This was supposed to be a short post because...

.....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!