" that discussed our views of time, I found myself recalling more and more instances where the concept of time actually made a noticeable impact in my life. My family was always split on the issue of time - my mother and my younger sister tend to be late to everything, my father is always on time, and I am invariably early. I'm not sure how this split occurred except for my own personal philosophy, which I have realized probably comes from my being a musician. Musicians have a saying (a bit of folklore that you hear especially from your conductors) - "To be early is to be on time, to be on time is to be late." As a musician I have had it drilled into my head that a professional never walks in at the scheduled rehearsal time - a professional always arrives well before the start time in order to warm up and prepare. This philosophy has crept into all aspects of my life, so that I'm almost always early.

As a product of the northeastern United States, I've always had the impression that we are a bit more frantically concerned with time than many other parts of the world anyway. The first time I had confirmation of this was during my first trip to Argentina. While I was there, I learned that the Argentine concept of time varied considerably from what I had always experienced. Time was not as linear, but instead was very fluid and relaxed. Even though we said we would meet and leave at 10, that could mean anywhere between 10 and 11:30. For me, it was frustrating to not keep to a schedule, but for my Argentine friends it was absolutely normal.

Another example (not about time) of how my personal folklore is an expression of my worldview was brought to my mind during the section of the article called “I’ll be down to Get You in My One-Eyed Ford.” Last semester I took an ethnomusicology class in which we learned about that particle song, which was part of a body of songs called 49er songs that were incorporated into the pow wow tradition. As we were learning about the song, my professor asked how many of us had ever been to a pow wow. Out of about 40 students, only 3 of us raised our hands. It startled me until I realized probably not everyone was raised by a mom who was friends with the leader of the local Native American Association and on a local park committee and raised me going to events like pow wows. I can personally identify with the pow wow tradition, but I'm not necessarily incorporated into it. However, it's an example of how what was normal tradition for me as a child my be completely different from what someone else experienced.