Day 31 Wed. Oct 15, 2008

In Paradise Valley—Phoenix, AZ

I slept late. I had a concert to do and I was up very late programming the drum machine for some of my favorite Calypso and Reggae songs. I didn’t have the foggiest notion of how the performance was going to sound.

I called George Mauer and asked for some advice regarding Google and other websites to get words, music, chords, etc for a variety of songs. I also called Steve Moon who is also quite knowledgeable about locating the information we needed. Pam was going out of her mind searching for the information we needed on different websites. She tried prompting the web site by giving the composer’s name or the first few words of a song. Some songs showed up with a different melody to the words than what I knew.

She found a few Spanish songs I could use and 2 Reggae songs I knew. One hour before the performance, I decided to make us of the Karaoke machine that Robert had brought along. I used my CD and sang the songs I could do well, and Bill operated the drum machine. He found the proper keys to accompany the songs. Doug played the guitar and he was very good. For the last ½ hour, Kawuzu Awazili joined us on his Arabic drum We were capable enough to eek out 2 ½ hours of music.

I recognized a few Johnnies: Jim Schlosser and his wife, Shari, Vernon Rausch’s son John Rausch, and Robert and Ann Marie Henry. Kristina and Rick Frederickson, Cyril’s angels from Fountain Hills (Day 28) were there also. And last, but not least, George’s family. His sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren were there en masse. And many of his friends whom we have met: Robert, Otto, John, Bud and Ava, Also there was Sharon Fischer with her daughter, son-in-law and a friend. Sharon is a friend from St. Joan of Arc who recently moved to Mesa, AZ. A very good crowd.

A few people got up to dance and most of the crowd got up to do a Conga Line. The fundraiser more than lived up to our expectations.