Rambling Josh

My family went camping with the families of two of my good friends last weekend and we all had a great time. There were 13 of us in all, six adults and seven yard apes. We only camped for two days but my family alone needed an SUV full of stuff to do it.

Loading all that stuff into the vehicle always makes me think back to my early college years when I would move home from college for the summer and all of my stuff would fit in the back seat of my tiny little car. My “car” was actually a glorified roller skate powered by two geriatric squirrels and a hamster with a club foot.

It was small but everything I owned fit in it with room for at least one medium sized hitchhiker and his pet chimp, if he happened to have one. Now it takes Noah and bunch of cubics to go on a two day camping trip 30 minutes from where we live. Its nobodies fault, except for possibly my wife and kids, because I only brought two things.

I brought my guitar and a coon skin cap. You can brush and floss your teeth with the tail of the cap, place it over a rock for a firm but ergonomically correct pillow, use it as a cereal bowl, and I’ve heard some people actually wear them.

As for the guitar well it’s uses are endless, firewood, strings for snaring wild game (using the hat as bait of course), cereal bowl, wash basin, tennis racket, fishing net, and I’ve heard some people actually play them.

It seems we need so much stuff nowadays, and if we don’t need it we want it, and if we don’t want it we think someone else might. Whatever happened to the days when all you got for Christmas was an orange and you were happy to get that? I’ve heard of them days but never was on the receiving end of such a Christmas miracle.

I think it’s because kids back then had what every kid always wants for Christmas, a pony. Everyone had pony’s back in those “all I got for Christmas was an orange” days. The parents were sitting around putting their Christmas list together, see the kids frolicking around with their ponies, and think “They’ve got a pony what gift could possibly rise above a pony?”

I’ll tell you, “Nothing.” That’s why they got an orange; they topped out the Christmas list. So keep asking for a pony for Christmas if you are prepared to receive a nice juicy orange for every Christmas thereafter.

Not a fruit basket or fruit cake, just a chocked full of vitamin C solitary orange. But then what do you care you’ve got a pony and an orange to ward off the sniffles during cold and flu season so you can ride your precious pony all that much more.

What do ponies and oranges have to do with camping with good friends and too much stuff? I don’t know….they’re both sweet, stinky, and hairy. What makes people drag all their stuff out of perfectly good houses with perfectly comfortable beds to sleep in a musty damp tent on a half inflated air mattress that has the sleep number comfort level of a sack of shoes?

The pure enjoyment of waving flaming balls of marshmallow around on hot pointy sticks while you’re hopped up on Hershey’s chocolate of course. Try that on a pony.

The word on the streets is that the Lignite Centennial was a success and I for one am inclined to agree with those words on that street. My family had a great time. Sierra and Jackson made several new friends that they can get in touch with again at Lignite’s 125th Celebration.

I was happily pondering the 125th until I put my minimal math skills to the test and discovered that I will be 60 years old in 25 years. Now for those of you that are sixtyish and have had time to adjust to being in a state of advanced age this may not be such a big deal but for a youngster like myself this ponder was a startling revelation and I don’t care to hear another word about it. I’ve got to stop pondering, it always turns ugly.

Back to present day bliss, I’ll concern myself with the future when it rears its bald, bifocaled head. No offense to any and all of you that may be bald and/or bifocaled or are closely acquainted with someone matching that description.

Speaking of…..I hope everyone got a chance to climb the rock wall, I know my kids sure enjoyed it. I was unaware that it was free until the Sunday after the celebration, my son apparently wasn’t aware of that little fact either since he kept asking me for money. I guess he was the only kid they were charging.

The style show was enjoyable despite the homely, hairy lady in polka dots. It ran like clockwork and thanks to Kathy Fagerland I got my dress wearing fix out of the way for the week. It’s just so hard to come up with a good excuse to wear polka dots, a wig, a handbag, and sensible shoes. I apologize if I tainted the allure of polka dots for all in attendance. With a little therapy my family and friends will hopefully learn to embrace and accept me for who I am.

The music was good both Friday and Saturday night and everyone seemed to be in jovial spirits at the street dance. No fights, well, no good fights. Just a lot of laughing and general tomfoolery or gabefoolery in my families case.

