Breaking for Thanksgiving

Sorry for the long delay.

Several things are to blame.

First, I have a lot of knitting to do, seeing as we are approaching Christmas.

Secondly, the airline I work for, which uses a massive amount of computers, is planning a change to the program that we use to make and keep reservations. I think they said 66 other programs tie into this main program. Everybody (thousands) is having to learn how to use the new system, and much work is having to be done to ensure that when the cutover happens (Jan 29, 2010) it will be as smooth as possible. I have this fear living in the pit of my stomach that something terrible will happen: a huge snowstorm in New York on the day of cutover, marketing will forget and have a sale, we'll all forget how to use it (even though we are being continually--daily--retrained on it), some essential part of the adjoining systems will fail to connect, . . . I don't know. Something!

Third, Small Son was discovered to have a tumor in the upper part of his left femur, and much time has been spent going to doctors and hospitals and arranging schedules, etc. The surgery went well (Oct 22) and he has been on crutches since then. It's amazing how much extra time a person on crutches will take to get anywhere, even though this person now walks faster than I do on a straight stretch!

Fourth, since Ventura, nothing much has happened to my piping world.

Here are the things that have happened:

Band elections were held. Jason got unanimously re-elected as Pipe Major. Bj got re-elected as Chief Drummer Dude (I think he's called Drum Sargent, but I've been known to be wrong). Pete is still Treasurer. Laura got elected as Party Animal. Jack is now Fundraiser. Erin is Secretary, a set of duties which she has been performing for a long time without a title.

Sean has left the band to pursue other interests. He's still teaching, though. Triona did not officially announce it, but she has a job that requires her attention on Wednesday night, so she won't be at practices. She is, for all intents and purposes, out of commission. Tyler got engaged. Aaron grew a beard. Sort of. BJ got a divorce. A new piper came from Canada to join. His name is Robert and he is tall and speaks fluent French. He's been piping since he was 16, even with Canadian military pipe bands. He's pretty good.

It's a different set of faces around the circle from what was there 5 years ago. Some people are the same: Sande, Pete, Jack, Jason, BJ, Erin, Ryan, Ian, Grant, Aaron, Dennis . . . The new people are all wonderful. I miss the ones who have moved on.

Our website is up and working. Try this link: Salt Lake Scots There are band tunes and everything on the community portion of the site. All I can say is: It's about time. Finally. What took you so long (5 years)?

WUSPBA had their general meeting, and we learned that there is going to be a World's competition in Las Vegas in April 2011. Jason decided to keep us as Grade IV through next year (2010) to try and qualify for that competition. This means that in 2011 when we were planning on upgrading to Grade III, we'll still be Grade IV, hopefully competing in the LAS World's.

Band Party in January. Laura will be planning it. Maybe bowling.

My lip is sore from practice on Wednesday. We are working on blowing/squeezing.

Some things never change.

Seaside Highland Games

(I just found this un-posted. I must have been waiting for pictures. I'm gonna post it anyway, and add pictures later. Sorry for the delay.)

Friday, October 9

In Transit, Salt Lake City to Long Beach, CA to Ventura, CA

I arrived at the airport early, but not as early as Andrew and Jessi who were waiting at the gate area for the rest of us. Sande showed up shortly afterwards, followed by Pete and Trenda, Liz and Ben, our Ben, Sean, BJ, Tyler, Teagan, Paddy, Aaron, Erin, Triona and Dan. Our Fearless Leader, who had advised us to be at the airport early, showed up less than one hour before flight departure. Transportation difficulties. But we all got there in time.

Much conversation and joking went on while waiting, boarding, flying, deplaning, baggage claim, and heading for the rental cars. Another passenger was taller than Aaron (6'9"), which was a favorite subject of conversation. Instead of Dan, Sande and I being in one car, and Aaron, Sean and Teagan being in another, Enterprise gave us a 7 passenger van which we shared among the 6 of us. Dan and Aaron were Designated Drivers. Our 6 garment bags, 5 pipe cases and 6 backpacks did all fit into the cargo area, but only just and only with Aaron's expert packing skills.

The drive to Ventura (87 miles north) took several hours due to typical California traffic. We gave it up about 8:30 pm and stopped at an ihop for dinner, which made us feel better and allowed the traffic to clear out. We had some language/communication difficulties in ordering and paying. My scramble ended up with peppers, but I was so hungry I ate it anyway. The coupons HH had pressed on me before leaving came in handy, too, and saved us a bundle.

