Surprise! Surprises. I have to confess the Foundation is a bit weak right now, and it's feeling a bit weak. We're down to three members, one of whom is new, and we lost the two who happened to be most involved in setting up Food and Tunes. So it was a slightly daring ambition we had, and required the jobs of three yeomen, to pull off a Food and Tunes Friday evening. And it wasn't the smoothest of sailing, either. (Psst, you wanna be on the Foundation? We need members.)
We managed to arrange a band, which was Dave Wilder's "No Dice." They played for us once before, and they were well received. We also got two food trucks. Our first one ever, Jefe, was there, and a crowd favorite, "Fat Man," was back. I don't know who Jefe really is, but Fat Man is Ben Nelson. Mr Nelson is a spectacularly good cook, and he's a wonderful guy.
Announcements were late, and there was confusion about the time. Some announcements said the start was 6:00, and others said 6:30. And we just crossed into, or out of, daylight savings time. And it was getting cool. And the band was late. And few people were there by 6:00, or 6:30, or approaching 7:00. And then...
The music started. And the lines at the food trucks started. And people started to arrive. By 7:30, "the joint was jumping." It really was. The regulars were there, and new neighbors were there, and even some people who don't live in BP heard us and came by. There was frankly a nice crowd, and people really enjoyed the food and the tunes. Everyone had a good time. (This is exactly what Food and Tunes is supposed to be.)
We also had two musical guests, as the SNL people say. One was Mike Gerber. He and his wife, Atlanta, have been BP residents for many years. Mike happens to be an upper echelon pianist, specializing in jazz (had played with all the big names), but very capable in several genres. During No Dice's break, Mike played an original jazz piece, then Bach, then some country/western pieces, one of which was in response to a request. Mike is a remarkable pianist, whom some musically sophisticated Park residents had heard of, and he and his wife/agent/singer Atlanta would like a Food and Tunes date for themselves. Yikes!
The second guest was a young girl who sang. Alone. Gorgeously. I didn't know singing like that could come out of the throat of a girl who probably isn't 12 yet. Most impressive.
We did our 50/50 raffle. We would have made a modest but solid amount of money, except that the winner, Dale Blanton, donated his winnings back to the Foundation. And not only did the food trucks do reasonably well, but each vendor was so happy that each donated more than the requested 5%.
We broke even, even without a major sponsor or anything unusual to raffle off.
Does it get better than this?
No comments:
Post a Comment