Marie Osmond with nephew David at Blue Gate Theater

 

Marie Osmond stage shot (all photos mine)

Most folk know that the kind of concert I attend is constructed of reverb-base driven, guitar-fugue infused, sweaty, over-the-top Mick Jagger-like front men running from one end of the stage to the next in fear that he might "miss a beam of theater light” characteristics.

And so, you can understand my self-befuddlement a couple of weeks ago when I called Sherry and said…

“Hey, wanna go to the Marie Osmond concert at the Blue Gate Theater in Shipshewana?”

After a brief chuckle she replied “Why not. It will be like revisiting our childhood.”

It was indeed a fun concert as Marie sang “Paper Roses”, songs from her latest album “Unexpected”, show tunes, and more.

Her concluding song before the obligatory encore-send off was a very powerful performance of “How Great Thou Art”. So very rich in vocal quality and stirring of the emotion that I almost anticipated Elvis, unable to resist the urge, momentarily manifesting from the beyond to sing duet with Marie.

Marie performing a show tune

Alas…no Elvis. It would have been no use. No one could upstage Marie last night!

I amend my words…

Not that David Osmond upstaged his aunt Marie, or “Aunty M”, as he referred to her, but I was greatly impressed with his vocal talent, stage presence, and audience-engagement.

Photo of projected image Marie and David duet

David tours with Marie and sings duets with her, and also performs some solo numbers of his own.

Now forty-two, at age twenty-six David experienced multiple sclerosis and was confined to a wheelchair. Having overcome that disability, yet with much pain in his legs, he too moves about the stage in dance evocative of the memory of an Osmond Brothers performance.

He just looks, sings, and choreographically moves, like an Osmond.

It was like being in 1970!

Anyway, he won my admiration!

And also, he referred to us as his cousins!

Never heard Mick or Ozzy do that!

Sherry and I had much fun.

For sure, it was a memorable concert.

I even bought the “Unexpected” CD.

It will rotate along with my CDs of Jimmy Hendrix, Beatles, Stones, and Herbie Mann.

Thank you, Marie and David for a great experience!

And the rest of David's cousins

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Vittorino’s Cucina, Brook, and the Ephemeral ukulele

 

 A report post vacation in Tennessee. Location: Vittorino’s Cucina 111 North Main street suite B, Sweetwater, TN 37874

  While reviewing my text messages, I ran across this photo which Sherry took whilst I was busy drawing a Ukulele on a napkin for waitress Brook.

You see, I almost always ask the wait- staff what hobbies they may enjoy when not working. Waitresses at the previous two restaurants replied that they were ukulele enthusiasts.

And so, engaging Brook, I said “I suppose you play the ukulele when not working?”

Brook, with one eyebrow raised and the other eye squinted ever so slightly, nonetheless smiling, said “Huh”? as if my question was so irrelevant as to follow up out of sheer curiosity.

I then explained about the previous two.

Chuckling, she said “No, I am studying to become a Real Estate Broker.”

I agreed that such an undertaking might prove a bit more profitable.

But, feeling sad that she had no ukulele at all, I proceeded to draw one for her on a napkin that she may find after our departure.

I suppose that many sensible readers, perhaps most, would think it a bit of a stretch that she valued my drawing of that ukulele sufficiently to have it framed and mounted in a prominent place at her home.

But, I’m gonna assume that I made such a favorable impression that in fact that napkin rests ever so proudly in the pages of her Real Estate study materials as a means of encouragement.

Well, at least, that is truly what I would do if I received such an ephemeral gesture of humour!

Oh yes, the food was great and I recommend the place!

Tell ‘em Mike sent you!

Sister Vickie and Decoration Day

 

My sister and I, when we could share a chair

As Memorial Day approaches each year, I remember an incident that faithfully describes the relationship I had with my sister.

I was very young, maybe four or five. Our family was at Bakers-Forge cemetery in Lafollette Tennessee. We were observing Decoration Day, as we called it in the south.

I found these small colorful strips of cloth attached to sticks poking from the ground to be very attractive and so I began collecting them. Many of them had red and white stripes with a corner of white stars on a blue background. Many of these colorful pieces of cloth had red backgrounds with  crisscross stripes of blue on which white stars rested.

Yes, age five, Decoration Day, I, thinking it was appropriate, was taking flags from the graves of deceased heroes, loved ones, and remembered ones.

As I continued my quest of gathering these flags, by this time an armful of them, I heard my sister, Vickie, yell words at me. Much like the Doppler effect of an approaching train, her voice seemed louder with each uttered syllable... “ Mikie, what are you doin’!”

It was not a question.

It was an accusation…a proclamation of some cultural incorrectness in which I was engaged.

Given the intensity of her yell, I knew that some form of sisterly violence was impending.

And she did not betray her predictability!

As I turned to face her, she tackled me as I were carrying the football and needed to be felled before crossing the goal!

The flags, those pretty colorful pieces of cloth, bounced from my arms and landed helter-skelter on freshly cut grass and I too landed with them also helter- skelter in my disorientation and subsequent response to her!

Once I had had my say with her, she then calmly explained to me the reason for her attack upon me. It was to save me from further cultural incorrectness, or insult to the deceased.

Vickie was one year and five months older than I was.

It was she that taught me to read, to understand things in life. Vickie was larger than life to me. She protected me.

Bakers-Forge Lafollette Tennessee

And when she died on August 20^th, 1962…four days after my birthday, I felt an unfillable hole in my heart.

It was then, in the absence of my sister, that I committed myself to this…when school started in just a couple of weeks, all the girls in school would be my sisters!

I have held that sentiment since that year. In school, at work, in church, at a concert, wherever I am, all the women present are my sisters.

They fetch my respect as if they were Vickie!

As Memorial Day approaches, I shall not be stealing flags.

I will take a walk through the rows of gravestones, flags pushed into the grassy ground, and recall the incident in which I learned about respect for the dead, from Vickie.

Still, I look forward to Heaven in which I will get even, ferociously!