Our hotel was gorgeous! Each bed had a duvet and FOUR pillows! I remember vaguely calling home to let them know I had arrived, putting my pipes together so that they could acclimatize and falling into bed, asleep in an instant. Sande and I shared a room, as before in Jackson, WY.


Saturday, October 10

Ventura, CA

Saturday dawned gray and 50F. Sande graciously woke up at oh-Dark-hundred hours Saturday morning and went with me in search of breakfast. We were told specifically that the breakfast bar was free, but as we were walking back to our room full of scrambled eggs, orange juice and sausage, a Person in a sous-chef jacket ran after us and requested our room number, and the breakfast was charged to Sande's card, anyway. Dirty rotten ratchafratch! But oh well. It was going to be one heck of a day, and it really needed to start with a good breakfast. I gave Sande $17 for my part.

At the front desk, I woke up first Pete and then Sean, calling to try to find us a ride to the Ventura County Fairgrounds, about 1.5 miles away. In the end, Dan dropped Andrew, Sande and I off. It was a mostly concrete venue with 4 or 5 quonset huts here and there. Little collections of sleeping mobile homes leaned up against the fences. Very little life was evident. We did see Aaron Shaw striding this way and that while we tried to get our Gale chanters and drones in tune with one another. Andrew gave up and switched to McCallum, so I did, too. Sande-fine tuned my drones and I started warming up my mind and fingers.

My march solo competition was scheduled for 0835, with the slow air at 0840. I was just hoping I could make all the notes sound; I was having real trouble with pressure. After all the work I put into Captatin Norman Orr-Ewing and the throws on D . . . I reverted back to my original faults and crushed every single throw. My slow aire was nothing to speak of, but I got all the notes right.

About that time, Dennis showed up with the van, tents and chairs, and pretty soon we had our little Salt Lake Scots home of tents and lawn chairs. The tables were quickly covered with pipes and drums as other band members arrived. Then the piping began.


Opening exercises were to be in an incredibly small space for the amount of bands and spectators. We were paired up with a band from Westminster, CA. It took awhile to decide on a tune we both knew, but we finally settled on Mari's Wedding, and agreed to play that together while we marched around the tight circle. Just before we started off, I remarked to Triona that I hoped we weren't going to have to play Mari's 12 times, like we played Scotland the Brave at one Salt Lake games during fireworks.


It turned out to be only 6 times.


Then we went back to warming up.


We seemed to be pretty focused. Everybody was in time and in tune and on the right note. People put their Gale chanters back in (McCallums for massed bands) and tuned their drones pretty much by themselves--even me! to lighten Jason's tuning load. Very little major tuning by Jason and Sean went on. Only fine-tuning. Jason kept us playing a tune, resting and playing another tune, etc., so we were pretty much stuck there behind the quonset hut waiting all morning for the next call to play to keep the pipes in tune. We were on at 2:10.


Traditionally, a band going in to compete forms up into a block, pipers in front and drummers in back, and plays a tune on the march. When the tune is over, one just keeps marching while the lead snare drum taps every left footfall. Everybody tries to make this a positive thing. "Have fun," and all that. I, however, always feel like we are marching to the block to have our heads chopped off. I've watched too many French Revolution movies, I guess. At 2:05 we played Minstrel Boy and marched around the quonset hut, across the parking lot, and up to the line between two smallish bleachers. (Talk about lush vegitation and beautiful scenery! NOT!) Last minute pep talk from Jason, and we struck in.


This was our timed medley, which includes 2 marches, a strathspey, a reel and a slow aire. We played very well. I heard some rushing in the reel, but for some reason Jason either didn't hear it or didn't mention it. In 4 minutes were were done, and marched out.


After that we had to hang around until closing ceremonies--pretty much the same as opening, except there was massed bands. Two things of interest: one of the drum majors couldn't have been more than 10 years old, but he had his moves down EXACTLY! Another pipe major had to have been at least 80 and could barely stand up straight. His band was pretty much the same age. I was amazed they were still playing, but hey! good on them! We did not get any awards, but then neither did the Grade IV LA Scots.


Then Sande and I went back to the hotel, changed and walked across the street to an In-And-Out Burger for dinner. I was seriously considering just passing on dinner, but figured I needed sustenance. Dan and his brother Andy were there, and we had some conversation with them, but not very much. We were all too tired. Back at the hotel, we met Teagan just returning. He had been left behind at the games and had to find his own ride back. We were shocked that we had abandoned the only jeuvenile in our group! Upon comparison of notes, we realized that the van driver had been told Teagan was going back with one of the cars, and the car people had been told he was going back in the van.


