LAKE HUNTINGTON, NY — I imagined the Arts Nest in Lake Huntington to be a place filled with artwork—and it was.

However, what I did not expect was the transformation from art to a journey through life with a singer, songwriter and multi-instrumental musician as the guide.

Joe Crookston brings his and others' stories to life in a way that gives us hope.

His music and lyrics are so telling that it is almost like the book you can’t put down and in this case, it is the concert that you will never forget.

Crookston is no surprise, an award-winning folk singer along the lines of Woody Guthrie. In fact he followed a similar course to Guthrie, traveling through the Finger Lakes region for over a year amassing stories from people, who in turn fueled his songs.

At this time with the Jewish New Year, number 5786, taking place and the holiest of days coming in a few weeks, it seemed fitting to share the song he wrote based on his encounter in that region with Dina Jacobson, a Holocaust survivor who at 90 was invited by the school system in Elmira to recount her story of survival from the Holocaust, specifically Auschwitz.

Although it took Crookston about a year to write the song, “Blue Tattoo,” his dedication to telling Jacobson’s story makes the song impossible to forget as perhaps we never should. Amazon Prime made her story into a short feature film, ensuring its everlasting effect. The film also titled "Blue Tattoo," shows the numbers in blue indelibly engraved on Jacobson’s forearm while she defiantly identified herself by her name.

Before I left the Nest, I purchased Crookston’s second album/CD containing two songs that really resonated for me: “Blue Tattoo” and “Able Baker Charlie and Dog.” The latter musically tells the story of his grandfather, Joe Gnaps, who constructed runways on Tinian Island, which were used to launch the atomic bomb on Japan and end the war. Crookston shared with us that it took a few years to write this piece and by then his 97-year-old grandfather had passed. We are so fortunate to be able to hear it.