I passed up a really nice gig at Spring Gulch Folk Festival for a gig I booked the day before at a South Bethlehem community day sponsored by a bank. It was for good money, but not as prestigious as SG. So I thought about it, but the answer was to be true to the first gig. Honor. So it goes, and I can live with the decision.
I set up along a nice tree-lined section with various community health organizations, local restaurants, pony rides, puppets and storytellers. Kids and families stopped by and the kids dove into the bag of instruments and we played. And several kids from Holy Infancy came by so I was amongst friends.
The really amazing moment came a half hour into the gig as a familiar face walked over to the health organization across from me. I really hadn’t absorbed who they were…. same old hospital logo and font, you know. But the familiar face was the intern from the Urology folks I’ve been visiting over the last two years, and had just visited two days ago for my 6 month checkup after my operation in October. This guy knows me quite intimately. Really intimately.
I walked over and said that once I had played for an audience that had my dentist sitting right in front, and it felt very weird to sing in front of her. He said, “This is worse.” What a riot, and this will be a story I will tell for years to come.
Serendipity. I had also given him my Peanut Butter CD in the office on Wednesday for his kids, and he said his family really enjoys it. Cool.