PSWEblog
June 21
It’s the longest day of the year as I write this and there still doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day left to do things. The Pacific Symphonic Wind Ensemble is preparing for our final concert in Vancouver before we get on the plane to Singapore. It doesn’t seem real yet that we will actually have performed in front of one of the most knowledgeable wind band audiences in the world in just over three weeks.
There are still staging details to be worked out, percussion instruments to purchase, not to mention the never ending number of items left on the rehearsal to-do list! It is at this point I’m sure every group is asking themselves “What were we thinking 2 years ago when we applied to play in Singapore?” I’ve been here with lots of projects before and it seems the larger the number of details there are and the more hair is pulled out over them (and those of you who know me know that I’m starting from a deficit position in that department) the greater the sense of accomplishment when all is said and done.
We have already realized that we’ve reaped the benefits of performing in Singapore, long before we get on that plane. The learning curve has been steep but well worth the effort. No matter how we stack up to our illustrious colleagues who will also be performing during the week, we have raised the bar and improved immensely over the last season as we’ve worked toward this goal. We hope and pray that that will be apparent to our audience! We have learned so much about fundraising over the last year. The most important being, if you’re not a kid or you’re not sick, you’re not getting any money! This trip has been almost entirely funded by the members themselves.
One of the greatest benefits however has been that our group, that was a family before taking on this challenging project, has grown together even more. We have taken on all of the attributes of your typical family. We’ve had more fights, but we’ve pulled together for a common cause and have grown to know each other as individuals more than instruments much more than ever before.
Over the coming period leading up to our performance, I’ve been invited by WASBE to share some of our experiences. In particular, I hope to write on a daily basis as we hit the ground in Singapore in the hope that our experiences will be shared with our audiences at home and with future possible applicants to perform at WASBE conferences. Please feel free to contact me at mdcromp@telus.net if you have any thoughts or questions that you might want answered as this blog progresses.
July 8 @ 1 a.m. PDT
These members of PSWE look far too bright-eyed for 1 a.m. in the morning! The web editor found them hanging out in the food court of the International Departures area of the Vancouver International Airport. The flight was scheduled for a 3:20 a.m. departure. Bon voyage!
In flight — Hong Kong to Singapore
Wow! It’s real now! We’re on the last leg of our flight. We landed in Hong Kong a half hour early. It was great to walk around and grab a “real coffee” after 14 hours in the air. We were truly impressed by the hospitality in our hour in the Hong Kong airport. They seems to have arranged for a brief torrential downpour just long enough to make us feel like we’re home in Vancouver.
I was fully expecting to see others heading to the conference on this flight but I guess there are so many ways of getting to Singapore from around the world that it would be less likely to have everyone arrive through Hong Kong. Our big challenge today will be to stay awake all day. We were served breakfast at about 5 a.m. and everyone has had different levels of success getting any sleep on the flight. A number of us are planning on heading out to the night safari tonight. It seems like a great way to stay awake long enough to get adjusted to the time zone and it’s the one night that we’re in Singapore that the night safari won’t conflict with an evening conference.
I’m now being called a “slave driver” as I’ve scheduled a rehearsal for first thing Sunday morning. It’s the baptism by fire approach to time zone adjustment that we’re after! It’ll be good though to hit the ground, do a little playing and get accustomed to the climate.
OK, there’s a weird coincidence. One of our flight attendants just stopped to talk and mentioned that she played Euphonium in a brass band in Japan when she was growing up. Our Euph player had to back out at the last minute. I wonder if she can get a few days off work!
Sunday Morning (July 10)
We got in yesterday at the tail-end of the IOC meetings. Airport security was pretty easy by North American standards but getting into the hotel was a different story. We were met at the airport by the travel company, our luggage was packed into a truck and we got on a bus in to downtown. The luggage truck was directed through a separate security check while we went on to the hotel to be met by a strong police and military presence. After clearing the bus through security, we lined up to take our belongings through airport-level security before we could go and collapse in our rooms.
The evening was spent getting settled and getting acquainted with our surroundings. All the important things in life were discovered: Starbucks, a grocery store, and plenty of restaurants. The most difficult thing was getting around outside the hotel given that a rehearsal for the National Day Parade was going on in the streets. There were more military vehicles than I’m sure the Canadian military have ever owned plus floats and thousands of people. Canons were being fired across the bay and fighter planes were doing fly-pasts and stunts above the city. It was all followed by fireworks later in the evening. This whole thing lasted for a number of hours. If this was the rehearsal, I want to come back in a month when they do it for real. They will apparently rehearse this every weekend leading up to the event!
