SUMMER 2003 NEWSLETTER
(Covering the period from late June through August)


So, last you knew we were in South Carolina, right? Yeah, well for your information we're not anymore, okay? If you're at all interested, I can fill you in on where we've been since then. If you're not at all interested, maybe you should think about your priorities.


Wow. Suddenly I became a person with a tone problem. Sorry.


And now on to the adventure . . .

"Youch!"

Michael and I both flew to New York and drove on up to Connecticut. Before the concert in Trumball, we visited with the hosting youth group and enjoyed a meal of hotdogs and salads. During the concert, I wondered at the rug they had placed under my feet. Didn't sound like such a good idea to me. However, I soon realized that my pedal was covering up the "c," and it was actually a drummer's carpet of some sort. Following the concert, we drove to stay with our friends the Vetranos (as in Famous Actor Justin Vetrano) out on Long Island. The next morning, I drove in to Queens and finally had the opportunity to hear my brother preach at his parish. Even though he's only been ordained for 10 years now, I thought it was getting to be about time.


Speaking of time, I must now go back in time to my drive home from Columbia. (This switching back and forth in the narrative will be helpful training if you're planning to try and follow those Lord Of The Rings movies.) My van drive home from Columbia was lengthened by two extra days by two separate van breakdowns by misfortune. The first was in rural North Carolina. (Yes, exactly.) The second was not much better, as it was about 11pm in southeast Ohio. Eventually, I made it home. Michael and I tried to use the van to drive down to our next event, but it failed us yet again. (The local van fixers determined that the replacement part needed replacing.) So, Michael and I borrowed my family's ancient minivan with no air conditioning and drove south into the 95-degree heat of Kentucky. Fortunately, we were on our way to play a very happy event at Kentucky Christian College, where we were warmly welcomed into the cool A.C. While driving through the town of Grayson, where the college is, we realized that the locals had apparently run out of capital L's by the time they built the mall. I guess there are only so many upper case letters to go around, you know. On the other hand, it's possible that this place is simply the second location where Master's Degrees are offered. You know, sort of a satellite university. Anyway, we drove back to my home, and Michael flew to Los Angeles.

"I don't know how to land!"

On July 3rd, our family hosted the obligatory fireworks party at our house. We bought a new house last fall, and since the local fireworks display is visible from the backyard, the house came with a requirement to have a party. (Not a "dealbreaker" at closing, huh? That's better than a requirement to clean the gutters in my opinion.) Following the soiree, Pete flew to our house for one last drive of the van. (That's a bit of foreshadowing that will make sense later. For now, the phrase "one last drive" adds drama and mystique, something missing in many a band's newsletter.) Pete picked up the van, and headed for Atlanta, where he met Michael, while my family and I marveled at a near-crash landing in our backyard. Fortunately, no one was injured, but I get the sense that somebody was doing their impersonation of the Wizard's exit from the Emerald City.


Next day, Pete and Michael and I all joined forces in Atlanta to begin a two week stay. We were there for the ELCA National Youth Gathering, which has grown so large that it has been split into two consecutive weeks and hosts an average of 20,000 young people each week. (20,000 X 2 = a whole bunch . . .in layman's terms, that's more people than have entered the California Governor's race!) We had tons of fun during our two weeks in Atlanta, though the second week did have that kind of a creepy feeling that we'd done this all before. Not really deja vu I guess, since we really HAD done all this before just seven days ago.

Rachel Kurtz Wonderful Magical Grandson Solid Gold!

On the first night in the Georgiadome, we got to play a few songs and (get this) shared a dressing room with the Bishop! I was able to get Michael's photo with him. Though Michael wears the type of clothes he has on in that picture, the Bishop generally wears a collar under his motorcycle regalia. Among the other highlights were getting to hear our friend Rachel Kurtz (www.rachelzurtz.com) several times during our nightly hotel sets, meeting the grandson's of the inventor of the slinky, and hanging out with Elijah, the wearer of gold lame' suits. As I say, we had lots of fun and then traveled on to South Carolina.


Charleston, to be exact. We were invited once more to play some songs for the chaplains of the United States Air Force. We were warmly welcomed and had lots of fun. We also got to play a brief set for the grade school chaplains (i.e. their children), which was nearly funner. Once we got the hang of military time, we understood the schedule a little bit better. It's not every day that a gig in church starts at 1930 hours, right? Even more confusing try the subtraction to figure out how long that gig goes if it is to end at 2100 hours. If you're like me, you're probably guessing about 170 hours, or nearly seven and a half days! Fortunately, I was way off on this one.

