It's done! ...Well, Sorta....

First things first! Happy Birthday Jessalyn!

2nd,
The 2006 Warrens Cranberry Festival is over. Now the Clean up begins. After I finish this post I have to go fill a can up with Diesel fuel to put in my Brother-in-law's (Jimmy Chitwood) Tractor. He has a wonderful John Deere that he lets me use to haul cardboard. The amount of cardboard we have to process is staggering. It is mandated in the vendors contracts that if they bring cardboard in they have to haul it out. Only a few vendors at the moment are doing it. The rest we are cracking down on.

Our goal is to have our little town of Warrens back to normal by Tuesday. By "Normal" I mean you shouldn't even be able to tell a festival of any size was here (never mind one of over a 100,000 people and 1200-1400 booths!). The only clue should be the paths worn into the grass by all the people. We'll seed those areas. The Garbage trucks have been running every night and will be here again today at 2pm. I imagine we will be running til after dark again trying to get it cleaned up. We fill truck after truck with garbage and another several trucks with just cardboard.
I try not to look too far ahead of where I'm working. The scope is too daunting. I've been doing this for years now and I still don't know how we do it.

The Weather really turned "sweet" for us for our last two days of the Fest. They had been saying all week it was supposed to rain all weekend long. Of course "they" had no idea how many people were praying against that. Saturday started cool and then warmed up with a real nice breeze that made shopping fun. It certainly made working the Fest much more enjoyable.
I performed again on Saturday afternoon and I changed the songs I sang from the previous day. Not sure why I did that or if it was a good idea or not. It went well though and I feel like I accomplished what the Lord desired and that's all I really wanted anyway. Still, I am not sure what is going on there, it was weird. See, there is this fantastic guitar player I used to play with in Joyful Noise named Matt. He's a young guy and he plays in such a way that is so smooth and looks as if it is so easy for him -and it probably is. He's the kind of guy I love to watch and hear play but makes me want to throw my own guitar away. He's that good and he makes it look that easy. Anyway, I hadn't seen him in a long while and it turns out he's playing after me on Saturday in a new group called Chatterbox.
Big surprise for me: The lead singer and song writer for Chatterbox is a friend of mine from work! I've known Cindy for something like 10 years and had no idea she sang and wrote music!
Even more surprising is just how good she is! Yikes! For me, I am surrounded by truly great singers and she certainly qualifies but there isn't that many around that write songs of the same caliber as the ones she sang for us. As a former Disc Jockey let me say both her singing and song writing is professional grade. I was talking with my guitar playing friend afterward and he told me: "...Yeah, and you only heard her favorites -not her best!" She plays guitar very well too and I guess she was trying to record some of her written stuff when the studio guy said he knew someone that might help fill in the music which turned out to be Matt. They picked up a base player named James and formed Chatterbox. Look for em! I mean with that business you never can tell. It's certainly true that they are much more than good enough.

Saturday Night of The Warrens Cranberry Festival we had the annual Gospel Sing. I was asked to M.C. again. I think I may have mentioned that I had been thinking it would be best if I started backing off from the music and announcing; God has His way of letting you know what He thinks of your ideas... I don't know why I accepted when they asked me, except to say it must have been God. I'm glad I did though. It was one of the best Gospel sings that I can remember.
The Crantastic Singers which is made up of local area kids performed again this year. I was so amazed by the number of kids that sang so well! Normally when kids sing you can barely hear them and they're usually off key. Not this group. And I am not just saying that because both Jacob and Jessalyn had solo's either! But I am so proud of them both. They both "nailed" their parts. You could tell they both had practiced hard to get their part right. They sang and danced and it certainly made their father and mother very proud!

After the Crantastic Singers the Gospel Sing proper started. Of Course the "Gospel Words Quartet" sang as well as "The Dad's and The Daughters" "The Living Stones Worship Team" also led some music for a while and we had a couple of fantastic Piano highlights and Chatterbox also played and sang. As I M.C. of course I can't help but preach a little, but I do try to curb it to the essentials. Anyway, I used the part about not knowing Cindy sang and played as a tie in to: who knows you are a Christian? Who would be surprised to find that out? We've all heard the old saying of "If being a Christian were a crime, would there be enough evidence to convict you?". Then I received another piece of "sweet misery". I had performed "Wayfaring Stranger" Saturday afternoon and Saturday night (remember I didn't perform Sat. night. I only M.C.'d) Chatterbox performed their version. I may never sing that one again. They were so good. All of it. I was so blessed to hear it and them. I also pray for them personally and professionally. I hope you will too.

The sing ended a little after nine pm and I got back on the tractor hauling cardboard. I lasted in the rain until about 11:30pm I was glad I did it. After a night of rain it would have really been a mess in the morning and the Annual Warrens Cranberry Festival Parade starts and 1pm on Sunday!