This morning we’re off to a rehearsal to see if reeds still work, instruments have been jostled and brains still function in the new time zone. We already know that one valve on a tuba needs repair. Thankfully we don’t play until Friday and have some time to deal with theses things. Registration opens later today in the Esplanade and the conference will begin!
Sunday Night
What a day. The rehearsal went well. It was good to have a chance to play and be reassured that reeds, most valves and some brains still work on a new continent! The tuba got patched up for an amazing S$20. Not a perfect repair but it will get the instrument through until Cathay Pacific gets another shot at it.
It was great to get over and register and start seeing people again. This being my fourth conference, I’ve made enough friends now that it in some ways feels like coming home at the beginning of every conference. The one frustration has been getting internet access. Once I got my backstage pass, I thought that I would be able to easily head to the green room and plug in. I hope to figure out why it isn’t as simple as plug and play soon.
The conference kicked off this afternoon with a bunch of speeches
and a concert by the Singapore Youth Wind Ensemble and the
Singapore Chinese Orchestra. It seems to have become a tradition
to introduce the musical culture of the delegates at the opening
ceremony or concert and the SCO certainly did that in a big way.
The evening concert was the Republic of Korea Navy. What a
superb ensemble of musicians they were!
The members of PSWE seem to want very different things out of this trip and conference. It is easy to catch up with everyone at breakfast and many at concerts and find out what deals were had in Chinatown or what beautiful views were seen on what beaches. For me, the priority is good food, great music and good friends and so far, the trip is delivering big-time!
Tuesday Morning (July 12)
How do you top a day like yesterday for the band? Not only were there great deals to be had in Chinatown and Little India and great sites to see, not only were there two stimulating concert programmes that much of the band heard, not only were there some great sessions and great development of friendships both in the band and with other delegates, not only did most of the band finish the night by taking a bumboat ride on the Singapore River, but one of our Tuba players proposed to one of our bassoonists! As a High School band director, you get used to relationships building on band tour, but I can honestly say that I’ve never had a proposal on a tour!
In the foreground, the newly-engaged Matt Thompson and Ann LePage (you'll notice the addition of a ring on Ann's hand – see inset). In the near background is a hawker stand and in the far background is the entrance to where the band went on their bumboat ride, not far from the Esplanade concert hall.
The food has been great. I don’t know anywhere else in the world that the breakfast buffet will include pancakes, omlettes, dim sum, congee and a wonderful curry that you can follow with yogurt and cocoa-puffs! It’s hard to enjoy it all before 9 a.m. — the attempt seemed to make me a little sick yesterday morning. I’m fully recovered however and have enjoyed a wonderful Asian-fusion garlic inspired lunch with a great Thai dinner later in the day.
Off to do some preparation for tomorrow’s repertoire session, get some lunch and get ready for the afternoon sessions and concerts!
Tuesday Night
I’ve decided that y’all should be tired of my blathering by
now. I’m going to ask others in the band to contribute. First, our
illustrious president, Allan Hicks:
Today was a busy day here in sunny Singapore. Did I say sunny? Actually, it rained all day. Now don’t get the idea that the rain tempered the temperature any. Basically it was blazing hot and raining hot. We are on the sixteenth floor of the hotel and Heather said it was like waking up in a cloud.
Those of us who take young people on band tours know that every band tour has a little romance during it. Well, our band is adults (mostly), but we are all thrilled by the upcoming union of a tubist and bassoonist!
This morning I attended a new music reading session, this session featuring North and South American new music. The session was well organized and proceeded apace. I was pleased to hear a selection of music from grades 1-6, and the University of Florida band read well.
The next session was a composers’ panel. Today we had eight panelists, so things moved along briskly. Some memorable quotes: “ Stylistically we are all on a continuum from Stockhausen to Madonna” and “Good composers borrow, great composers steal.”
The afternoon concert featured the West Winds Community Band from Singapore. For me (and other delegates I spoke with), the highlight, probably of the week so far, was a premiere, Sanga Nila, by Zachariah Goh Toh Chai. Its choir stayed on to perform Eric Whitacre’s Cloudburst.
I went looking for supper with Marc and bass clarinetist Chuck, who is also a Certified Chef de Cuisine and who guided us to the hawkers stands. Now, normally, eating street food in a foreign country is risky, but this is Singapore, and Chef Chuck knows his food. He disappeared and moments later arrived with tilapia, stingray, noodles with squid and prawns, sampal oelek, Thai birds eye chili and pickled cabbage, baby bok choy with oyster sauce. Adam Gorb stopped by, so we shared the remains in return for his contribution of chicken satay.
It is now intermission of the Landes-Jugend Blasorchester Nordrhein-Westfalen concert and we have been treated to a piano concerto and a superb performance.
Time to assemble the band to go on a Night Safari. If we have all our limbs and fingers tomorrow we’ll have sectional rehearsals.
