Mid June and the The 39th Annual Glenn Miller Festival - June 12th-15th, 2014 - Clarinda, Iowa U.S.A.

Clarinda, IA  Bit warm today (Tuesday) - almost 90 degrees, with very strong southern wind all day.
Phyllis & I both volunteered at the Glenn Miller Festival last Thursday through Sunday.   We were taking tickets, ushering, helping people as needed.  On Thursday we guarded the doors as contestants for the various scholarships did their best.  In the morning were 10 instrumentalists, and afternoon 9 voice (1 was not able to come).

Click Here for GMFestival Website

The Tamana Girls High School (玉名女子高校学校 Tamana joshi kōkōgakkō) is a girls high school in Tamana, Kumamoto, Japan.They performed Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  These young girls (some 69) perform at the level (or better) than any professional band.  We did ushering at each of the performances and they were very well received.
Click Here for a YouTube of them practicing at their school earlier this year.  Remember, these are high school aged girls.

We also ushered at the two Glenn Miller Orchestra performances.  Click Here for website   

This photo at left is off the GMO website.

On Thursday evening The Band of Mid-America SHADES OF BLUE performed a free concert to the public on the Court House Square downtown.

The Tamana Girls Band attended the Air Force performance -- lots of energy as they bounded around.

On Saturday morning we ate pancakes served by the local Lions Club and the band from North West Missouri in Maryville played while we were eating.

 Here is the vocal group with the GMO - the leader did not play an instrument but did many solo vocals and also with this group--can't remember what they called the group.

Our Grand-son-inlaw Heath (facing camera) is a high school band director in Eastern Iowa and he was happy to talk with the GMO director and visit with some of the band members in the hall after the concert he and wife Ashley attended.

This group of 4 guys, Tonic Sol-fa, had nothing but body sounds and vocalizing to put on a great show.

Tonic Sol-fa   Click at left to go to their web site.

When we came back from lunch at home both Saturday and Sunday, the Tamana girls were spread around the high school campus practicing.

This is Walt Pritchard with Phyllis.  Walt did all the coordinating and lining up ushers for all the events.  He has done this for many years.

One band I did not get a picture of is Glenn Miller Birthplace Society Big Band made up of local musical people, mostly from Iowa.
Also, we did not attend the dance Saturday evening where Lonny Linn Orchestra from Lincoln, NE so have no pictures.  Was told they were great.  We were pooped after long day and rested at home.

After the Sunday performance by the Tamana Girls Band there was an ice-cream social in the commons area of the school.  Phyllis got to talk with Tomoko Tanove who spoke with the band as Vice-Principal of the school.  Phyllis knew this lady had been a math teacher at Tamana school when our daughter taught English as a Second Language in the late 1990's for one school year, and we got to visit with her.

    Back at the house --  last year we had two large boxes shipped in that had a lot of sheets of Styrofoam.  This "free" insulation ended up costing about $20 for styrofoam caulking to glue it to the door, but have almost half of the door covered--in case I ever finish insulating the last half of the shop it will make it warmer in the winter; if we ever stay here in the winter.

 The hedge that goes nearly 200 feet all across the back of our level property (another 25 feet or so behind the hedge is a steeply inclined bank down to an old railroad right-of-way) grows quite well.  Here is photo of after I had started working on trimming it.  The back of the hedge can only be reached from the front and is hard to reach with the trimmer.  If you go through the hedge you are standing about 4 feet below the bottom of the hedge and can't reach the top.

 I have been continuing to catch a few hours most days (after the Festival) wielding a "manual transfer device" commonly called a paint brush.  Amazing how the brush knows when to grab the paint when you stick it into the paint can and then knows to release the paint when you rub it on the wall.  Pretty smart little device when you really think about it.

 Phyllis was given nearly a full van load of material and crafty things by daughters of Mrs. Art Greenwood, who passed away a year or so ago and they are finally going through the house to dispose of things.  She sorted and took much stuff to the sew and share group at the local Methodist Church and will take some to one of our Kenwood RV neighbors who lives near Omaha, NE; will take a bunch of stuff to the sew and share bunch at Kenwood RV and also some material she is using herself.  Here she is sorting and storing that which we will be taking to Omaha and to Texas in our small trailer in the garage.

     One of the things I had to take off the garage wall is this poster.  I had bought it for my sister Louise a while before she passed away some 6 years ago.  She had it hanging in her room for some time in  Westridge Quality Care & Rehabilitation where she lived the last several years of her life.


Well, it has only taken me most of a week to get this written.  Believe it or not, I worked on it several times, but got interrupted or diverted and not finished.



More later, Lynn