I heard that the 5k fun run was well attended. I had every intention of participating in the event but my body and mind got into an argument with my mouth and stomach the night before and were defeated terribly. It seems that my right arm defected and joined ranks with my mouth and stomach rendering the remainder of my body and mind helpless and at 8 a.m. Saturday morning useless.

Besides that the softball tournament had left me feeling and walking like I was celebrating the 125th. So I set out in search of some magic elixir from the local drug store to ease the pain. I found it, I drank it, it eased the pain, I repeated. The magic elixir didn’t make me run faster but I must have spilt some on my bed because it was whirling around like Marry Poppins during hurricane season.

All in all it was a wonderful weekend and it was fun to see Lignite buzzing with activity. During the celebration I actually meant it when I told my kids to watch out for traffic. Like most things of this nature it went just as fast as it came, but like a sack full of fireworks, it was fun while it lasted.

Thanks to everyone that worked so hard to make Lignite’s Centennial Celebration a success.

Lignite is abuzz with centennial preparation, lawn mowers mowing, paint brushes brushing, hammers hammering, chickens clucking, and whatever other “ing” thing you can think of is running rampant around this little town.

This celebration has been in the works for some time now, roughly 100 years, but there is always all those last minute details that creep up on you like ill fitting second hand pre-streaked thrift store underwear. Everyone is busy, busy, busy so if you’re rolling into town for the celebration be sure to thank those that made it possible.

The centennial committee has a lot of activities planned for the weekend, but has also left ample time for general chit chat, boisterous banter, and whatever other type of jaw wagging you prefer to partake in.

As you catch up with old friends keep in mind that nobody likes long boring stories, so if your stories are boring and long either shorten them or spice them up a bit. Nobody will know if you take a few liberties with your life story and 9 out of 11 people surveyed said they prefer a spiced up story to a boring one.

Feel free to be liberal with the spice but remember what you’re sprinkling around so you can keep your story straight, not that anyone’s listening. Most are going to be too weak to listen due to the starvation diet they put themselves on in preparation for this gathering.

Gaunt and listless they’ll shuffle around sipping diet water and nibbling on reduced calorie celery sticks nauseous from holding in their belly and grumpy from wearing buttocks accentuating underwear on a hot humid day. Eye’s blood shot from the misapplication of spray on insta-tan and red irritated patches of skin where unwanted hair was ripped mercilessly away.

All this in hopes of hearing one old soul say, “Well, my, my you haven’t changed a bit.”

The fact is that most all of us have changed quite a bit, some a little less on top and a little more on the bottom, some are parents, some are grandparents, some are retired, some were fired, some have come from far away, and some decided to stay.

Lignite is 100 years old and has been through many changes of its own, but some things never change, and with any luck never will. It’s still a small upstate North Dakota town with a big heart, beautiful sunsets, wonderful people, and the occasional mosquito.

I’m looking forward to the centennial celebration and having the opportunity to visit with old friends, tell old stories about past times, and new stories of where life has taken us.

During your stay in Lignite be sure to check out all the merchandise the centennial committee has to offer. Hats, shirts, buttons, Olive Johnson’s Cook Book, Lignite History Book, and many more things to commemorate the occasion.

Also be sure to take in the various activities going on; style show, bingo, fun run/walk, rock climbing wall, wacky Olympics, softball, golf, parade, street dance, and general shenanigan’s for those more interested in disorganized activities.

Happy 4th of July, may your potato salad always be cold and your buttocks accentuating underwear hot.

At around noon, Wednesday June 20th, 2007, the big laugh that always rose above the roar of our family gatherings, or any gathering for that matter, was silenced with the passing of my Grandpa Ardell.

He died as I suspect many of us would like to die, surrounded by his family in the house that they had all called home for most of their lives. He lived as I suspect many of us would like to live, surrounded by a family that knew the importance of family. It isn’t something they talk about it’s just something they do and have always done. They are there for each other, they cry with each other, and they laugh with each other….laugh a lot. Grandpa or “Big Grandpa” as my kids called him was a fine example to us all.

Grandpa was born on March 17th, 1931 in a house that was located about a mile from the house where he lived and died. Today there is a rock pile located where the old house stood. I asked Grandpa a few years back where he was born and he said, “In a rock pile about a mile north of here.” Then he paused and said, “I haven’t made it very far have I.” A country mile in 76 years… it had to have been the most enjoyable mile anybody has ever lived.