Wednesday (July 13)
Hi, folks. Guest blogger Chuck Currie here. 11:15 p.m., Wed., July 13th in Singapore.
Stay with me, folks—the most inspirational ensemble at the
conference is reviewed below (we can all go home after today—the
history is written and the remainder is all an anti-climax).
How can you tell when two Scots are sharing a room? Well, besides the bottle of 18-year-old Single Malt sitting on the bedside table between us, Marc and I are still on the second eensy little bar of soap between the two of us since we arrived however the hell long ago it was—and that is a lot of surface area covered. We’re pretty sure we won’t get charged for another bar of soap, but we’re not taking any chances.
We were up about 5:30 a.m. so that Marc could rehearse the Hong Kong Young Musician’s Wind Orchestra in the piece he would conduct for the Repertoire Session, the early morning workshop that demonstrates new works to the delegates at the conference. I wanted to attend the rehearsal at 8 a.m., which was to be followed immediately by the repertoire session at 9 a.m., so I got up and showered while Marc was pressing his suit and his eyelids. He had been up late going over the score, which he already knew perfectly well, since PSWE performed it this year, but that Scottish work ethic goes along with the frugality—and he had caught sight of the band members who attended last night’s concert. They were a pack of giggling teenagers! He turned white and raced back to the room to put on the hair shirt and flog himself through the score yet another time.
We chowed down at about 6:45 a.m. The breakfast here is just fine if you like western food and freakin’ spectacular if you want to improve your articulation by burning a layer of skin off your tongue with curry and sambal oelek. I was a little miffed at how poorly the food was lit this morning since I needed more careful aim than normal to pile it half a foot high on the plate without slopping over the edges. I looked around for a rheostat and then realized the room doesn’t actually have any lights. We’re on the equator here, and the wall of the room is simply a large sheet of glass—it is light in there from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. year round. We were just a tad early.
OK, on to the show. We arrived at the studio theatre at 7:50 a.m.— just early enough to be keen and not too early to show paranoia. Yesterday’s reading band was a powerhouse from an American university and the word was that they got the rehearsal started a half hour late—leaving 30 minutes to go through about 8 pieces with 8 different conductors. It showed in their readings. They’d had the music for a while but you could not tell—we didn’t think they had even looked at it. The piece Marc was doing today with the teenagers is not difficult technically but is a powerfully emotional and evocative programmatic piece with modern wind techniques and group improvisation—texturally and dynamically demanding. I thought as we arrived that recordings were being played during setup, but when we opened the door, the group was already warming up on some of their own pieces—bright eyed and dressed to the nines as if they were on the evening main stage. They sounded great. The giggling teenagers had transformed into young professionals. The Hong Kong Young Musician’s Wind Orchestra is picked from three high schools in that city and all three of their conductors were in attendance.
Marc’s piece was the fourth of ten they were to perform today so his slot in this one hour rehearsal session was extremely limited. The opening of Toledo has about half a dozen solo entrances in the first couple of pages. Not one of these young musicians were looking at their music; they’d memorized their entrances and were watching Marc like he was prey. The young female tympanist had positively ferocious concentration and focus—and she was not alone. The principal clarinetist with the biggest opening solo had a mature centered ringing warm tone and played with fervor and great musicality… I could go on. I’ll take you out of the rehearsal with two delicious “Crompton moments” that typify the man. At one point the percussion has a crescendo that needs to drown out the winds gradually and completely. Marc had to ask them twice to do this and put it in a way that endeared the entire room to him. He said, “I really don’t want to hear these guys” so pleadingly and comically that the percussionists laughingly obliged and the winds gladly succumbed. In the very last bar of the rehearsal the percussionists screwed up the ending big time. Marc just bent over with jovial laughter. They knew he knew, and he knew they knew he knew that it wouldn’t happen again (they were too good) and they had already worked the meat of the piece at home (he was just adjusting interpretation) so he simply walked off the stand confidently. He whispered in my ear that kids that were disciplined and rehearsed this hard just have to be trusted, and they sometimes didn’t get enough of that. I had been crying with joy for the past 10 minutes since the first perfect solo entry, so I couldn’t respond.
They ended up giving a compelling performance, not just a reading. These young ladies and gentlemen flew 4 hours to get here to do a reading session, and flew back home again as happy as if they had been main stage attractions. They will be. I don’t care how good the pros on the big stage were and are this week, the Hong Kong Young Musician’s Wind Orchestra just blew them all away.
I was emotionally drained by this experience that affirmed the career choice of every music educator at this conference, and was ready to just sit back and enjoy the next session reviewing chamber wind literature, but was informed that there was to be an immediate PSWE clarinet sectional in the hotel room of the PSWE Clarinet Blondes, Michelle and Ann—say no more!!!