Back in room 3079, Sande found Kung Fu Panda on TV and we started to watch it but I fell asleep so fast I don't even remember getting fuzzy. One minute I was awake, the next I was waking up at 2230 to the sound of other band members in the hallway returning from a beach volleyball party. I changed into pj's and went back to bed and slept until 0730 Sunday morning.



Sunday, 11 October

Ventura and transit

Sunday dawned gray and about 55F, same as Saturday. I slept in until about 7:30. I got my uniform back on and packed while Sande waited. We had breakfast across the street at Denny's. Back at the hotel, Sande packed and I waited. We then located Dan and Aaron, who decided to go over to the games with us, so we waited while THEY packed. We made sure Teagan had a ride, and that the ride knew they had him. Don't forget Teagan! After a quick stop at a 7-11 or similar, we arrived at the games and warming up began almost immediately. Opening Ceremonies this day was a parade down the street, about 3 or 4 blocks long. Instead of having to play Mari's Wedding over and over with the Westminster band, we got to play any tune or set we wanted. Parade stuff is old hat to us, so when our turn came, we started in.

Mickey, a female drum major from California with a voice of thunder, was our drum major. Must have been a requirement: You must have a drum major to participate in the Opening Exercises. She is a familiar face, having done workshops in Salt Lake for us. Drum Majors have all sorts of acoutrements: a big metal stick with a blob on one end, sometimes a hat with black ostrich feathers, a tartan sash, spats . . . Mickey was throwing her stick (called a mace, I think) around before we stepped off, and I wondered to myself if she ever dropped it. I had never seen her drop it, but maybe when she was just starting out drum majoring . . . We stepped off, and Mickey tossed and twirled the mace, and suddenly . . . she dropped it. The whole band was only about 10 feet behind her. She bent to pick it up, missed her grip, and had to try again. By this time we were almost on top of her. She looked back, and I saw a gleam of panic in her eyes.

The good news is we didn't run over her, and she didn't drop the mace again. Good thing, too, because the bass drummer would not have been able to see her and it would have been a mess.

We were on at 2:10 again Sunday. The difference was that Jason decided to use McCallum chanters instead of the lower Gales today. Well, OK. Whatever. McCallum chanters sound harsh and shrill in the high desert air of Salt Lake, but 100 yards from the ocean they sounded beautiful.

Same drill as the day before. This time, we played our march set, which is a collection of 4 marches, some slower than others. We have been playing this set since before I joined the band, and it is getting rather old even with changing the last tune. We do it well, however, so we did it well again and marched out.

Some of us had to be back in Salt Lake for work or whatever, so we changed, packed up the van and headed south for the Long Beach airport. We made sure we did not forget Teagan. (He was probably chafing at all the attention by this time.) As we were driving along, Sande and I compared notes and realized . . . she was booked to return on Tuesday!! And no names changes less than 24 hours before flight departure! Aaaaaagh! When we stopped for lunch (or perhaps it was dinner), I talked to jetBlue for about 30 minutes and finally Deb Watson said she would change the name of Joel Fairbrother (who didn't leave Salt Lake at all but was still scheduled to return on Sunday) for Sande's name, no fee. I was very worried, standing in the bushes as far away from the traffic as possible so I could hear, and waiting on hold for her decision. I have to bring her food every day and paint her house for her, if she loses her job because of this. Sande said she would help with the painting, too.

After that we had no more problems. We did NOT forget Teagan. It was our battle cry all Sunday. And Dave, his dad, was waiting to pick him up at the airport when we arrived.

Good things:

We did not mess up; we did not appear stupid; no bags were lost; everybody arrived in California and then Salt Lake safely and on time; our hotel was lovely; we got 4th in both events, even though they did not give out 4th place awards; it did not rain.

We did NOT lose Teagan

All in all, it was a very good weekend.

Body Language

It's funny how a gesture in the regular world can mean one thing, while the same gesture in the piping world can be something totally different.

I went to a doctor appointment with Small Son today. The doctor bustled in after an interminable wait, greeted me, and held out his hand. This, of course, was part of the greeting, so I held out my hand and shook his. This was the appropriate response, and the meeting went on. It was a rather worrisome meeting, so it was on my mind for some time after that.

Several hours later at band practice, I was tootling away, warming up my pipes but still thinking about the doctor's appointment. Pipe Major Jason approached me and held out his hand. I held out my hand, as before.

