Yesterday was a new experience but strangely familiar. I’ve talked about our beavers many, many times, but I’ve never been unable to see faces or hear laughter before. What I could see were the number of attendees and their comments. I could also see that some of them were known to me, like our friend Janet Thew who has worked every beaver festival for years, or Steve Murschel, who runs the beaver ambassador program in West Linn Oregon. But some were unknown to me entirely. The host, Michael Howie has a background in media and was very comfortable with the format. He said nice things and made it easy. (Afterwards he said privately that I was a rock star! But of course he might say that to all the presenters.) Before I started talking he helpfully pointed out that you could hear me breathing on mic and since I am a incorrigible smart-ass I said “Oh no, aren’t I supposed to be breathing?”
Anyway the whole thing will be uploaded to youtube soon so I should be able to embed it here. One attendee was the woman from Point moody outside Vancouver and she commented afterwards that she was coming to the next beaver festival!
The entire experience was one of surreal accomplishment. Who would have ever thought I’d be talking about our beavers 10 years later in another country? Not I, that’s for sure. The universe gave me another present afterwards because the phone rang and it was our beloved sound guy John Koss who has helped us every festival for so many years and who is adored by every musician for his extraordinary competence. I had thought that by moving the time and the venue we would lose his help and was bracing myself by hunting for a replacement.
But John said June 30th would be great! He should be between shows and he’s was marking it on his calendar! Hurray! That means 6 for sure -Amy the artist, me and my husband, the sound guy, the bagpiper and the woman from Canada for sure.
We are well on our way.