I heard it said once that a mischievous boy makes for a more interesting old man. A fine case can be made for that statement with my Grandpa, who always entertained us with story after story of the mischievous adventures of his youth. You also have to understand that “youth” for Grandpa never really came to end; he was always a kid at heart and liked to make people laugh right up to the end.

The last time I saw my Grandpa we laughed and talked like we always did, and even after 34 years he still had stories that I hadn’t heard… funny stories of course. When I was getting ready to leave he asked when I’d be back again and I said I would be home in about a month. I knew and I’m sure he knew that he might not be around that long, but if you thought about stuff like that all the time you would drive yourself insane. Usually when I or anyone would hug him goodbye he would tear up, but he wasn’t tearing up about things as much as he used to. He was ready to go, a man at peace with his time in this world.

That last time I saw him he looked me in the eyes with that little smile of his and said the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. He said, “Ya know I always thought that this world would be better off if there were more people like you in it.” Funny, I always thought the same thing about him, so coming from him that meant the world. He’s a big part of why I am who I am and I am forever grateful to have had the opportunity to share in his life.

My Grandpa hasn’t been gone long but I already miss him, I miss his laugh, I miss his jokes, I miss his stories, I miss seeing him scare little kids with his false teeth, I miss seeing him scamper through the house in his underwear when company arrived unexpectedly, I miss everything about him and I imagine I always will. What I have now is 34 years of memories to rely on, memories that make me laugh and make me cry and I imagine they always will.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Have you ever responded to someone’s questioning of “why” you did something with that sentence? Have you ever asked yourself “why” you’re doing something at real inopportune moment?

An inopportune moment such as finding yourself 300 yards out in the middle of a lake without a paddle or a boat for that matter. I tried my first triathlon this weekend and half way through the swim a voice in my head asked, “What are doing out here?” This voice is different from the other voices in my head, this one isn’t crazy.

It’s not crazy but it has really poor timing. It only speaks up when I’m in the middle of something like this. I heard it when I was at mile 23 of the marathon I ran a few years back, it piped up last year when I was “attempting” to ride across South Dakota in less than 48 hours, and now when I’m in the middle of a 600 yard swim for my first triathlon.

This voice sits idly by while its half wit brothers are coxing me to sign up for these events. This voice doesn’t say a word during the endless training for these events, but the half wits are ever present with their senseless encouragement. This voice is away at mime school while the half wits are singing “Eye of the Tiger” and trumping up my feelings to make me think that I’m an athlete not a 30ish guy with thinning hair and the swimming ability of a box hammers.

No this voice just sits and waits until I’m in no position to argue with it. This weekend I decided not to argue, not to explain, not to try and justify, I politely told it to leave me alone. I heard some muffled screams from it as the half wits lined up to give it farewell wedgies. Waistband ripping wedgies by the sound of it.

With it gone I decided that as long as I was in the middle of a lake and I had just trained for 4 months I might as well keep swimming. Well the “real” triathletes called what they were doing “swimming” I called what I was doing “not drowning.”

So after not drowning for 600 yards I emerged from the lake moving like an 90 year old man wearing a half dozen soiled Depends. I trotted to my bike that was waiting patiently with the other “not drowning” type swimmers bikes. Crawled on my bike waved and smiled at my family, thanked the crazy voices for getting me to dry land, and headed out for a 15 mile bike ride.

The biking portion was enjoyable; I was able to catch a few of the people that went by me in the water. Some of which had been kind enough to ask if I was all right as they swam by. Hard to talk when your gurgling lake water.

With the biking portion done I parked my trusty stead, strapped on my running shoes and headed out for a 3.2 mile run. The first 2 miles didn’t go so well. I think the lake water and whatever the nearby cows had deposited in it was beginning to upset my stomach. I gave myself a little pep talk and begged the “crazies” for some senseless encouragement.

With the “other” voice at the bottom of the lake I was free to listen to the half wits tell me that if I ran faster I would get done sooner. They’ve gotten me a long way in life so with the end in sight I was like a horse heading for the barn. Except for horses breath quieter and probably don’t smell as bad as I did at that point and time.

To make a long story short; I finished and me and the half wits are enjoying life without the other voice and it’s annoying questions. “Why are you doing this?” Because I can, besides age can’t catch me if I keep moving…..right?

