The Weekend Wrap Up

I had planned on writing about our Farmers Market, but I am too tired to do so.

Monday I was exhausted. Way past the limp dishrag stage. (What's more tired than a limp dishrag? I don't know, but that is what I was.) Tuesday was better but I was still drained enough that a colleague at court said "You're still worn out from this weekend, aren't you?" (He was too polite to add "because you look really awful.")

So here it is Wednesday morning and the needle is finally coming up off the E.

I knew going into last weekend that it would be a full one. Our symphony was playing a free holiday concert on the 4th, then turning around and heading to Lake Erie the next day to play the same concert at Put-In Bay, which is a 30 minute ferry ride from the Ohio shore.

Being married to the Symphony as I am, I double as a roadie. A double concert weekend is roadie hell. And that was before the rain issue came up Saturday evening.

This year was the Symphony's 24th July 4th concert. It has always been held outdoors, somehow managing to take place between storms when they have come up. Sometimes there are afternoon showers and volunteers start toweling off seats at 6:30 p.m. More often than not, there is no rain and no concern.

This year all the radars showed a solid wall of green bearing straight down on us. There was no rain per se, just a lot of sprinkling off and on. So we set up outside as we always have, eyeing the sky throughout the day.

As Executive Director, Warren makes the final call as to whether to move inside. He held off. The crowds started arriving. It was sprinkling.

Then it started sprinkling harder.

Strings players will not play in sprinkles. They all clustered inside like chicks in an incubator. Warren kept the percussion equipment inside as well. Knots of people - Warren, the production manager, some trustees, me - formed to talk.

Moving the concert inside posed a host of logistical issues, the least of which was resetting the stage. The need for a cover for the outdoor stage came up more than once. Then one trustee said "could we get enough pop-up canopies to cover the musicians?"

His words electrified us. The fire chief volunteered one immediately and called the station for two more. The symphony had one in the office one block away. A church group in the audience had a very large one that they agreed to bring to the stage.

Suddenly the outside concert was a go. What happened next resembled films you see of military units scrambling on alert: we were running from tent to tent, some of us popping them up while others hustled chairs, mics, and stands out of the way. (Thank you, Pete O'Flaherty, for jumping in to help to raise the roofs.) One up, another up. A third up. The sixth and final tent was 8 miles north of town and would be en route as soon as it came down. A couple of us waited on a side street to race it to the concert site as soon as it arrived.

The concert went on, about 20 minutes late, but it went on with the musicians under the tents and the crowd under the skies (which never did open up). Afterwards, as we broke down the stage and packed for the next morning's trip, we all congratulated ourselves for Making It Work.

All the same, it was a late, late night before everything was done and we were home.

The next day dawned clear and early. Too early. Warren and the production manager, Dick, were on the road by 9:00 with the truck full of stands and percussion. At 10:30, I went to our high school to meet the bus and help check in musicians. There was mass confusion about who was hauling the basses to the lake. A horn player had not shown up (she wasn't riding the bus, it turns out). Good thing those took some extra time to sort out because at 11:00, when we supposed to depart, our teenage vocalist came flying off the bus exclaiming "Reuben is on his way! He just left his house!"

(I have known Reuben since he was in middle school, so I had no qualms saying to him "we almost left without you…and I will never let you live this down." The only thing I didn't say was "just wait until I tell your mother.")

The trip continued to be full of small snags and disruptions. There was confusion at the ferry landing: the employee checking us in wanted one set of numbers, the employee running the tickets wanted another. We finally settled on counting the yellow Symphony passes going over, but agreeing that every musician would have a ferry ticket (now all in my possession) coming back. The van with the basses had not yet arrived and would have to take a later ferry. That caused great consternation among the bass players.

By the time we arrived at the concert site, I was tired (no surprise), hungry (breakfast had been hours ago), hot (it was sunny and very warm), and frazzled (courtesy of the bass issues, the ferry ticket snags, the heat, and the hunger). In short, I was on overload.

I was not awful to be around, but I wasn't very nice either. I wanted to be left alone, alone, alone.

Poor Warren.

But the quiet passing of time helped. Sitting in the shade on the porch of the visitors center with a cool lake breeze helped. Knowing we had managed to shepherd the musicians to the island, despite the snafus, helped, especially when the basses arrived on the next ferry. Knowing a box supper would be arriving shortly helped. Missing Warren, who had wisely moved to the porch on the other side to give me some space, helped.

Pretty soon I had recovered enough to ask him if the offer to go up the tower at Perry's Monument, which he had so happily made when I first arrived and was not fit to be around, still stood.

Perry's Victory and International Peace Memorial is part of the National Park Service and commemorates both the key naval victory of the War of 1812 ("Don't give up the ship!") which took place in the waters just off the island and the long-lasting peace between Britain, Canada and America. It is only five miles from the Canadian/American border, the longest undefended

border in the world. The monument, in the form of a Doric column, is 47 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty. You take an elevator to the upper deck platform, which is 2 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty's torch.

The upper deck platform is a great place to view the world and recover your spirits, especially if you are me and Warren is anywhere nearby. By the time we came back down, I was grounded in more ways than just physically.

The concert at Put-in Bay was stellar. Perhaps it was the setting, perhaps it was the local islanders in attendance, perhaps it was one of those times when the audience and the orchestra are in perfect synchronicity. The emotional highlight was when our vocalist Dominique sang "God Bless America." Audience members began rising to their feet to stand

silently while she sang, whether out of respect for the song or her voice or both. By the time she finished, many of us were in tears as we applauded and called out our admiration.

After the last note of "Stars and Stripes Forever" died away, it was time to reverse our morning route. We struck the set, loaded the equipment, headed to the ferry, waited for the ferry, boarded the bus, and rode home. The basses beat us back this time. By the time we got to bed, it was already Monday.

And now it is Wednesday. I cancelled appointments Monday, knowing I was too tired to think straight. Tuesday I had the meeting I had moved from Monday, and that was when my colleague politely inquired about my well being.

And I am still tired today.

But you know what? It was worth it. It was worth every moment, even the frazzled, frustrating ones. It was worth it to see the smiles of the musicians reflected in the smiles of their audiences, it was worth it to see Dominique (newly gradated from high school) woo not one but two audiences, it was worth it to rush to set up tents so the show could go on, and it was worth it to once again watch my husband at his best as he solved various production problems and then took his place in the percussion section as if there was nothing else in the world but the notes on the page.

For me, who has not lived in the orchestral world until recently, music is a miracle. Out of the confusion - misplaced parts, broken strings, sore hands, wrong notes - comes the sublime. Each concert is the musicians' collective attempt to make the world new again with music. Sunday night, our musicians did just that.

By the time our ferry left Put-In Bay that evening, the sun was setting. I stood on the deck watching the reds and purples wash across the horizon. The family in front of me held their young daughter up to see the colors. She laughed and clapped her hands, smiling into her parents' faces, reaching towards the sky, reaching towards the miracle.