Not Even Not Traveling 75: Canada - Front Porch Ruckus

Canada - Back to Queensborough

The next day, I built a shelf unit. 

Donna's house has books - a lot of them. In time, she will divest herself of many of the big hardbacks, I expect. It takes thought, though, to pare down a collection. First, Donna has to see them so she can think about them. When I finished the kit, I spun the standing shelf to verify everything worked. And I asked her where to put it, which turned out to be a corner of her master bedroom.

Then I resumed my part-time job of stacking the woodpile.

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The Front Porch Ruckus

In the afternoon, Donna took us to the "Front Porch Ruckus" music festival in downtown Tweed. Now, Tweed is a small place but it seems to be on the rebound. Its city council actively recruits people to visit and, for that matter, the town seems to be looking for new residents. You can move into Tweed; and you can be part of renovating the town; and it looks worthwhile.

We met a man who had revived an empty courtyard between row homes. Once, a building had apparently stood there. After it got taken down, the lot remained vacant. So he moved in, bought an adjacent building and the lot, and turned it all into an art installation. Aside from the beauty of the landscaping, he mixed painted plants and real plants, painted windows and real windows, and a painted door (although there is no real door). These stand on the other side of a cast iron gate. The red, painted bars around the gate keep people from entering the courtyard and messing with the fussy, careful arrangement.

I had been the driver for trips into town before. But for the music festival, Donna took us in her red, stickshift Toyota. She parked at the fair grounds, next to a polka band. She aimed for them deliberately because I said I thought they would probably be interesting - I've heard plenty enough folk singers with guitars - and we strolled up to the brick-colored picnic shelter and listened to a big band number. A moment later, the band played dixieland jazz.

Donna somehow persuaded the band to let us sing along.

This is not a normal thing. As a singer, I can say we do not usually invite anyone up to give it their best. Rock bands tend to throw their musical volunteers off the stage. It shocked me a little to find myself singing with the local horn section. One piece we performed, rather quickly, was 'You Are My Moonshine,' a parody I wrote years ago (for Mother's Day) of 'You Are My Sunshine.' The band members seemed to genuinely enjoy the new lyrics. They acted as pleasantly shocked by our performance as I was. But also, they stayed relaxed and pleasant.

We sang nine or ten songs with them and that’s a pretty long time. Toward the end of their long set, they played something that made me exclaim, “That’s a great arrangement!”

One of the horn players had written the arrangement herself. She beamed, smugly, while the others told me she'd written it. Everyone seemed awfully pleased. After we heard another piece and said, somewhat reluctantly, we had to go hear the rest of the "Front Porch Ruckus" show, the musicians invited us to circle back. They said we could come to them at the close of the day and sing along at their invitation.

They were great sports.

We wandered around Tweed and listened to (and talked with) the other street performers for an hour or two. They were mostly folk and blues guitar players, some of them singers-songwriters, most of them part-timers who were making a little money on the side to play the standards, as they usually did.  

And we did, in fact, circle back for a few more songs with the brass band. 

Past the end of the event, we dodged into a popular cafe in Tweed's downtown. We got there early, before the indoor music started. As we sat, debating whether or not to stay for the performance, the clouds rolled in outside. They rumbled, dark and silvery. Then the skies let loose. Suddenly, all the musicians and music fans scrambled into the cafe with us. Everyone wanted to be under a roof while the rain poured down in sheets. 

After a few minutes, the regularly scheduled folk singer turned on his microphone. He realized he was about to play to a more-than-full house, many of them fellow musicians. And fellow musicians can be judgemental. You could see he wasn't sure what to expect. He played a few folk standards and got hearty applause, which allowed him to relax. 

Then he played 'Country Roads.'

Everyone sang. Right on the first verse. The guitarist hesitated for a moment, thrown off his rhythm before he recovered and leaned into what was happening. Since I may have started the audience participation (after my wife slapped me in the shoulder and hissed, "Sing!"), I was happy to see everyone else knew the lyrics, too. How many folk musicians were drinking coffee and waiting for their food? Twenty? Most of them had been paid to perform this one a dozen times. 

The performer liked the participation so much, he tried to get everyone involved again with other, reasonably popular folk songs. But there were none to quite match 'Country Roads.' Mostly, we chatted and sang in unison choruses until there was a break in the clouds. Then, under the brightening evening sky, we dashed to our car.