Happy Fathers Day to the men that have made me the man I am, voices and all.

Let the games begin or at least increase in frequency and duration. It’s summer. The kids are milling around the house like misplaced guests that don’t know when to go home and have somehow mistaken you as their summer entertainment director.

After nine months of hard time and schedule following in elementary school they are like parolee’s that aren’t sure what to do with their new found freedom. I tell them, “Go outside and play it’s nice out.” To which they respond (whine), “But what can I do outside, there’s nothing to do.” To which I respond, “I don’t care as long as it’s semi-legal and doesn’t permanently maim anyone.” This exchange takes place roughly 94 times an hour the first few days of parole.

Eventually they’ll give in to the realization that I am not their teacher, there are no playground monitors, no schedules, eat when your hungry, sleep when your tired, and shower when you haven’t been to the pool in over two weeks. Once this sinks in and the mental and physical restraints of the structured learning environment begin to fade they start enjoying their summer.

The kids have a long school year and I think they deserve as much free kid time as they can cram in over the course of the next three months. Run wild, have fun, be a kid, because someday you might grow up and, God forbid, get a job that treats summer just like any other time of year. I cringe at the very thought of such a predicament.

As a college instructor I’m on the same schedule as the kids. Unlike the kids though I have the foresight to plan for these beloved three months during the other nine so I am never at a lose for things to do. When I close my office door in May, forgive me my face hurts from smiling, I know I won’t have to open it again until September.

All those summer plans do steal some of the summerness away so I try and leave time for general doings of nothingness also. The summer that kids enjoy is in its most pure sense. They don’t have a clue what they’re doing from one minute to the next let alone next weekend so they are free to just be.

They wander in for popsicle on occasion or to fill a water balloon when the mood strikes them but mostly they just play. Play whatever, whenever, with whoever, all day long. At the end of the day when you ask them what they did all day they’ll say, “Nothing, just played.” And they don’t say it with any regret or boredom in their voice they say it with the satisfaction and weariness that can only come from a successful summer day of “just play.”

Not a bad gig if you can get it or keep it. A friend of mine that has one of those jobs that ignores summer once told me, “Josh when you get up in the morning you have nothing to do and when you go to bad at night you only have half of it done.” A good point is hard to argue.

Here’s wishing you all a great summer. I hope when someone asks you what you did all day you can respond with “Nothing, just played” a few times anyway.

Enjoy the time you have with the people you have because neither lasts forever.

You may remember, or not, or not care, that a few years ago my brother Jarvis and me were extra’s in the movie “Hidalgo.” Recently another movie shot a few scenes here in the Black Hills, and I signed up to be an extra again.

The movie was “National Treasure II” staring Nicolas Cage and they were shooting the final scene of the movie at Mt. Rushmore.

When you sign up to be an extra in a movie you are basically signing up to be a piece of furniture. You are just “stuff” they can put here and there to make everything look as though it is actually happening at a busy public place. I don’t think some people realize or are willing to accept the fact that they are a prop, nothing more, just a blurry figure passing through a shot to give it some life.

You can always pick out those extra’s that have it in their head that they are going to be discovered on the movie set. They’re the overly eager ones, dressed to the nines, and trying everything possible to get noticed.

If I learned anything in being an extra for Hidalgo it was don’t be an eager in your face “Pick Me, Pick Me” volunteer for anything. Those people generally end up far away from the action where they sulk and pout and believe there must be some misunderstanding. Do they realize what they’ve done? Do they know who I am?

We were to report to Mt. Rushmore at 5:00 p.m. to check in and let the wardrobe people give us the once over to make sure we weren’t wearing anything inappropriate. Rhinestone clad spandex, velvet muumuu’s, sombrero’s, logos, and anything else that may be a distraction. Thankfully those weren’t the only clothes I brought with.

Once you checked in and got checked out you were given a box lunch. Star treatment; salty ham on stale bread, a bruised mushy apple, and crushed bag of chips. Then we waited…and waited…and finally waited some more.

To be an extra you have to be a very patient, laid back person, which fits me perfectly. You want me to be a piece of furniture, well stand back and be amazed at the skills of this “Lazy-Boy.”

Every once in awhile they would come and grab about 30 people to take to the movie set. Myself and a few others were enjoying the evening chatting and watching the “Pick Me, Pick Me” extra’s bum rush the people in charge of sending them up to the set every time they appeared.

