Staying Sane on the Coastal Plains

This past weekend proved to be both full and rewarding, at least in my immediate corner of the world.

One of the rewarding aspects was that our trio, Rosewood, was invited to play at our town’s oldest festival, Buccaneer Days.

While there were many entertainers, there, I found it gratifying that we had been heard by one of the officials, who then had an assistant contact us. Most send a tape to the Buc Days Commission and play for exposure. We’ve already exposed ourselves many times so we were plied with pizza, beer and gas money, as well.

We were scheduled to begin when the carnival gates opened, Saturday and, of course, we were on time and in tune long before the sound engineer finally arrived.

Buc Days 08730

I took a turn around the music pavilion a snapped a couple of photos while the site was relatively empty.

Buc Days 08735

Naturally, someone’s baby momentarily sidetracked me.

xdsc08736

There was the requisite Ferris wheel and fun house.

xdsc08737

Disco Fever wasn’t the affliction that was on a lot minds, this weekend, though. I’m told attendance was down, considerable, from previous years, probably due to concern about the possibility of exposure to Swine Flu. The school district canceled participation in the traditional lighted parade by the bands and drill teams, so there may have been an uncharacteristic lack of enthusiasm on behalf of the public, as well.
The show must go on. The Buc Days carnival is more than stomach-turning rides and cotton candy and it takes people, many who volunteer their time, to insure its success.
One such people is Sandra, who vended beer at the music tent. At first, she was reluctant to be photographed, but, after I explained that I recorded my adventures for motorcyclists, she consented and mugged and said, “Mike’s the best” for the camera (no “cheese” in my pictures).

I wandered back into the pavilion to tune my instruments and, there, met Cornerstone Band members from the town of Goliad.
Since we don’t have a drummer, they asked if they could go ahead and set up their drum kit and put their amplifiers on the rear of the stage. Since we had more bandstand than we needed, and the sound guy still hadn’t turned up, we agreed.

Darryl was joking around with their drummer, perhaps considering life as a rock musician.

Before start-time, soundman turned up and music began.
The day turned hot and so did the fiddling.

Having fulfilled our contractual obligation, Buc Days Commission did the same, finalizing our dealings with pizza and beer in the travel trailer set aside for that purpose. Now, that’s my idea of carnival going.

Sunday, I managed a little airtime or, rather, time in the wind.
A close friend and erstwhile pillion immerged from her studies and obligations to shed a welcome, though unexpected, ray of sunshine on Rosewood’s Friday performance.She had been hitting the books pretty hard so, as an official Pretend Psychiatrist, I prescribed wind therapy, for Sunday.

We hit some back roads skirting the bays and, en route, decided to lunch at Alice Faye’s Restaurant, on Fulton Beach.

We were dogging it, living the high life enjoying the view from the deck even though there were few boats in the marina.

Fresh seafood? You bet. This is one of the boats that help bring the good things of the sea to table.

A slow ride back to Corpus town and a stop to drink soda and admire motorcycles at the “biker bar and grill” and it was time to call this day a day.

The road goes on forever.

Written by fiddle mike

May 4, 2009 at 1:38 pm

Posted in motorcycle, photography

Tagged with Americana, Corpus Christi, culture

2 Responses

Subscribe to comments with RSS.

[...] This post was Twitted by calamalahoon – Real-url.org [...]

Twitted by calamalahoon

May 5, 2009 at 7:39 am
Thank you Mike…nothing left to say…
I love Texas…and I think her fiddlers are pretty damn great too!

chessie

May 5, 2009 at 1:51 pm

Rides and Tales