.....now that I am through with my travels, now that family visitors are gone, life gets kind of quiet and routine. And, I’m OK with that. Not that I didn’t love the other, mind you.
The biggest “drama” of the week centered around Japanese
Beetles. I thought that my early July
spraying had rid my cherry trees, roses, beans, and grapevines of the horrible,
voracious, pests. Look at the damage they do to leaves. This is "mild" compared to the cherry tree leaves that are nothing but the veins.
I guess I hadn’t
counted on their offspring. I discovered
them on Friday. I bought more
spectracide that night. I sprayed
Saturday morning. They are gone for now…..
The heat certainly played a part in our lives this
week. Classic Missouri in July – hot and
muggy. And, Steve and I spread 1.5 cubic
yards of wood mulch in it Friday at noon.
I did lots of errands in it Saturday.
We rode our bikes in it to the pharmacy Thursday morning (and other
neighborhood areas Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. We are trying to get a bike ride in every
morning)
I played organ in an organ/piano arrangement of America
the Beautiful today in church. Steven
was my page turner. He can tell you of
the part when I started reading the wrong line of music or of when he tried to
turn the page four measures too soon. I
can tell you of notes that I played correctly ALL THE TIME until the
performance. (doesn’t that always happen????) But, overall, it sounded good and
people said nice things.
I played cello in a Christian rock band Saturday.
Really. And, I got paid to do it. The music director at the Alive In Christ
Lutheran church (corner of Southampton and Bethel here in Columbia) saw me the
last day of school at Rock Bridge because he is also one of the marching band
drum instructors – he was also one of my students when I taught at Central
Methodist - and he asked me if I was
available to play for this wedding on the last Saturday in July. I was.
And, coincidently, the bride was a former cello student of mine way back
when my music studio was in the room next to the sports room. Several years ago. We
only played three numbers – my part was mostly whole notes on the bass-line –
and it wasn’t too intimidating for this reads-music-only-never-improvising
cello player.
Steve and I watched McFarland,
USA Friday night. It was
surprisingly good. Did you know that
Kevin Kostner is my age??? I watched Toy Story 2 and I loved it all over
again. I also watched The One And Only Genuine Original Family
Band again and, oh boy, it is CHEESY!
I had forgotten how much. But,
John Davidson was sure a gorgeous hunk back in the day – probably still is. (pause
here) I just looked him up on IMDB and,
as a matter of fact he still is. It looks like he was cursed by the Disney
stick because he only made two movies – both Disney, both box-office flops (the
other one was Happiest Millionaire). He
did a lot of television and now it looks like he just does theater – musicals - and casinos.
Finally, an
interesting bit of trivia and I will close….
When I was in high school, the church still did “roadshows”. These were short, fifteen minute musicals
that used mostly teens for the cast and each ward created one and all were
performed in front of parents and friends and church members one night, usually
in the spring. There was a theme each
year and the script had to be original but the music didn’t – although sometimes
it was (disastrously so, usually). The
La Habra ward roadshow-producing queen during my teen years was Marion Stewart
(her sister, Rebecca Lucas, was my piano teacher, by the way) and her custom was
to borrow music from Broadway or movie musicals and re-write lyrics to matched
the play. One year, she used two numbers
from The One and Only, Genuine, Original
Family Band and wrote a roadshow about a traveling medicine show where both
Juli and I were in the “family band” – she on flute, me on clarinet. Back in that day, winning roadshows could
apply to perform for the June conference that was held in Salt Lake City for
all the auxiliaries of the church (Young Men, Young Women, Primary, Relief
Society). And, this particular La Habra
Ward roadshow won! So, the cast and crew
and supporting family members made the drive from California to Utah early in
the summer of 1972 (or maybe 1973) (pause again) actually, 1971 ( it was between my sophomore and junior years in high school)– and we
performed with four other winning roadshows for all the auxiliary leaders who
had traveled from around the U.S. and maybe even the world to attend training
and be entertained by us.
Here is how the show looked on the theater-in-the-round stage in Bountiful, Utah where we performed. That is me on the right side of the photo just under the sign and all you can see is my back.
And here is the band. You can see Juli and I kneeling in front.
Our whole
family drove up (mom, dad, Juli, me) and we had a wonderful time. 1971 was also the summer I went to Utah again
for a youth conference at BYU. Wow, what
a great summer that was!
