Ohio Valley Filk Festival 19
A journey of five days, three time changes and one deer
By Margaret Middleton and Joseph Abbott
Page 2 Page 3 Photos
Margaret will be telling most of the story; I'll just add
some bits in from time to time in italics, like this. And I'll start the
story...
Thursday, 6 a.m. CDT, Waco TX
First off, you have to know that I work evenings, and
I'd been up since 2 p.m. I got off work about 1 a.m., but was too wired
with anticipation to try to get a nap then. Don Cochran knocked on my door
a little after 6 and we were bally on the road to OVFF...
We got to the Tyras' in Fort Worth a little after 8.
My put-everything-in-one-suitcase-with-wheels strategy hit a snag here:
It wouldn't fit in the van. So the filkbook went in separately and everything
else got repacked into a spare Tyra duffel.
Oh, about that van: A Ford Expedition, basically an
F-150 pickup with a really fancy camper shell. Big honking thing. This
is something we were thankful for later on... Early on, though, one of
the trip's running gags got established: The back seat is a) fairly cramped
(meaning it was Rhiannon's domain for most of the trip) and b) only accessible
by folding up the middle right passenger seat. So freeing Rhiannon meant
the guy in that seat getting out, folding the seatback down (lever #1),
then folding the seat up (lever #2). This also meant that you couldn't
really store things on the floor there, since the seat would squish them
nicely when it folded...
We hit the road a bit after 9, lunched in Texarkana
and got to Margaret's around 3 p.m. Nobody was home. While we waited, we
got to see a wrecker in action. Not, alas, for the last time...
Margaret now takes up the tale:
Thursday, 3:45 p.m. CDT, Little Rock AR
I arrived home from work to find the Texas contingent
(Gerry, Sandy, and Rhiannon Tyra, Joe Abbott, and Don Cochran) already
there, stretching their legs strolling around the parking lot. After letting
everybody in to do pitstops, I checked the potatos in the stew crockpot.
They were not ready yet, but I hadn't expected the carpool until more like
6. Turned heat up on crockpot.
So we sat around and visited some, and settled up for the wine order from
GenKota. This is a micro-winery in southern Illinois (one of several in
the Rend Lake area, actually) which sells a wine named "Three Dog White".
Given that Bill Sutton's song "Stray Dog Man" was nominated for a Pegasus
this year, Of Course I had to get him a bottle of that. Unfortunately,
our travel schedule would not put us through Mt. Vernon IL at a time when
their tasting room and gift shop were open for business. However, I discovered
at their website, they ship interstate. Including to Arkansas. So three
of us (Gerry, Joe, and I) went in together on a case-order from them.
Morris arrived home presently, got introduced-around.
He took Gerry over to Sam's to pump some cheap gas into the Expedition.
Betwixt the 7 of us, we polished off nearly the whole crockpot of stew.
There was about enough left for one smallish lunch. We also killed a bottle
of Thunder Chicken apple wine, out of Gerry's share of the GenKota buy.
We loaded my stuff into the Expedition after eating but
while it was still light, then settled down to snooze for a while.
Thursday/Friday, midnight CDT
I actually woke up ahead of the oven timer, and when I
got out of the head the rest of them were stirring too. So we grabbed our
purses and jackets and clambered and limboed into the Expy (hereafter referred
to by its proper name of "Bruno").
A note here on the route: We went different ways going
and coming back, diverging at West Memphis, AR. Going up (cue Indiana Jones music; if I knew how, I'd make an animated GIF map) we continued on I-40
through Memphis to Nashville, then up I-65 to Louisville and I-71 from
there through Cincinnati to Columbus. Gerry was driving when the idiot
in the small white car decided she really had to pass that semi
before we did; we avoided hitting her, though the adrenaline level went
up for a bit.
Dawn on Friday found us in Kentucky, and somewhere
around then we went through the first time change: Central Daylight to
Eastern Daylight. Kentucky was also where I learned I'd left my CD case
at Margaret's. Oh, well.
Friday, 3 p.m. EDT, Columbus, OH
Arrived at the hotel, found the concom, got checked into
our rooms. Function space was running behind schedule because the Wyndham
had overbooked some mundanes in it. They got registration set up in the
lobby, though, and we got our badges and program books.
Clan Tyra wanted to catch up on old times with the Bohnhoffs,
so Joe and Don and I sampled the hotel's Friday buffet. $10 to stuff yourself
with London Broil, mashed potatos, green beans, and salad. Unfortunately,
I think we all ate too much to leave space for the scones etc at the Mad
Hatter's Tea Party.
Friday 7 p.m. EDT
The first convention event. This year I remembered to
bring a hat, so did not have to be issued one from the Tea Party Hostesses'
little box of horrors. Joe taped the names of three Star Trek CO's around
his hat, to call it the "Star Trek Hat Trick Hat". I just added a Valpo
Crusader refrigerator magnet to my IndyJones fedora. Jan DiMasi, buzzcutted
after a spell of chemotherapy, had a wondrous confection of multicolored
tentacles on her head.
Much to my disappointment, I think only one person
outside the travel party asked about my hat-trick hat... Bill Roper was
in "Music Man" costume - the letters stand for "River City Boys' Band."
It was somewhere along here that I discovered I didn't know how to reset the time on the digital sound recorder I was using for a watch...
Friday 8:30-ish
The Pegasus Nominees concert. Steve Macdonald announced
this one. Quite a few folks I'd never heard in person before, and several
songs. I had held off voting on the Peggys until the convention just because
of this. Steve Mac says next year they are going to require recordings
of the nominated songs AND samples from the nominated performers-and-composers
as part of the nomination-acceptance process. These will be played on Filk
Radio as well as being available as mp3's from the voting site.
Click here for photos from the Pegasus nominees concert.
Friday 10:30-ish
I get to start announcing the TwoFer sets. That began a weekend of
introducing folks I've never heard before. The good news is, none of them
were disappointing. The better news is, some of them were Really Good.
This devolved into open filking. Joe and I were both feeling the long drive
(he had started on the far side of Ft. Worth) and we both folded around
2 a.m. I don't recall if Don outlasted us. (He did. I was the first one to the room. - jwa) The Tyras, being unencumbered
by instruments, were circulating around the various puddles of filking.
Next
Back To TexasFilk Page
Back To TexasFilk News Page
Updated 11/02/03 by Fax