But this wasn't a greeting.

I forgot I was now in a subculture where there is a different body language. There aren't usually any greetings at band practice. Maybe a nod of acknowledgement that, "Oh, I see you showed up to practice this week." A mental 'checking you off' on the list of members. That kind of thing. I guess we consider this new practice session as not 'new' at all, but a continuation of last week.

In the pipe band world, when a pipe major holds out his hand to you, it means your chanter is out of tune and he wants you to give it to him so he can tune it.

Jason laughed and shook my hand anyway.

Then he took my chanter and tuned it.

Sheepdog Trials 2009

I love the Sheepdog Trials.

I think I said this last year. There are dogs, wool, sheep, and a motley collection of other animals, and piping, and it's mostly not full band so the atmosphere is laid back.

This year was no exception.

On Friday I showed up late and Sean and Pete were all tuned up and piping away, with Erin on snare. Sean's girlfriend Jen, and Pete's wife Trenda, were roaming around looking at things and came and joined us during breaks. A good time was had by all. I piped 3 hours and my lip was only a smidgin swollen.

Saturday's schedule had me down for 3 hours. I was first on the scene. Jack and Dan showed up nearly half an hour later, along with Jessi on snare. Erin got caught in traffic and was very late. It was chilly, but Jack and I managed to get us all tuned sufficiently well so that we didn't "skirl". It was definitely a fall day, with overcast skies and a bit of a breeze, but the mountain shortly woke up to the fact that it was only 5 September and life could still be warm and buzzy, and so it was, with the buzzy bit supplied by a miriad of grasshoppers. This put our drones out of tune terribly.

Jack and I managed to get our drones and chanters pretty much in sync, but no matter what we did to Dan's, he sounded terrible. We messed around with tape and reeds and hemp for an hour, neither one of us sure of what to do, Erin and Jessi standing patiently by, but ended up with only frustration and discord. We gained a deeper appreciation of Jason, Sean and Tyler who do this all the time.

Grant showed up, undid what we had just done to Dan's pipes, and we achieved a modicum of harmony until Dan left a few minutes later. Grant, Erin, Jessi and I played til 1300 when I was supposed to be off, but that would have left Grant a solo piper with TWO drummers, so I stayed the additional hour (for a total of 4).

The other problem Saturday was that none of us original three were really experienced in pipe-majoring. We asked Erin to do it, and she tried for one tune, but with that heavy snare on her knee, keeping time with her foot was a superhuman effort. We couldn't see her foot, anyway. So I suggested each of us pipers take it in turn to pipe-major. It really wouldn't matter if we made any mistakes. Who would know except us? What happens at the Sheepdog Trials, stays at the Sheepdog Trials. Right? The motion was seconded and passed, and we spent our 4 hours gaining a deeper appreciation for Jason, Sean and Tyler who do this all the time.

My lip was a teensy bit more swollen, but not enough to whine about--or even mention.

Monday . . . have you ever heard of the Miner's Day Parade? I hadn't, and I was raised in a mining town! Park City has a Miner's Day parade on Labor Day, and we marched in it. It was pretty much like the Fourth of July parade, except that Red-haired Daughter and Small Son held a banner for a bunch of kilted crazy people, men and women and . . . um. . . Well, anyway, they were relatively well-mannered. The band played tunes, and I only really messed up when Jason, behind whom I was marching, called out Minstrel Boy and I and Dan and Karen started Green Hills.

When playing, it makes things go much smoother if you can focus on one stationary thing. Watching the people go by or what's happening outside the circle just makes you forget where you (read: me) are in the tune or set and mess up. When marching in a block down the street, there really is only one stationary thing, and that is the bum of the person right ahead of you. I was marching and focusing and playing really well, when I realized what I was focusing on: Jason's . . . um. . . kilt. I mentally squawked and focused on his feet instead, which helped me keep time, were more appropriate, but were not necessarily stationary.

And I promptly played the wrong tune, see above. You just can't win.

Then came the fun part, where HH and the kids and I did lunch things: waiting in lines for ice cream and gas, etc.

In fact, it was mostly waiting for the rest of the day.

