“Very often tangerine elephants float over rosemary hills in lazy legions amid redolent youth.” This is one of the lines I offered up to our current Nobel winner in Literature, unfortunately Bobby was either too busy to write back or he is just waiting for the appropriate time to contact me. I think the imagery itself is at least worth the price of a stamp. He’ll contact me I’m sure.
Item 1: Five days to go and the citizens of the United States will have a chance to regain a bit of their dignity, courtesy, common sense. Hopefully we will have learned a lesson and will attempt in the future to treat each other with a bit of common decency.
Item 2: Those who dance are thought to be quite insane by those who do not hear the music. Angela Monet
Item 3: A little CBA bluebird whispered in my ear that renewals of memberships has fallen and that our new enrollment numbers are not exactly where we would like them to be. If you haven’t renewed your CBA membership please do so soon and spread the word of the joys of CBA membership to your non member friends. Without membership we are but banjos without strings and fiddles without bows. Tell a friend.
Item 3: We congregated at my sister’s house a couple of weeks ago for the California Band selection marathon for Father’s Day Festival 2017. I enjoyed being part of this worthy endeavor last year and I think I enjoyed it even more this year. New folks were at the listening table this year and it was nice to chat with everyone. I was really looking forward to seeing my old co-worker at the Father’s Day hospitality booth from a few years ago, Alex Mayar. Alex is the guitarist in Jenifer Kitchen’s band, Kitchen Help,who also came along with Alex to help in the judging.Both are really fine folks. Alex is the type of person you meet and within two minutes your mind is clicking off all the positive things you like about him. The fact he makes the finest Margarita West of the Mississippi is in itself a step toward sainthood. Alex was kind enough to bring his mixing tools, tequila,cointreau, and whatever else was needed to supply the “workers” with much needed liquid refreshment. Thank you Alex. (Note to CBA members. Alcoholic beverages were consumed AFTER the selections were complete and tabulated.)
I think we all did a a fine job listening and then voting for the 39 or so bands we spent more than three hours listening to The board will make the final decision on who plays and if you are happy with the groups let us know.
Item 4: Just made it through Halloween with about 30 trick or treaters. Thus the season begins. This time of year gets pretty hectic with Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years.My oldest daughter and her son share the same birthday on December 17, and Sheila’s birthday is January 4. Rhiannon’s son and daughters’ birthday are in the waning weeks of January.Let’s add them up. Christmas Eve,Christmas Day, New Years Eve and New Years Day and five birthdays equals nine opportunities for celebration in a thirty day period.
Item 5: Wednesday night Sheila and I made the one mile trip to the lovely Turlock Community Theater to see the talented and gifted Boz Scaggs. What a brilliant entertaining show. It was 90 minutes of non stop rock and roll, blues, a bit of jazz, and even a taste of Dixieland. Boz is the consummate performer and his six piece band is tighter than a gnats heinie.
Boz will usually do an encore that features two songs. One of the songs is the legendary “Loan Me a Dime.” He must have liked the Turlock audience because after a blistering performance of Loan Me a Dime, he and his group left the stage but after hearing the rousing standing long winded ovation came back for an unprecedented third song. Boz chatted with the audience for a few minutes shared his love of Turlock and played a little Dixieland ditty that had him and the audience laughing.
Sheila and I walked into the lobby and old Mean Mr. Mustard actually bought a Boz Scaggs Tour Shirt that had our lovely city’s name emblazoned of the back in bright black and white. I can hardly wait to wear it next Tuesday at…… (see item 6)
Item 6: I’ll be working our local polling place this coming Tuesday in Turlock working from 6-12 on behalf of Friends of the Turlock Public Library.I will following in my mother’s footsteps who used to do her civic duty and work the election at Highland School, my home from K-6. My father would take my sisters and me to La Hal’s Pizza on these days because mom wasn’t home to cook. Back then it was illegal to sell alcohol on election day so Larry the owner of La Hal’s would carefully bring out a coffee cup filled with beer for my dad and gently placed the verboten alcohol on the plastic pink and white checked plastic table cloth. Larry winked at my dad and my dad smiled and nodded. Watching two men having their way with this archaic law for some reason made me feel like I was in cahoots with the two of them. It wasn’t a bad feeling.
Until December 2: Read a book, hug a child, pet a dog, stroke a cat, eat a bar of chocolate, and Ikiru.