Last Saturday was a fun day. I had saved up some money, and I took Mer and two friends out to hear some good music. A fellow CVCA teacher (like most of out friends) loves music, and Eric and his wife Shanna are the founders of the band Bethesda – the band we went to see a few weeks ago. Anyway, Eric is a ton of fun, and I very much enjoyed getting to meet Shanna at the CD release party a few weeks ago. So, when I found out that an artist (John Gorka) whom I like very much was playing at the Happy Days Visitors’ Center in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, I thought it would be fun to invite Eric and Shanna. They are game souls, and so they jumped in.
Eric and Shanna met us at our house, and were kind enough to wait two minutes or so for me to wrap up watching an Olympic cross country race that was very close (yes, I am the ever-gracious host). We piled into our car, and headed up to Hudson to go to the Old Whedon Grille. Eric had never been there before, and Shanna had only been once, so it seemed like a good choice.
Dinner was excellent – good food and great conversation. We found out that Shanna had studied in England for a time, and had a quick trip over to Ireland. Eric and Shanna had traveled together in Italy. They’d spent their vacation two summers ago in Vegas with their family (Eric was offered the CVCA job while leaving the Vegas airport!), and last summer toured around Maine. I knew I liked these two! We found out that their wedding had had many rough spots, including a DJ who managed to botch a pre-made mp3 playlist. We laughed an awful lot. We did have to skip dessert since we had to get to the concert, but we could fix that later.
We got to the Happy Days Visitors’ Center about 30 minutes before the concert started. It was open seating, so we were about 3/4 of the way back, around 60 feet back from the stage. They were still fine seats. We chatted to pass the time, although as I have approached 40, I have had a harder time hearing people when there is a crowd around, especially when there is piped-in music (which there was). I followed some of the conversation, but I was still content in looking forward to the concert.
John Gorka did two sets, of about 45-50 minutes each. His music was very fine, two pieces on the keyboard, and the rest with him on guitar. He mixed up the pacing and topics of the songs very well, and his stage persona is downright wacky. I laughed quite a bit, and I do like his music. Eric and Shanna seemed to enjoy it as well, although Shanna was wiped out since she works as a teacher and is working on her Master’s at the same time, so she was a little sleepy through some of the slower songs.
After the concert, we headed back to our house, where we offered Eric and Shanna a brownie/ice cream dessert. They accepted, and we talked for another hour or so, touching often on teaching since we are all in education. Eric and Shanna finally had to go around midnight. They both claim to be game people, so I hope to see them soon over a game board or at another concert. They are fun folks.