Traveling the Lost Continent

I am reading Bill Bryson's "Lost Continent" which has a great deal to say about Iowa and other places we are visiting on this first leg of the 2007-08 season. Bimbo is no longer with us, but we have a slew of memories and lots of documents of her life with us. Attached is Bimbo and the friendly squirrel near Multnomah Falls, Oregon, from a couple of years back.
Now we are in Grand Island, Nebraska, at the Island Motel in which "all the rooms are nice" (The Proprietess) and they are, but the first one we were assigned didn't do well on the High Speed Wireless, so we got an upstairs room instead. Both the rooms are nice.
The Buffalo with Marsha is in Nebraska, but not Grand Island. It's at Kearney (pronounced "Carney") where there is also a bridge across I-80. If you saw the movie "About Schmidt" — and not a lot of people did — with Jack Nicholson in an RV, you have seen this spot. It's sort of a "Now you're really in the West" type of monument, like the Arch in St. Louis, but further west.

Tomorrow, Sunday the 11th of November, Veterans Day, we do a show at the renovated Grand Theater downtown. La Manche/The English Channel has a wonderfully sad segment on the Normandy Landing Beaches and I've been pushing this feature for this show.
Yesterday we drove up from Bella Vista, Arkansas, after a show at the Arts Center of the Ozarks. It was the premier of La Manche and it went well, lots of compliments from the older folks and one guy who'd actually landed on D-Day, having taken the place of an officer who'd been killed in Operation Tiger, the one we mention where 750 men were killed by German E-boats off the Slapton Sands in Devon, several weeks before D-Day.
The other day when we did France - perhaps it was in Madison, Wisconsin - a veteran came up an gave us copies of his maps of the advance of his regiment from Omaha Beach towards St. Lo in the weeks following the landings. It was slow going and he was a medic, which probably wasn't a lot of fun.
It's great to have the reactions from these few survivors who are always so thankful and so outgoing in their appreciation of the recognition we give them in the French film and now in La Manche.
We have lots of La Manche's to do now: Fremont, Lincoln, Kearney and a couple of shows just north of Denver before we take our Thanksgiving break which involves a drive to Portland, Maine, from Colorado.
There's a lot of driving involved but the perqs are visiting with old friend and relations. In Bella Vista we stayed overnight with Cathy and Jim Reed whom we had not seen for ten years. Cathy is a dear friend from Shreveport from back in the Mr. Rooter (she got a buyer for the company), Mama Mia and Gaslight Theater days in the 1980's. Also visiting: John and Carol Bourque. Carol we knew from Shreveport and she made a great gumbo for the evening meal. Her husband John is a Cajun with a great sense of humor and joie de vivre.
In the Northeast, we'll be looking up Marsha's cousin Gary Salamacha again. We've already visited twice since we've been in this travel business, and we're looking forward to doing it again.

Natchitoches Children's Tour

The Children’s Tour

Monty and Marsha are joined on the Cane River front stage, Natchitoches, by friend Joan Heffernan (in the hat) from Roadwater, Somerset, England. Joan sings in the local choir and appears at the monthly folk club at the pub in Luxborough. She also sings two of our songs, "I Just Can't Help Myself," and "Dark Lonely Nights." The kids are third graders from the Parish.


The last week in September is time for the annual Children’s Tour in Natchitoches, Louisiana. The Association for the Preservation of Historic Natchitoches (APHN) sponsors the program which is offered to all third grade classes throughout the Parish. This past September (‘07) there were about 25 participating classes.

They arrive on their buses from all points: Cloutierville, Fairview-Alpha, Marthaville, Provencal, and many schools in the city of Natchitoches itself. There are private schools as well as public. Each class has a list of places to visit, and the schedule is overseen by Martha Wynn. It’s a labor of love for Martha.

They may start at the Prudhomme-Rouquier House, a big white mansion built of bousillage in the late 18th century; or they may start at the Court House Museum, where this year the creator of the Blue Dog, George Rodrigue, was having an exhibit.

They may start with us, down on the stage by the river: we’ll sing them songs of old Louisiana and end with a rousing version of the state song, “You Are My Sunshine.” The program starts at about 8:30 am, Monday to Friday, and runs til about noon when they climb on their buses and head back to their little towns and schools. All a great deal wiser.