We were required by the Sheepdog people to arrive at the chalet at 1400. I was late, getting there about 1410. I caught a gleam of reflected light moving toward the door, and guessed it was Jason or Jack, BJ being in California. It was Jason, the sunlight glinting off his bald head, Brenda at his side. We finally located them in the basement of the chalet, masquerading during the week as a kindergarten. The rest of the band trickled in by ones and twos, sunburned and laughing, some smelling of wet dog. We warmed up and tuned up and were ready to go at 1500, at which point Ian got a call from the Radio Guy who said they had more dogs to run, it'd be another hour. We got a 30 minute rest time, during which Small Son and I watched the Spash dogs jump into the water, and we scouted out the road down to the rest of the trials. At 1600, the call came in that there were still two dogs to run, so it would be another 30-60 minutes. We tuned and warmed some more; I got a new reed, and got my new reed adjusted. At 1700, the word was that the last dog had been running for 24 minutes, and that as soon as the trucks arrived, we should load up and go. Ten tense minutes passed before the radio crackled into life again, and we moved out.

The pickup truck beds had been ameliorated by little chairs from the kindergarten room, or in my case, a cooler. Jack sat on one tailgate. As we moved around corners and up hills, the chairs moved treacherously from side to side and front to back. I was sure we were all going to sweep Jack off the tailgate and land in a pile of broken drones and broken bones (broken drones being the more disastrous: broken bones heal). But we didn't. We arrived at a windswept hilltop wherein ensued a series of game plans that lasted at most 3.27 minutes.

We had three routes to choose from: a) a long paved road to the left, b) a middle length sidewalk, looking kinda ratty as it turned the corner, and c) an area of cut weeds that swept away down the hill to our right. Jason vetoed the cut grass out of hand: the drummers would not be able to see to pick their way around holes, bumps, etc. Jack ran down and checked out the sidewalk, and said it looked the clear as far as he could tell. Finally we got the signal to go. We struck up and started down this 20% grade and took the middle sidewalk. When we got to the curve and turned, our way was suddenly blocked by bushes and weeds. What to do? We were in the middle of a set!! The fence to our right was broken, so we turned and marched through it and the weeds and the burrs and the holes and the sheep poo and the ditches and the hills, curved around the line of colored flags which put us directly into a flock of sheep, with some dogs keeping them in line. The sheep weren't too happy about 10 pipers suddenly walking into their peaceful meadow playing like 40 elephants. Neither were the dogs, but they had their job to do, and they did it, keeping the sheep right in our way.

After that it was easy. Third and second place went to a fellow from South Africa, one for one dog and one for the other. First place went to a chap from Scotland, luckily, because we were supposed to play a national anthem, and we don't even know the Star Spangled Banner--if it can even be played on pipes--to say nothing of the South African anthem!

But Scotland the Brave we know! We played it for the gentleman and his dog, turned up the hill and onto the bridge where we tootled a couple of sets and called it a very long day.

Modern Technology and Ancient Curses

I wanted to get a new iPod (since my daughter uses mine all the time), one that I could watch movies on since I get so little time to watch a movie of my choice on the family TV.

"Get an iTouch," my husband said. "You can watch movies on that, plus you'll get internet access and tunes and lots of other things, and they don't cost very much more."

So I did.

I've had it now for about 2 weeks, and I love it, but I haven't watched a movie on it yet. What I love most about it is Kindle. This is a program, or application, or "app", that puts a printed book into your iTouch so you can read it anywhere or anytime you want . . . even in the dark! It's not bulky, the pages and cover don't get dog-earred, it marks your place, and it doesn't read the book to you (not that listening to a book is a bad thing, just that I like reading it myself best). Some of my favorite books cost nothing to download.

My second favorite thing is lists. I can make as many lists as I want and they are always with me, I don't forget them at home on the fridge or lose them. I have a list for tunes I want to learn, another for knitting projects in the foreseeable future, one for nicknames of my Scouts, one of books I want to read, birthday and Christmas lists, the JetBlue planes I've flown on, shopping lists, to-do lists . . .

Then, there is the contact app. Everybody's address, email, phones, notes all in one easily-portable little thing.

Finally, I got a password app. It holds all my log-in's and passwords, but it's password protected itself.

Of course, if there's wi-fi, I can access my email and anyplace on the 'net.

It's been a lot of fun.


The Odd-Year, End of August Curse

I know I've talked about this curse before: how every odd year at the end of August something terrible happens to our family--usually involving broken bones. This August I was pretty nervous about something happening to Daughter #1 who is serving a mission in South Korea (see http://roseegoestokorea.blogspot.com). Rushing to her hospital bedside in Korea was going to be long, expensive, and involve a passport. We've been praying for everybody's safety. She's been worried about something happening to one of us, here. So much so that she sent me a real 4-leafed clover necklace that I have been wearing since Mother's Day in the hopes that it would help.