Sunday. Day 3 of the fest. Dea went in while it was still dark. The kids and I slept in. I got them breakfast and all together to make the drive to Warrens. Church started at 10am and I wanted to be there so we left at 9:10am. Remember I only live 3 miles away. With the crowds and the detours... I would have made it. "Would" being the operative word. The plan is: we park at Dea's Aunt Gayle's place. They have a farm literally just past the Warrens town limits sign. It is where we keep the tractor I use for hauling the cardboard and where we park our cars. You certainly can't get into town with those! Well, I got to Gayles in plenty of time to make it to the church except I didn't have the key for the tractor! So I dropped the kids off and sent them walking the 3 blocks or so to the church while I went back for the keys. They really needed to be at church on time to connect with their mother. I could afford to be a little late.
Dea, and the kids were to be the big stars of the family this day.
The Board of directors (of which Dea is an executive officer) were voted to be the parade marshals and would all be riding in the front of the parade in a trolley. Jacob and Jessalyn along with their cousin Tim Oakes and their friend Lily Jewel carried banners in front of them announcing our plans for next years fest: Join us in 2007 for our 35th annual Warrens Cranberry Festival's Salute to the Military!
It should be great with the "Moving Wall" Vietnam memorial and other activities planned, but I digress...

I finally made it to church and caught the last few minutes. Dea had shirts she got for the kids to change into so they would all match. By 12:15 I had the kids at the Fire Station where the parade would launch from. Dea was one of the last Board Directors to make it there as she was taking care of problems, but she made it on time and brought the banners and poles for the kids to carry. I parked my tractor because there would be no room for it near the parade route and planned on walking back to the church for a good seat on the steps so I could watch my family in the parade. Instead I wound up with the best seat to watch the parade from Period. No, really.

The board of Directors and most of the Committee members wear radios. Communication being so important over such a wide area. As I turn to leave the parade staging area, I hear over the radio: We still need an announcer!" I kept walking. You know what's coming don't you? I didn't. No really!
We have had the local celebrities hold that post for ages. Dea herself had arranged a fantastic advertising package with the Magnum Radio Group which includes several local radio stations who were all at the festival. Of course they would have someone for that!

I kept walking but I didn't get more than three steps when I hear WAIT! I turn around and Vicki our CranFest President is on her radio saying I've got one right here! She looks at me, points, and turns to the other board members and says: Have you heard this guys answering machine?! Mickey Rezin who works with the Crantastic singers and is also on the board, pipes up with : Oh he's a great M.C.! Dea then looks at me and says "Please".

There is literally 3 minutes until parade start. There is no time to prepare. I don't know the first thing about announcing a parade. I was a Disc Jockey and yes I can M.C. a small town gospel sing but usually everything is written out for me or I have time to know exactly what I'm going to do and when. 3 minutes is barely even time to get to the reviewing stand. As I start to open my mouth to protest, in fact I think I even managed to get out something about "...surely one of the radio stations..." Vicki turns her microphone up on her radio and says "All together now!..."

You have to understand. The board of directors is made up of all kinds, but all together
en masse as it were, you can see these are THE Board of Directors. And all of them were looking at me; putting on their most pitiful "puppy dog faces" and in unison with the parade director on the radio begged: P L E A S E ?
I have long said my philosophy anymore is "The Puppy Dog On The Dashboard Philosophy". Also known as the "Bobble Head Philosophy". So I bobbled my head and said O. K.

I had a blast!

My hats of to Kerry the parade director. She had only been given a couple of weeks herself to get up to speed. The previous director is deathly ill and poor Kerry was having a time collecting it all. All things considered she did a fantastic job and basically held my hand through it all.
Still, it was ...to be polite...interesting. There were over 60 entrants and we only had the information on half of them. There were some 60,000 people lining the street and as the royalty of surounding counties and festivals came by I was literally having to read their names off the side of their floats. Wouldn't you know it, we live in a strongly German, Norweigan and Danish influenced area. You realize what that means right? Most of their names were all consonants and no vowels. More than a few princesses and queens looked at me and laughed. I guess they're used to having their name mispronounced. A couple of times I refused to announce who was coming until they were right in front of me and was glad I did. Several entrants had entered the line up in the wrong order. We narrowly missed announcing a marching band by a different bands name.

I had a Blast!

It was great fun and a nice ego boost. If they ask again I think I will say yes (If the Lord allows) but I just hope they give me a little more notice....

Did I mention "I had a Blast!"?

Then I was able to bring my head back down to normal proportions as got back up on my tractor and started hauling cardboard. It was way past dark when we left but the garbage truck was still running. I would have stayed but the tractor was out of diesel. I felt bad leaving those other guys who were still hauling garbage but I knew I would still be going at the clean up today and probably tomorrow.

Speaking of which, it's past my time to leave! Got go haul garbage and rake and sweep and clean and put away etc etc etc

Pray without ceasing!
Will