Apparently some other people were agreeing with my thinking that Jeffrey (aka Riki Rik), our maypole band's new guitarist, was doing very well. Saturday morning he got an Outstanding Castletonian. I strongly suspect that dance director Jeremy Caviness was one of those who nominated him. And Sunday morning at the dancer's convocation that Jeremy always called just after the area meeting, he dealt out special words of praise to all of the musicians, and just after he got to Jeffrey, Jeffrey himself said, "And I have to give some thanks to Bill. When I came here I had never played guitar with anyone else and didn't know hardly anything, and Bill straightened me out on all kinds of stuff. You can all blame him for me." I feel like I have passed on the torch. ( Read more... )

Not much new to report. A low pressure area sitting out in the Gulf of Mexico sent a lot of moist ocean air into eastern Oklahoma, resulting in three days where the forecasts were for 70, 80 percent chance of rain, but which turned out to be very humid with mostly overcast skies that parted to show the sun for periods of an hour or so, and other periods of an hour or so where there were light sprinkles. But the only extended shower started Sunday night about an hour into the cast party. (An army of people manifested to bring all the DJ's equipment under the cover of the Crown Inn, then people danced in the rain on the grassphalt.) Most of the three days were dry. Saturday was humongously crowded, Sunday a moderate crowd showed up after church and started to thin by last maypole time. Memorial Day the cast outnumbered the patrons at opening gate by about three to one, and it remained sparse thruout the day. Jamming with Llewellyn and Nancy at the gate before closing continued to be the best part of the day, and when I had the most people stopping to listen for a while and give compliments. (And this was after most of them had already filled out and handed in their surveys.) After next week there is gonna be a real long post with lots of introspection.

There was a strong cold front that went thundering across Oklahoma Friday night, and it hit Muskogee around midnight. But there were some gaps in the squall line with only moderate rain, and one of them was in the part that passed over Muskogee, so there were no strong winds, gully washers, or hail. Saturday morning was overcast and in the 50s, and there were still mud puddles, and the clouds gradually thinned out over the day into high haze, but let it climb only into the 60s, with a north wind still blowing. But no further rain fell, and things were drying out by afternoon. Early Sunday morning was cold enough for the cloak, but the sun appeared unhindered and I took off the cloak before noon parade. This was the first day of the season with beautiful faire weather, and I could tell by the first maypole when there were 40 patrons around it on a usually sparse Sunday morning that the day was going to be very crowded. People who had been holding back because of the previous bad weather showed up this day in their multitudes. ( Read more... )

The weather continued to be a major part of the experience on the second weekend of the Oklahoma Renaissance Festival. Light drizzle fell upon breakfast and the first maypole on Friday when we musicians dealt with it by moving under the roof of the Golden Harp while the dancers did it in the street in front. After a few numbers, I think it was Twitch who came over and told us that he had heard from some people in the Lord Mayor's Company performing on the Laundry Lass stage that our sound was interfering with theirs, so we moved over to in front of the shoe place as far away from them as we could get while still remaining under the roof, and I don't know if that really solved the problem, but we heard no more active complaints. ( Read more... )

The last dress rehearsal first day of the 2009 season of the Oklahoma Renaissance Festival opened to light to moderate rain that continued almost continuously thruout the day. The temperature remained in the 50s, and almost everyone on the cast was in some kind of cloak, as was I. I was able to fit a nylon shell, a cashmere sweater, and a polyester half-slip under my gown without any of them showing, and this along with the cloak and some opaque pantyhose was sufficient to keep me something resembling warm when there wasn't a strong wind, which happened only seldom. All of the dance shows both days were on what the dance team started calling "the grassphalt" immediately east of the Crown Inn, which we musicians took shelter under when the rains returned. I was able to get away with holding an umbrella that I have that has a flowery pattern and not some modern looking wedges of solid colors. But just walking thru the mud while trying to keep my instrument and bags dry beneath it was something that required special concentration. ( Read more... )