Our Lady of the Kazoo

To celebrate the 4th, I joined a wonderful group of people at Larry and Beth’s house in Fort Davis. Larry is on my board, and one of the first things he did when I arrived last summer was offer his centrally located house as an overnight stay on travels throughout the region. His generosity was fortunate for many reasons, but top of the list has to be the friendship that developed between me, Larry, and his wonderful wife, Beth. I haven’t written much about people on this blog, for fear that folks would feel exposed or offended. I guess I’ve wanted to protect prospective friends from any hint of scrutiny. But as Larry has said, “you’re one of us, girl,” and with this entry I’ve invited Larry and Beth to join you as readers. Long overdue, I'd say.

I wouldn’t have missed the festivities on their porch, a wide and comfortable spot with views of Beth’s fantastic garden and Sleeping Lion Mountain. Porch-sitting is one of Larry’s great skills, along with museum-directing, writing and welcoming people into the fold. This holiday’s gathering included other smart and clever museum folk, philanthropy folk, and a teacher studying mining history under an NEH grant. And a corgi. And a new corgi pup. All in all, an amiable, interesting and fun group.

Though we ate very well, the marquee event of the weekend had to be the parade. Fort Davis is the quintessential cute mountain town (dirt streets and igneous ladyfinger mountains with a scale reminiscent of New England), and it looked exceptionally cute for the holiday. The courthouse square had red, white and blue striped bunting and food booths all around it, and it seemed everyone was wearing red, white and blue along with their cowboy hats. People were enthusiastic about the parade. I heard someone say, “now THIS is the way the holiday should be celebrated,” and they were right.

Beth made sure I was welcomed into the Ladies Kazoo Band, which was fun from start to finish. Decorating the pickup truck was a hilarious exercise for the five of us, all alpha-females. We were each able to relinquish personal control long enough to thoroughly enjoy braiding crepe paper streamers, rescuing balloons that drifted away from other floats, and taping metallic stars to the hub caps. Once the parade started, we donned sequined tiaras, waved flags and played Souza enthusiastically on our instruments. Though we could tell the girls on the Fort Davis Junior Class float were praying to themselves they would never grow up to be as stupid as us, the rest of the crowd seemed to genuinely enjoy our silliness. especially the middle-aged and older ladies along the parade route. And we took home an honorable mention award, though Larry and my band members’ husbands were the judges, so we may have had some undue influence over their decision.

On our walk back to Larry and Beth’s we left a tiara and kazoo for the Virgin at the grotto Beth built for a client friend and neighbor. It seemed fitting to leave them with her, as an honorary member of the band.