Well, it's September 1, 2009. We are all intact. Of course, anything could happen any time. I'd knock on wood if there was any here; I don't think knocking on electrons has the same effect. But I'm happy and grateful we made it through August. Very happy.

I think it's this house, actually. We have a couch that puts people to sleep in record time, even people who are insomniacs. We have a bedroom that makes you curl up and read a book. These things never happened when we lived in Minnesota. I can't imagine there is a magical person out there with a vendetta against us. We don't know any people with magical powers.

Just magical people.

Being Asked

I know I put meaning into everything--meaning that might not actually be there. But it makes life more (safely) exciting and makes one feel more important than one really is.

We just came back from a cut-short 25th anniversary trip to Quebec (long, sad story: a short, good time was had) where I had little or no cell phone service, to find a voicemail message from Aaron asking if I could help with a gig that started 30 minutes earlier. Of course I couldn't play, but it was nice being asked.

I hope I wasn't the last person on the list.

(I won't even go there.)

I haven't picked up pipes in a WEEK! My blowpipe valve is gonna be SO stuck. To make things worse, we received a DVD from Piper Pat, my bigger little brother, showing him practicing on small pipes or somesuchthing while on his tour of England, Scotland and Ireland last month. Must be nice to have money to just blow on things, including DVDs sent out to the whole family and large suitecases. Hopefully, I'm a better person because of it.

Eccles' Gig

Small Son, Teancum, has a nickname in the band--even though he is not in the band. I happened to mention to Sean, his instructor, in the hearing of other band members, how many 5-minute practices he was squeezing into a day, 5 minutes being the maximum practice time he was allowed on pipes per day. They inmediately nicknamed him "the Teancanator", and were working on a series of grace notes similar to a tachum that they would call a "teancum". They were having a very good time inventing. Teancum's eyes got bigger and bigger as I related all this to him later on in the evening, and he practiced doubly hard the next day.

* * *

We had a big, big windstorm (not a tornado, just straight-line winds) rip through here three days ago (that would be Thursday). You couldn't see the mountains AT ALL for all the dust and smoke that was in the air. Everything dried out in a flash and brush fires started all around the airport and some other places. My brother Tom said he was up on top of th East Ridge outside Butte, Montana with my sister, Erin, and her fiance, Tim, and saw it roll in. He said it was like some monstrous, roiling brown thing attacking the city, containing hailstones the size of golf balls. It was that big that it covered at least the distance from Salt Lake to Butte. It blew pretty much all night and by morning it was apparent I was allergic to something in the dust, because my eyes were red, swollen and itchy, my nose ran constantly and I was sneezing. I hope this makes me sound miserable, because I was miserable.. I'm only now getting over it, even with meds.

Friday night, in this non-breathing condition, we had to go up to the Eccles'* family home on the benches and play a gig for the 75th birthday of Spencer Eccles, which family gave us a grant that procured us our tartan and kilts oodles of years ago . . . so long ago, in fact, that when Ian mentioned this factoid to the Eccles gathered there, everybody was surprised to learn it. Spencer came over and shook everybody's hand and thanked us for remembering their family and said he was glad they had a connection to the Salt Lake Scots. He was having a good time. And no wonder, in a place like that. It was right in a neighborhood, but it was surrounded with so many scrub oak hedges and oak trees and pine trees, that it was a place apart. No outside sounds got in, nor people neither. It looked like Groundskeeper Willie had been hard at work everywhere for the place looked beautiful. The catering staff hovered, the valets parked cars quietly and efficiently, and the whole (extended) family was dressed in carefree smiles and their Sunday best. Spencer Eccles Jr (or possible III) casually and with a worn green felt-tip marker, wrote us out a check for $350** without even checking his balance or doing the math--although he made jokes about the check not clearing.

I don't think that will be a problem.

Our band has other connections to this family, too. Dave served a mission with one of the son-in-laws in Montreal, QC; Sande had scoped out the joint for fire vehicle access when the fire danger got high and knew the key family members and the lay of the land. Good thing, too, because even with the grandchildren guiding us, it was a torturous path we had to follow to get past the tennis courts, down the hill, around the antique automobiles, and through the dining pavillion to our places on the flagstone terrace.

I went home and blew my nose.




*Eccles family: an old and rather well-to-do banking family from this area who has put their name on half the buildings on the UofU campus, and many other buildings in the valley besides.

** Let's see: $350 for 10 minutes work. $350 x 6 = . . . $2100 per hour!