A "No Way!" Day

After I finished my final Music Together Class on Friday, I was talking with the grandparents of one of my students who said they were heading home.

"Where is home?"  I asked.

"Ohio."

"No Way! I'm a Buckeye, too."

"No Way!  What town?" she asks.

"Pemberville."

"The one just south of Toledo?" Grandpa joins in.

"That's the one!"

"That's incredible!"

"Where in Toledo do you live?" I inquire.

"Over by Anthony Wayne High School."

"No Kidding?  One of my good friends, Kerry Patrick Clark, used to live just down the street from Anthony Wayne High School,"  I report.

"No Way!  Kerry Patrick Clark?  His wife, Amy, is my best friend!" she says in disbelief.

"No Way!  They just moved from there to Maumee," I mention.

"I know!  I spent three weeks helping them pack and move!"

"Bless you!  I know they appreciated your help," I exclaim.

Grandpa says, "I actually grew up in Perrysburg."

"Now I've got a small world story for you,"  I begin.  "I was hiking up to Chasm Lake at the foot of Long's Peak in Colorado."

The jaw of my student's mother goes slack as she says in disbelief, "No Way!  I'm from Colorado."

The in-laws chime in:  "From Fort Collins."

My turn:  "No Way!  I just moved from there this year, which high school did you attend?"

"Rocky Mountain," she replies.

"This is wild!" we all exclaim.

We all shake our heads in amazement and line up for a photo of the meeting.

Grandma messages the photo to Amy Clark (Kerry's wife) and as I am leaving the rec center gives me her report.

"I just sent the photo to Amy, and she wrote 'No Way! We love that guy!"

And that's the way it was that day!

Steve's Coast to Coast Summer Tour 2014

View my latest Newsletter here.

Steve's Coast to Coast Summer Tour 

May 25-July 24, 2014.  

Click here for the Schedule.

With stops in California, Colorado, Illinois, Ohio, Tennessee, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado and Michigan, Steve will be playing solo and teaching at week-end and week-long festivals and camps.  

He will also be performing with Vi Wickam as Fiddle Whamdiddle, and Erin and Amber Rogers as S.E.A (Steve, Erin and Amber).

S.E.A will also have California engagements in August.

Dulcimers, dulci-bro, banjammer and more will be coming to bring lively and thoughtful music to you.  

Come and join me!

Destination: Home! (Finale to the 30-Dulcimer-Filled Years Spring Tour)

TUESDAY, APRIL 27^th

Up before my alarm at 6 am.  Take my last compartment of daily vitamins, shower, gather up my remaining belongings and leave.  The singing and chirping birds sound so familiar and I realize…these are the same birds as we heard in the pre-dawn in our years in Kansas City!

Driving on the Cimarron Turnpike, then Kansas Turnpike—the familiar return from Winfield.  I talk with Karen Deal at the Walnut Valley office and Jim Pierce as I relive those memories.  

Stop for a chance to journal at the rest stop on I-135 just south of Lindsborg.  The steady west wind is a bit brisk and my fingers begin to get stiff from the chill.  Messages left for my college friend, Meck.  I decide to stop on Kansas Wesleyan Campus and drop in.  He is grading papers but sets them aside as we go to lunch at our second choice:  the student center.

Today I'm listening to Vince Papele’s book, “Invincible.”  Quite a powerful and compelling story.  The drive west does begin to get tiring and long.  My stops have broken it up nicely, but now I am feeling the pressure to finish the final tricky logistical steps with the precision of a finely-tuned Swiss watch.

At the start of this trip, I flew to the Baltimore airport and picked up the rental car that would carry me across the country.  A shuttle ride from Greenride took me from the Harmony Transfer Center to the Denver airport to begin the trip. 

After I left, my wife picked up my car from the Harmony center, so it wouldn’t sit there for 2 weeks.  Now I need to fill up the gas tank before arriving at the rental car drop off, then drop the rental car at Dollar (which has just been purchased by Hertz, while I’ve been on this trip), and catch the Dollar shuttle to the airport terminal, in order to catch the Green Ride Shuttle back to Fort Collins. 

This all works as planned.  I schlep all my gear and instruments into the terminal for a bathroom break, then schlep back out to Island 3 by Door 505 to sit and wait with a white-haired woman who is also waiting for Green Ride.

The shuttle arrives only a few minutes after the expected time, we load up and head north as the sky grows darker.  The woman beside me started her travels in Tampa. The couple in front of us are the winners, however.  They began their travels 24 hours ago—in Cairo, Egypt!

David Schnaufer and Butch Baldassari’s recording and Dan Fogelberg on my iPod accompany the final leg of the trip.  Two spots of road construction slow our progress, but we are finally delivered back to our destination.  

As we turn in, I can see the silhouette of my wife with our little black dachshund on his leash waiting patiently beside the silhouette of a man with his poodle-terrier on a leash.  It is good to be home, and great to be warmly welcomed!