My stop in Pass Christian yesterday was the last of the summer so my “Magical Musical Meteorology Tour” has come to an end. As I mentioned at the outset, I usually try to write a new song to go along with the fresh program I present each summer. This year, the song was called “Highs and Lows” — I wrote it with a couple of things in mind:
- I wanted to play banjo on this song in order to give me more banjo songs in my repertoire.
- I wanted it to be at the top of the show — an interactive song that would segue nicely from introducing myself and my cool weather jacket and provide some context to the weather demonstrations (many involving high and low pressure) that I would be presenting.
- I wanted it to be a dance number. However, since I didn’t have a guarantee of having my children as helpers during every show this year, the dance steps had to be simple enough that I could do them while playing the banjo at the same time.
- I wanted it to have a positive message.
Long story short is that the tune checked all the boxes and was a big success this summer. Each of my sons — when not busy with their own creative projects (one is making a film, one went to theater camp, one went to band camp) — managed to help me with at least one show this summer. My youngest son, Henry, was my traveling companion during the long trip to Pass Christian.
I can’t say enough about the hospitality of Ms. Melanie Waldrop and the rest of the staff at Pass Christian. They had a great crowd — I hope to make it back to the Gulf Coast in 2025.
If you’ve made it this far, you deserve an explanation of the “cat in the hat” image. In addition to having creative children, my wife is pretty crafty herself. She made my weather jackets years ago — more recently she has been making fancy hats for cats. While taking photos for her Etsy shop the other day, her model (our cat, Frosty) had just about enough — I thought the shot of an irate cat might get some clicks for my blog post.
1 Comment