Mon, 03 Jul 2006 11:49:33 GMT

Musical Saturday Night
Steve, Janie, Kathy, Jeri and I met up at the WalMartians homebase in Cedar Park and traveled Land Rover style to the university area for the show at the Cactus on Saturday night. We intended to eat at Kerbey Lane but were first met with a vacant stare from the host when we asked for a table for five - for five? It seemed he had never heard such a query. We mentioned that we were in a hurry and again the vacancy sign reappeared and he said that it would be a 20-minute wait for a table and that they were understaffed so the meal might take a while. We took the bad news like the adults we are and we promptly left for Conans Pizza.

We truly enjoyed our whole wheat crust pizza (and salads by the more health concious - I guess) and the flat cokes - followed by the flat Dr. P's. You have to realize that all of our choices at this point had to do with the fact that we must hurry to get to the Cactus before the line at the door grows too long, and forces us to re-evaluate where we go for entertainment.

Sufficiently fortified for the long evening of music - or possibly hibernation for the rest of the long, hot summer, we made our way to the Cactus only to learn that there was no long line. In fact the people there for the show (5) barely outnumber the performers for the show (2). But let me cut to the chase. We had a great time. Gurf Morlix and Sam Baker were quite good, a little on the depressing and melancholy side, but good. There styles are similar and by the end of the evening we were ready for happy songs - but we will have to find that another time, another place. The highlights were Sam Baker's Waves, and Gurf Morlix's rendition of Big Iron on His Hip, the old Marty Robbin's song. Gurf also did some tunes from his upcoming CD release .

The most fun of the night was our friend Steve - "LOOK AT ME WHEN YOU ARE TALKING, I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" and his impression of a hearing impaired driver. I can't tell you how much laughter that brought to all of us. All day yesterday, still laughing, reliving the memories. Great friends, great fun. We have to do this again. And we have to get Mike (who was on the coast, out to sea with his fishing gear) involved. I know he would have added to the mayhem and the general level of uncontrollable laughter.

Wed, 28 Jun 2006 10:44:06 GMT

On Saturday we woke to the sounds of thunder accompanied by nearly three inches of rain pounding old mother nature. My first thoughts were that the church picnic would be canceled. Then I remembered that Boots was in charge of the picnic. No way the picnic is not going to happen. And it did. We met the core group at the park in Jonestown and had a great time. In years past there would have been somewhere between 25 and 40 people at the annual picnic. This year it was 14 and two of them were Steve and Janie who are not even members of the church. So we had lots of food and lots of dessert. Plus we had washers and the kids had a basketball. What more could you ask for. Jeri and Kathy won the washers tournament, beating Mike and I twice on their way to the unlikely victory. They were and are gracious and haven't gloated excessively. It was unexpected and fun. They won with a certain nonchalance that was captivating. Later that night Kthy and I went to the antiques auction in Anderson Mill. I thought it would be boring and it was, but there were moments of interest. We will probably do it again.

Dave Raaum: Friends