As of today, March 25th, 2008, we have raised $6964 in Scott’s honor as a direct result of your generosity and participation in the March 7th Glory O’ event at Mick’s. Sean, Suzy, Linda and the family thank everyone so very much for everything. It has been such a thrill to be able to help the Yellow Ribbon Fund so much!
Blurry, dreamlike, exhilarating, heartwarming, hard driving cold rain. Those impressions come to mind now as I try to remember Friday night. Arrived at 7PM and the place was already crowded with Happy Hour leftovers, our friends and family started arriving soon after and many of those already there stayed on. Besides all our locals, we had friends there who drove or flew in from Atlanta, Boston and Long Island (we love you Lucy, Scott and Dewitt!) just to share and honor our Scott. A couple who were especially wonderful to meet, Beverly and Rainier, live just the other side of Dickerson from us. They lost their son Kirk in Fallujah, November 27th, 2004. Kirk was a Corporal in the Marines. Our postmaster Joey, mentioned this event to them and they promised they would be there. Small town America works like that. Unknown neighbors before, now friends.When’s the last time you heard an Irish pub full of people silent? Getting any crowd who are strangers to be quiet and listen for a few minutes is quite a feat, even more so at the tail end of Happy Hour but Marti made a rousing and impassioned introduction to a quickly silent crowd who cheered loudly for the cause at the end. She was just great and she held it together wonderfully. Coincidentally, after Marti had spoken, a man approached her and introduced himself. He told her he was a doctor at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and after hearing her speak he ran home to get something because he thought she would like it. He handed her a green T-shirt with a big shamrock on it and emblazoned across the shamrock is “ARMY”. She held it all night.
The Staff of the Yellow Ribbon Fund spent the evening telling everyone who asked about the great work they do and taking donations. It was great to finally meet them in person. A good group of folks. WBAL-TV11 sent a crew and they filmed an interview with Marti that made the 11PM News. Rossnareen was fabulous, their music authentic and full of vibrant energy. Later, I had a great conversation with Tommy McCann about our lives, our kids, our wives, his music and his home in Ireland. My ignorance of my ancestral homeland was embarrassing and I promised to remedy that. There is something about the Irish attitude towards life that I find uplifting.
A word about Mick O’Shea’s…throughout the short planning and on the night of the event, the staff at Mick’s were fabulous. The owners, David and Stephanie Niehenke were there throughout the evening, the staff, Kelly in particular, were just incredible always with a smile even late into the evening when they must have been exhausted. There were others too, their names gone in the haze but a huge thank you to all of them! Did I mention the food is great? Especially the Guinness Steamed Jumbo Shrimp. Get them by the pound! If you can go there for St. Patrick’s on Monday this year do it, because the pub will be closed Tuesday and Wednesday for repairs…. If you were there, please drop them an email to let them know how much you appreciate what they did for Scott and the YRF.
Finally, we were out the door with only the band and bar-staff behind us. Good thing our hotel was only half a block and downhill at that. On the way, Marti noticed a homeless man laying against the wall in the rain under a pile of wet blankets. She approached him slowly and gave him five bucks, no doubt remembering how a 7 year old kid named Scott had onetime long ago made friends with a homeless man. In bed at 3AM, up again at 7AM, breakfasted and now driving home in the same hard driving cold rain, Marti says, “Hey, lets go to Frederick and look at antiques for a while.” You gotta love her.
I will add on the official totals and photos later this week, but David reports that after 8:30 the official start, and until closing at 2AM, there were 335 pints of Guinness poured (somehow I managed to stay just this side of stupid) and 217 heads officially on the cover charge. Going out the door we had raised nearly $3500 before the YRF reports their numbers. Thanks to everyone who came out on a really nasty night. For those who could not make it, you can still help out. I encourage you to send a check to the YRF directly, as it will likely be a year (and better weather) before we do this again. We hope to make this an annual event.
We made many new friends that night.
Suzy, Linda, Sean, Christy, Marti, Kevin and I thank every single one of you.
PS. It beats the hell out of a Mandy Patinkin concert! Whew!….
PPS. Short of some simple emailing and a phone call and being there, Marti and I had very little to do with this event from conception to finish. That credit goes to Suzy, Linda and Sean. These kids came up with the idea, organized it, ran down all the loose ends and got the word out. All the credit for any good that comes of the event should start with them. We love them all dearly and Scott would be smiling too.
March 9, 2008
Yellow Ribbon Fundraising Event – Mick O’Shea’s Irish Pub
March 2, 2008
Showtunes….
Last night we went to see Mandy Patinkin in concert at the Strathmore Music Center in Rockville Maryland. It was an hour and forty minutes with no intermission. He performed mostly obscure (to us) showtunes and personal compositions with a single upright piano accompaniment. Let me say that I like most of the well known and popular showtunes we all hum to ourselves in the shower, but Patinkin’s selection of tunes from the middle of some musicals I have never heard of was exceedingly dull, tedious and for the $58 admission price just awful. Songs from the middle of a scene in a musical make sense in the context of the story, but extracted from that context, both musically and chronologically, it makes no sense whatsoever. From the very first number I sat there thinking this has got to get better. But as he sings in one piece, “If it can worse it will get worse…” It did.
The highlight of the show was when he sang three tunes, White Christmas, Maria, and some Sondheim song, in Yiddish. I had to chuckle at White Christmas in Yiddish, but will admit that the germanic sound of the words was just a little creepy in that context.
I was a good boy. I looked away from Marti as each piece ended, so I would not start laughing and so she wouldn’t ask me if I wanted to leave, I didn’t make faces, I sat there respectfully and clapped at the end of each piece. Turns out she was thinking the same thing, that it had to get better. Finally, as Marti looked at me and asked if I wanted to leave, it ended. We bolted for the door before the encore and I remarked that I now knew why there was no intermission, nobody would come back.
Run like the wind if you ever get offered tickets to one of these concerts…
Postsript: Marti points out that the house was packed and he got a standing ovation. I guess she looked back over her shoulder as we skedaddled for the parking lot. And we laughed till we cried all the way home. Something we have not done in months….
