River Dance
Sho’ Nuff
Tuesday October 7 2025
12:21 pm
What a dance
Do they do
Lordy now I’m telling you
They don’t need no band
They keep time clapping hands
They’re as happy as cows
Chewing on some cud
When they beat their feet
In the O-Y-O mud
With apologies to Dean Martin
I’m starting the travelogue early today. Why? I don’t know….. why does a dog lick his …….
After a very unusual eight hours plus of sleep, I’m a force to be reckoned with.
So are the Allegheny and the Monongahela rivers as they join to form the O-Y-O. (How do you like that for a segue?) That was Pittsburgh, our first stop
Eight days later we return to the Ohio, 470 miles down-river, on the cusp of the American South.
Although Kentucky, right across the river from Cincinnati, wasn’t part of the Confederacy, it was a state of divided loyalties.
We’ve had our own divisions of culture, politics and philosophy in Canada but it was between the east and the west with Ontario sandwiched in the middle and a cluster of baffled Atlantic regions wondering if they should pull up anchor and drift out to sea.
5:35 pm
Soundcheck just ended. Brutal. From where I sit it sounds like a cacophonous atonal mess. But I recall this has happened before and when the show started things had improved.
5:45 pm
The fire alarm just went off. We’re being evacuated from the building. What should I take with me? The bottle of vodka. Where is it? Aha! I got it.
6:00 pm
All clear. Back inside. How about dinner? Yummm, sandwiches with various animal parts and chicken noodle soup. Quick, get on the internet and see if there’s anything within walking distance. Unfortunately no. Looks like it’s cookies and diet coke again for me.
6:15
I was just accosted by someone in the band (who will remain nameless) who said “What’s wrong with chicken noodle soup?
What’s the difference between that fish sandwich you had the other night and chicken?”
“Well”, I replied “Most fish don’t live their whole lives cooped up in a little cage…..and I haven’t a clue in the world why I’m dignifying that rude attempt to make me seem like a hypocrite with an answer.”
9:30 pm
The show is over. The sound was bad, some of the playing was questionable, but we still pulled it off. The crowd loved it.
We’re meeting tomorrow at 11:00 am so we’ll probably get rolling by 11:30. A six and a half hour drive with an hour’s worth of stops should get us into Cedarburg Wisconsin around 6:00 pm. No, my math isn’t bad, we cross a time zone and pick up an hour.
I’m tired. I’ll be reporting tomorrow.
Mike H