So we scramble and hook up our battery charger and luckily I got enough charge to start the car within about 5 minutes. Thinking ahead I ran to the shed and grabbed our jumper cables in case the battery was not planning to hold its charge for the rest of the day.
On the way to the show (normally about a 30-minute drive from our house) I hit every red light. But luckily I arrived in time.
The venue was one of the Meridian Retirement homes where I entertain and sometimes they have themes for their events. Yesterday's theme was the '60s generally, and specifically, The Trident Restaurant in Sausalito, formerly owned by The Kingston Trio. How they ever came up with that theme I have no idea - they told me it came from corporate headquarters. Well, I was as close as they could come to having the Kingston Trio perform for their event and I even did some research on the restaurant so I could be somewhat informative.
I figured they'd have a lunch that related somehow to the old Trident menu, but when I arrived the buffet was breaded shrimp, onion rings and hamburgers. Not quite Trident fare. After my show when I asked about that I was told that the chef had apparently planned a menu that was reminiscent of the original Trident menu, but his father had just passed away the day before and he was unavailable to cook yesterday. The back-up chef had to scramble and throw something together, and that's how the spread ended up as it was.
So my next show was in Boulder at 4:00, leaving us a 2-hour window to drive from Englewood. Normally, that would be plenty of time and that's why we had scheduled the day that way. But alas - the car battery was dead again and I had run around and try to find somebody to help me with a jump-start. Meri had scored me a plate of food from the buffet and I had set that down on top of my equipment cart and hid my ukulele between the cart and the reception desk as I went out to deal with the car.
I found an elderly gentleman in the parking lot just getting into his pick-up truck (which was adorned with horse shoes nailed to the fencing around the truck bed) and he agreed to give me a jump.
After we got our car started he asked me why I was there and I told him that I had been singing for the folks on the 3rd floor. He proceeded to tell me that he was once an entertainer too, writing and performing cowboy poetry. He was dressed in a combination of western attire and air force garb and when he handed me his business card I had to laugh. It reads: Kenneth J. Haraldsen - Pilot / Dowser / Author / Historian / U.S.A.F. Tech Sgt. Ret'd / Lt. Colonel CAP Ret'd / Train Engineer / Cowboy Poet / Police Officer / U.S. Post Office / Air Force Academy. Wow - that guy's had quite a life!
So I thank Ken for his assistance and drive around to the front entrance where Meri has pulled my cart out for loading. Unfortunately, she had not noticed that I'd placed the plate of food from the buffet on top of my cart, and as she started to pull my cart out the food had taken a nose-dive to the floor. So much for lunch, but she scooped it all up to save for the racoon that lives under our shed. (I know - you're not supposed to feed the wild critters, but he is cute when he comes in through our bedroom window at night.)
So now I'm worried about the car battery and what if I don't find anybody to jump-start us once we're finished with my show in Boulder. The place where we've always purchased batteries for our cars is sorta on the way, but I'm in a quandry as to whether we have time to make the stop. It's now 2:30 and it takes an hour to drive to Boulder.
We decide to take a chance on stopping at the battery store and we arrive there at 2:45. Luckily there's only one customer ahead of us and they're just about done with her. We impress upon them our time situation and they do a rush job of installing a new battery, putting us back on the road at 3:05. Barely time to make it.
Hiway 93 up to Boulder is currently under construction due to the recent floods and I knew there was one section where it's just down to one lane and they alternate letting the northbound and southbound traffic go through. The one thing that did go right yesterday was that we hit the tail end of the northbound traffic's turn to go through. When we got to the other end the southbound traffic was lined up for half a mile and we realized that we'd really lucked out on that deal. We could've been waiting for 20 minutes to get through there if we'd missed that window of opportunity.
So we arrive at my next gig with 15 minutes to set up and as I'm unloading my equipment I realize that my ukulele is not in the car. Meri had not noticed it sitting next to my cart at the Meridian and I was in such a tizzy over the car battery that I had not paid attention as I was loading my equipment there. Sheee - ucks!
So I had Meri call the Meridian and they found my uke and said they'd hold it in the office for me to pick up later. Luckily the show I'd planned for the Boulder gig didn't require the uke, so I wasn't hampered by it's absence.
I go in and set up for my show and as I'm starting to do a sound check - uh - no sound coming from my speaker. WTF??? It's showtime and I'm on the floor trying to trouble-shoot my PA system. I discover there's no power to my mixer, so I check the switch - it's on. I mess with the power cord, plug it into a different outlet - nothing. Crap! Oh well, it's a fairly small room, so I go acoustic.
But after my second song the room has filled up with chattering residents who've come for happy hour and I can't even hear myself. I decide it's time for Plan B. Luckily, I have this little combo speaker-amplifier that I run the mix from my board into, but instead, I can also plug a mic and a guitar directly into it in a pinch. It's pinch-time, so I have Meri run to the car for my mic stand (I normally use a wireless head-set mic when my equipment is working properly) and I set up plan B in a couple minutes. When I fire up the mic I get a round of applause from the crowd, because now they can actually hear me.
The rest of the show went fine and the day ended with a long drive back to the Meridian to pick up my wayward ukulele. We were so glad to finally get back home and be done with all that. Did you ever have one of those days?
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