Andre & Me

We had the wonderful experience of having the internationally known pianist Andre Watts as soloist with our Bemidji Symphony Orchestra on Sunday. We had a great time of visiting with him at a party the night before and attending a dinner for him after the concert where this picture was taken. We had heard him as a 16 yr. prodigy playing with the Minnesota Orchestra(then called the Minneapolis Symphony) 45 years ago and have followed and admired his career as he became the rare case of a prodigy who lived up to expectations over the years. I must admit I felt a little like an 85 yr. old teeny bopper meeting a favorite rock star. He was so down to earth and easy to talk to that it was a great time for all of us there.

Halloween kids

Here are our 6 great grandchildren in their Halloween finery. I wish they could have come to our door. On our short country road we had no candy seekers at all.

We are planning to go to Beaver Dam next week-end to help Mary celebrate her birthday(How can she be 57?) and see the rest of the family including Emma and Tanner. Depending on how that trip goes we may start getting ready to head south after Thanksgiving.

We did have some snow here this past week-end and our driveway is very slippery which kind of pushes us in the direction of going to Texas. We shall see.

We kids

I did a column recently about the days when our family back yard was the playground of our neighborhood summers. It featured this photo of Wag and me on the porch of the playhouse my grandmother gave me. I think we were about 6 years old at this time. The playhouse was very fancy and expensive for those days but we spent less time playing house than we did climbing on the roof and using a maple tree branch to grab and swing off onto the ground below.

Summer has ended here and the coming of fall has us making some decisions about going to Texas this year. We will keep you posted on our final decision and schedule.