Wednesday, July 18, 2012

I am the Rainmaker


Ok, so I know I just promised that I would not miss an evening post, but as you will read, circumstances beyond my control prevented me from updating the blog last night. So now I am composing this post as we drive along the Indiana toll road, which, as we learned yesterday from our Grandma Caryer, is owned by “some foreign country” (Spain and Australia).

Woo Doggies, let me tell you about yesterday! We woke up and ate breakfast with Grandma and Grandpa Bergman. After breakfast I was sitting chatting with them when Grandma saw a car drive into the driveway and Grandpa said, “Oh, you're in luck. You get to meet our local celebrity.” A few minutes later, in walked legendary major league baseball pitcher, Ned Garver. Ned went to high school with Grandpa and they have been good friends for a very long time. Ruth and I had a great time sitting and listening to Ned telling some very entertaining stories, interjected by exclamations of “woo doggies!” and “son of a biscuit.” We wished that our brother Philip had been there to hear Ned talk about the “golden age of baseball” (which he joked was not a great name for the time, since ball players in those days got payed far less than the millions they make today). We realized too late that we should have taken advantage of being in the presence of baseball history and gotten our picture taken with Ned, but we were too starstruck to think of it at the time. You will just have to take us at our word. His advice to us on our concert: “Same thing I always told myself before a game. Just hope they don't boo you.”

After our delightful visit with Mr. Garver, we headed down the road to Grandma Caryer's for lunch. Over a huge bowl of fresh fruit salad, she told us about how they have gotten so little rain in northwestern Ohio that her garden is getting all dryed up. All the grass in the area is brown and dying as well. I told her that rain usually follows me wherever I go, so hopefully they would get some rain while I was there...

We were feeling the effects of our 12 hour drive from the day before, so we stopped at Biggby's coffee shop next to the Defiance college campus to grab a pick-me-up. The girl that was working there was really excited to hear that we were from out of town and was interested in our concert and why we had decided to perform in Defiance. We enjoyed our chat with her and I recommend a drink called the Sugar Bear, which is also a favorite of the coffee shop girl.

From there, we headed a few more blocks down the road to the Stoede Center, which was easy to find because the sign in front had our names displayed on it!



It's a very nice small performance space in a converted old church. It has stained glass windows, a large wooden stage, and professional lighting, not to mention the pews with 70's orange cushions that match Ruth's new violin case and my canvas bookbag (as well as my awesome aviator sunglasses that I thought about wearing for the performance). We were greeted by our uncle Lynn who was our main agent on the ground in Defiance, and by Curt Aldrich the tech manager of the space. Curt and Lynn were great and made sure that we had everything that we needed for the performance. Then we got to try out the space and stretch our car-wearied string playing muscles.

Back to Grandma and Grandpa Bergman's for dinner, and then immediately back to the Stroede center for the performance. I wore my sparkle shoes, but Grandpa was disappointed that Ruth didn't have her silver sparkly shoes on.

We arrived early and started warming up in the space but then found that our audience was trying to bang down the door at 7:03 for the 7:30 performance. We hadn't realized that the door was still locked when we got there and were pleased that our audience was so excited that they showed up early. They were not so excited however since it was about 100 degrees outside. When Ruth started running to let them in she heard someone say, “look a little girl is coming to open the door for us.” After little Ruth let our audience in, we retired to our green room which had all of the amenities, including a coffee maker, mirrors, a bathroom, and a refrigerator with a magnet “to do list” instructing us on important procedures for our performance.



There may have also been some pre-performance green room shenanigans.



We had a great turn out for our performance thanks in part to our supportive family members who showed up and brought friends and to Lynn for giving us great press in the local papers. Our great aunt Gloria even brought a bus full of people from her retirement home. We had a great time performing in that space for such a loving and attentive audience. Everyone responded very positively (and I don't think it was just because some of them were related to us.) And Ned Garver would be pleased to hear that no one booed us.

(Here we are with some of our audience members--Grandpa Bergman, Gloria, 
Grandma Bergman, and Grandma Caryer)

On our drive back to Grandma and Grandpa's there was a storm a-brewin' on the horizon. The wind was picking up and the air was heavy with the promise of rain. The sky lit up with great bolts of lightening. Animals were running for cover. Suddenly, a small skunk ran across the road in front of our car. With little warning, I was unable to swerve out of the way. We think that the poor creature met it's end that night. We will dedicate the slow rag to the memory of said skunk at our performance on Thursday night.

We arrived at Grandma and Grandpa's house before they did because they had to take aunt Gloria home. The house was dark. Rain had started and the wind was blowing with more vigor. Branches were flying through the sky. I checked the front door to see if it was unlocked. It wasn't. As I started to walk to the side door to check it I mentioned to Ruth that the scene was the makings of a horror movie. We returned to the car for shelter as we waited for our grandparents to arrive home. As we waited, the sky opened up. It was as Ruth says, “crazy town.” Grandma and Grandpa drove up not too much later and we made a run for it into the house, but still got drenched by the torrential downpour. As I was helping Grandma serve up some cake and ice cream for our post-performance treat, the house suddenly went dark. We were formulating a plan to find a flashlight when Ruth appeared from upstairs with the light from her cell phone to guide our way. We ended up having an elegant candle-lit dessert.



As has been foretold, I brought rain to the dry lands of Ohio. I'm glad that the rain brought some relief from the dry spell but I think the storm that followed me went a little overboard this time. After Ruth and I went upstairs to get ready for bed, the mayor of Ney (who also happens to be our uncle Tom) came around to check on everyone to make sure they were ok.

My crazy sister Ruth got a little carried away with the talk of horror movies and was sure that upon entering her room with a dimly lit candle she would find a dead guy slumped in a rocking chair, lit up by a lightening strike. The dead guy would look like this:



We also made some creepy ghost faces with the candles that look like this:





As you have read, this unexpected power outage was the reason that I could not update the blog last night as previously promised. There will be another post later about the happenings of today.

2 comments:

  1. I will add that the old church you performed in also is the one your uncle Denny was first married in and I played the piano there many times in high school. Bring the rain with you to Iowa please.

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  2. Grandma told us that Denny got married there, didn't know that you played piano there. So far the rain has followed us to Wisconsin, so hopefully we'll bring it to Iowa as well!

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