We “loitered” until about 11:30 p.m. when a guy came down and asked if we had been on the set yet. “Nope we’ve just been sitting here chatting.” He sent four of us up to earn our money as furniture. Why did he pick me and the other three? Possibly because one of us four had been in Playboy three times, not “read” it, but was in it. So the beauty and the three beasts sauntered to the set to be a part of a little movie magic.

To our surprise we were ushered up to the front and were told to walk behind Nicolas Cage and his female co-star and “act” like we were chatting. The only instructions; don’t speak, don’t look at the camera, don’t look at the actors, don’t talk to the actors, and remember what you did the first time because your going to have to do it over and over and over and over. By the time they got what they wanted I had memorized Nicolas Cage’s lines and could have easily stepped in if something “unfortunate” would have happened to him.

Unfortunate? Let’s just say I was “acting” close enough to Mr. Cage that I could have gave him a little punch in the back of the head if I so chose.

Twelve hours after my arrival, at around 5:00 a.m. as the sun was poking up over the hills, they shut the cameras off and told the furniture to go home.

What’s the going rate for the use of “Lazy-Boy” for 12 hours? Seventy-five bucks. Not much less than my co-star Nicolas.

This week was “Turn of the TV Week” for Sierra and Jackson’s school. No TV, no video games, and no internet. Each day the kid’s that participate bring a note from home stating that they survived another day without the mind numbing world of television, video games, and internet cluttering their tiny little heads.

They are then awarded some small reward for the accomplishment, nothing major but if there’s one thing kids hate more than anything is to see another kid get something they didn’t get. No matter how useless the item in question is if their classmate got one they want one. This phenomenon is ratcheted up another notch when it’s a sibling that is the receiver of, well anything. Anything except punishment or chores of course.

When my dad would tire of me and my brother Jarvis’s constant bickering, which was often, he would make an exaggerated claim that we would fight about who had the biggest well…restroom deposit. Dad may have thought it to be an exaggerated claim, but truth be told we argued about that too.

Nowadays I find myself uttering the same thing to my kids when they won’t stop arguing. I find myself saying a lot of the things my dad used to say to us, and it always makes me lose my train of thought. I’ll say it with the intention of continuing with my futile attempt to stop the arguing but when it comes out I stop and think to myself, “Did I just say that?”

Then the memory of Jarvis and I, runty, slack jawed, dirty, and vacantly staring at my strapping young dad saying the same exact thing comes to mind. It makes me laugh and the argument between my kids over who ate the most Cheese Nips doesn’t seem to bother me as much.

When one is bothering the other I always tell the botheree to simply ignore the botherer and they will stop. Good sound advice that is completely impractical in the sibling battlefield. Advice that even as I say it I chuckle to myself at the stupidity and impossibility of it.

It’s possible to ignore a bothersome sibling for a short period of time but eventually they’ll get to you, they know your buttons, and eventually you snap. Sometimes when you do snap it’ll startle the botherer into knocking it off. Sometimes we all need to be drug around by the throat for a little corrective “advice” to encourage us to “knock it off.”

As far as ignoring things or people that bother you, when it comes to TV, radio, and internet it’s easy, you just turn the channel or shut it off. So this week was peaceful without any multimedia telling us what to think, what to do, or who we should be. We successfully ignored them all week, and nobody got hurt.

We don’t watch much TV the way it is. We don’t have cable or internet so maybe my kids had an advantage over their classmates who had to fight off the beckoning call of 24/7 cartoons. I know my kids like to watch TV, they asked Santa for cable this past Christmas, but they always find something else to do.

Like argue.

On my travels to and from Lignite I pass by the Van Hook area and it always makes me think of my Grandpa Fritz. Grandpa has been gone now for over 20 years but it seems like it was just yesterday that I was enjoying one of my rides with him around Van Hook and New Town with him as my tour guide to the past, his past. He would point out various islands and sections of Lake Sakakawea and tell me what was there before they flooded it, and now I do the same with my children as we drive through.

My Grandpa Fritz was born into a farming family that planted, harvested, and lived on the fertile banks of the Missouri River where it meandered through northern North Dakota.