God of Thunder!

From there, we drove over to Knoxville, site of many a great gathering, including the one we were about to play, the Covenant High in Christ gathering. Wow. This was fun. Because of the retro-looking lighting, before our soundcheck, Michael got to look like he played in KISS, which was a childhood dream of his. We played an evening concert in an auditorium and some folks dressed up in their finest for the occasion. Since that concert was bit crowded and not everyone could get in, we played a couple nights later outside, which looked really cool. Though I wouldn't have wanted to be studying in that dorm room behind us. We also got to hear a really fun band during the day. I think they were called "Frog and Toad Togethers' Friends," though I apologize if I have that wrong. Some of the funnest music I've heard in a long time.


From the amazing CHIC gathering, we went to the amazing IYC gathering in Fort Collins, Colorado. As with the several times they've allowed us to play in the past, IYC was a total blast for us. (And there wasn't even a life-threatening flood this time.) A couple fellows dressed up like some band they'd seen. And some young ladies made descriptive shirts, including the honest one in the black shirt. As always, we loved being with these folks, and were sad when it was over.


However, we then headed south to Denver, and Michael and I saw A Mighty Wind, which made us laugh a lot. Then we went to a marvelous bookstore and bought books (of all things). The next evening, we played in Colorado Springs where we had a fine showing for a fine time. The next morning we flew home. Or, Michael did. I flew to Buffalo for my family's annual vacation on Lake Ontario. Threw a lot of horseshoes and (Canadian Prime Ministers take note) there was not a cloud in the sky when lightning supposedly struck the power plant in Niagara Falls. During the scary power outage, we happened to be visiting my parents in their RV, and with their generator humming noisily, we watched TV reports about how we had no power. Whatever, right?


From there, I finally returned home with my family and then Michael and I drove to the limestone capital of the world. For those of you who don't know your limestone, that'd be Bedford, Indiana. Everything here is made of limestone. A brief for instance, the McDonald's symbol in the drive through is carved out of a piece of limestone. (Enough limestone to go around then.) I would've taken a picture of that sign, but my camera ran out of battery power an hour before our concert, which explains the odd pictures for Bedford in the Photo Phrenzy. Then we continued east to Ohio (the real culprit in that power outage thing.)

Pant, Pant!

Our next appearance was at the Jam With the Lamb festival in Greenfield, Ohio. Interesting features included a civil war submarine grill and a shelter made of duct tape. However, if you've ever seen that Twilight Zone episode where the sick child thinks the earth is heading toward the sun, you might have a sense of the view from the piano bench. My goodness but that was a hot place to sit. Occasionally, though, Michael would back up from his microphone and I was afforded a bit of respite. The next day, we drove down to Knoxville, where we played outdoors in the parking lot. A real fun venue. However, that pesky sun followed us down there, and it got a bit toasty. But the view was nice, and we had lots of fun.

Rule #1

From there, we got on crack-of-dawn flights (which is before that sun starts up its Easybake Oven action) and flew to Minneapolis (formerly the Metroplex). Troy met us and loaned us a car so that could drive four hours north to participate in Youth Encounter's annual Training Of The Teams. (They call it Team Training, but I think Training Of The Teams adds a bit of epic Scottish flair to the whole thing.) They'd invited us to offer a few songs and words of wisdom on the year ahead for the bands they send out. One piece of advice we could offer is, never assume that a camp piano will be in tune. We had a very interesting time with the teams, and offer that you might want to catch one when they're in your area. You can eventually find their schedules at www.youthencounter.org.


[Editor's Note: Here comes the foreshadowing's conclusion] When we drove back to Minneapolis, we met up with Pete, his wife Stacy, and Troy and we all went out for dinner. After five years by our side, Pete is leaving Team LOST AND FOUND to go back to school. Well, when I say "back to school" I mean to graduate school. He's already done with middle school and stuff. We will miss Pete and, if you knew him, you would too. We're not sure what Pete will do with his degree in Public Policy from the Humphrey School, but if I ever find myself mayor of a city full of democrats, I'm bringing him in to help me run the place.


And that brings us to the end of another lengthy newsletter. If you'd like to see the photos from where I took them, you can click on the Photo Phrenzy. If you wouldn't like to see them then, um, don't. Hope that all is well with you, and in the words of one young fellow from Knoxville:





george

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