By Vern Holmquist
It has occurred to me lately that nothing has occurred to me lately.
Well, there was this one thing that did happen when my friends Mary Grant and Ruth Warring hosted a very nice birthday party at The Glockenspiel to celebrate my 90 years on this earth.
I was overwhelmed by the love and good wishes from all who attended. Thank you and love you all.
To tell the truth, my birthday was on May 21 and on that day I had another great evening, a fine Italian dinner and the music of three very good jazz bands at the Wooden Nickel Events building (formerly the brewery restaurant).
Odd, while the jazz event was here in Mount Angel, it was primarily a Silverton event to support the Silverton High School Jazz Band that has a very big event coming up this summer, the pride of Silverton.
Joining the Silverton band was the Keiser Community Big Band and a great little band from Wilsonville called the Grand Jazz Band. There was a gal singer from Wilsonville (I must get her name) that could belt out the Blues as good as Ella or Sassy, fantastic.
The building seemed to be full to capacity, a big success. And I hope the Wooden Nickel brings more good entertainment to the events building this summer.
Much of the music played that night was from the wonderful Swing, big band era, the music of Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Harry James, the romantic tunes of the Glen Gray Casa Loma Orchestra.
Oh, I was feelin’ groovy when a young lady asked me to dance with her. Not a good idea. For those of you who never danced much to swing music there is a major difference.
While the music many of you are used to dancing to has the emphasis on the on beat, swing is on the off beat, so the young lady’s body was going up as mine was going down.
It just doesn’t work out, which is also the reason I cannot dance the Polka. Dancing was a big part of my life but I just can’t get that Polka beat. Play a waltz for the old man.
Then, there was the night Osama Bin Laden was killed.
Wanting to see if there was any reaction in downtown Mount Angel, I jumped on my scooter. The only place I found open was the Bier Haus.
I walked in and announced “Osama Bin Laden has been killed by our military.”
I got a few rather blank stares. I repeated the announcement. A lady who may have had one too many, turned to her man and said, “Who the hell is he talking about?”
How far off this planet can Mount Angel be? Well, anyway, Mount Angel is a good place to live, most of the bad things that are happening in our world including the weather seem to leave us untouched, so rejoice and praise the Lord.
And we can see our new Community Building coming to fruition, a tremendous achievement for our town and addition to Oktoberfest. It’s exciting to drive by it and see how quickly things are progressing.