They and many like them farmed the land and raised their families along the river that had brought Lewis and Clark and many others through this country. Many more generations of Ellis’s more than likely would have been born into a life of farming enjoying the bounty of this ancient highway but in the 1950’s the Core of Engineers had a different idea. The kind of idea the Core of Engineers and many like them refer to as progress.

Progress for some always means changes for others. Progress has a way of setting people back sometimes. Not everyone, but some. You generally don’t notice or care unless those “some” are some people you know. I knew my Grandpa and I can’t help but feel that progress set him back or at least set him on a different path. It is quite possible that had they not been put on that path my mother and father never would have met, and I would be breaking stuff on a farm other than my Grandpa Ardell’s.

With the land you loved and labored over at the bottom of Lake Sakakawea you are forced to find a new way to make it in this world of progress. Progress meant trading the stability and security of a family farm with the uncertainty and constant movement of the oil field. Like the crops that grew so thick and lush on the land now at the bottom of a lake shifting in the sand, they too shifted, shifted about, working and living. I guess sometimes that’s all you can hope to do.

From what I’ve gathered much of my father’s early childhood was spent living wherever his father was working and his work was always moving. They lived in a trailer house and my Dad said that he new they weren’t going to be staying long if his Dad didn’t bother unhitching or putting blocks under the trailer.

A lot of saying goodbye to new old friends can’t be easy for a young boy. He had plenty of brothers and sisters to play with, but that’s never the same. Getting tired of them doesn’t do you much good, there not going anywhere, but you can always tell a friend to get lost until you’re ready to enjoy their company again.

They moved and moved until the town of Lignite North Dakota caused them to unhitch and block up the trailer. They may not have known it at the time but they were finally home. Lignite is where my dad met and married my mom. Lignite is where I was raised along with my sister and two brothers. Lignite is where my children love to be. Lignite is where my Grandpa Fritz lived and died.

Lignite is home, a good home.

This past week I had the pleasure of attending a band concert in which my daughter, Sierra, and her trumpet, B Sharp, took part. The concert was held in the theater of Rapid City’s civic center, where a packed house of about 2,000 friends and family listened to 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th graders honk, bang, squeak, and toot for about two hours.

Starting with the 5th graders each grade performed four songs, and then shuffled off the stage while the next grade shuffled on. The shuffling took longer than the actual concert, but was equally entertaining.

The grades that weren’t performing on stage were seated in the front few rows either awaiting their chance to shuffle and play or recovering from the effort of sitting up straight and paying attention for four songs while on stage.

It was a constant sea of movement in those first few rows. From where I was seated it looked like a bunch of bobble heads hoped up on double espressos. Heads bobbling to the music, heads bobbling to the left and right chatting with bobbling head friends. Very few heads weren’t taking part in this bobblapalooza.

Those heads not partaking were probably attached to the kids whose parents had given strict orders against bobbling of any nature. “If I see so much as one bobble out of you mister you’ll be grounded for a week.” “But mom all the other kids will be bobbling.” “Just because all the other kids get to enjoy themselves you think you have to too?”

When I wasn’t being distracted by the bobblefest I noticed how entertaining the drum section was for each grade. If you have spent any time around kids of this age group you know that the girls and boys are not on the same schedule for physical maturity. We males eventually catch up in the physical department but we are doggedly resilient in maintaining our mental immaturity.

Mental status aside, within these age groups you have quite a mix of characters and characteristics. You have a lot of girls that are physically nearing womanhood and a lot of boys that are physically runts. Clumsy runts….clumsy runts with moppy hair, big teeth, baggy pants, and the manners of a drunken sailor.

All of this physical and mental mayhem is beautifully displayed and choreographed within the drum section. The drum sections were all composed of a 5'8'' young lady making an attempt at elegance surrounded by several of the above mentioned runts. After each song the runts would bounce around like the seven stooges while the 5'8'' princess would point and bark orders.

It was a grand showing by Snow White and the seven runts. “Sneezy where’s the cymbals? Get them from Doc you need the cymbals for this song. Happy get the xylophone out of your pants Sleepy needs it. Where’s the triangle? Dopey that’s not a triangle that’s a tuba. Bashful help Dopey find the triangle. Which one of you runts took my drum stick? Grumpy I’ll break one of your arms off and use that if you don’t give it back.”

The bobble heads, stooges, runts, and princesses all put on a fine concert. The music wasn’t bad either.