Our principal clarinetist and concertmaster, the divine Mary Backun demonstrated her deep calm and serene leadership by reminding us that we “must remember who we are.” PSWE will have by far the smallest forces on the main stage of any ensemble at the conference. The last two nights featured 80 piece powerhouse wind ensembles with great chops and stunningly difficult repertoire. We are a symphonic ensemble—just 45 pieces—basically symphony orchestra winds, brass and percussion without the strings. Just a few trumpets and clarinetists are added and four fine saxophonists for color. Mary counselled us to stick to our core warm sound and fill the hall with focus and balance instead of power. Last night our inspirational associate conductor and tenor saxophone soloist, David Branter, said over his normal magnum-sized glass of wine that we just had to tell our story as we always do. OK, I’ve revealed three of our secret weapons: the Maestro, the Concertmaster and the Soloist. One of the others is that the ensemble has a history of just nailing the performance to the wall when we need to, as we did with the Hindemith when Dennis Johnson, the then recently-elected President of WASBE came to hear us two years ago. That started the ball rolling for us to get here. I for one cannot wait to get up on that stage on Friday. We are going to kick some ass. For me, this one will be for those young Hong Kong musicians. They and their directors are my heroes.
Sincerely and longwindedly yours,
P.S.: Tom O’Neal from the University of Missouri who also conducted the young musicians this morning gifted Marc and I with his ensemble’s recording of Grainger’s Lincolnshire Posy that included Grainger’s recordings of the original songs on which he based his great masterwork. I knew that I had come here with my family but did not know that I was part of a larger one until today.
Thursday (July 14)
Time for me [Marc] to pick things back up again. It’s Thursday night and I’m having a quiet night at the hotel to recharge my batteries for the big day tomorrow. I have to say that it’s been a bit nerve racking to go to almost every concert and analyze the hall, the performance and wonder if we are going to be able to present ourselves at our very best. Those groups that have built WASBE in as a stop on a larger tour don’t have the time to cogitate as we have been doing.
Having said that, morale seems to be pretty high. We had a really good rehearsal this morning and we are as ready as we will ever be. I think that we will offer the conference a programme unlike any other that they will have heard over the week. Our repertoire is, for the most part, very different than what others have been playing and we seem to be one of the few groups here that rehearse regularly and have been an ensemble in membership for an extended period of time. Hopefully this will show in the way that we perform.
The morning will bring a much needed sleep in and slow preparation for our 11:30 a.m. meeting at the hall. Soundcheck and running the logistics of stage movement will be high on the priority list. We will also be dealing with a few issues that we are not used to in our concerts at home. There are permanent risers on the stage and this will affect our seating and our balance. Many groups this week have suffered from a brass-heavy balance which I believe is in large part to the riser set up. It also seems that the custom here is to parade the bands on stage. As much as I hate this, it doesn’t seem like we’ll be able to get around that one. We also have a very different announcement/MC style at home than what is being provided here. It will be interesting to see how much of a compromise we will be able to come to.
Not wanting to jinx the performance, but what I was most pleased with this morning in rehearsal was the expression that was coming out of the band. The ensemble has grown together much more than I think it has ever before and I think that this is leading to an openness and willingness to be vulnerable and show personal and musical expression at a very deep level. Again, I hope that we are comfortable enough to share this with the audience tomorrow. I don’t want to be coming to Canada with the line I hear from my students all of the time: “But sir, I can do it in the practice room.”
The rest of the day following the rehearsal was much the same as every day we’ve had here. Some of the brass players ran straight to the Esplanade from rehearsal for the Masterclass with the Boston Brass. Others went to High Tea at Raffles while Noel, Marg, Gordon and Marni headed off for Malaysian cooking classes. I hung back at the hotel for a bit before grabbing Chuck and heading to Thai Express for lunch. Chuck’s parents sent me a great email wishing the band well and warned me to be careful when eating with Chuck, as he’ll eat anything. Doe and Al, thanks for the email but the warning has come way too late (perhaps years too late). I’m thoroughly enjoying all the cool and unusual things that Chuck and I tuck into!
The afternoon concert was the Chinese Youth Corps Wind Orchestra from Taiwan. I was particularly excited to see that they were playing Sunan Dances by Dorothy Chan who has recently taken up a composition teaching post at the University of British Columbia. [Editor's Note: UBC is in the same city as PSWE: Vancouver.] The two disappointments of the programme were that they decided to not perform the Chan, and the one piece I really enjoyed, Five Sketches for Wind Orchestra by Chen Dan, isn’t published and will be difficult if not impossible to get to share with our audiences at home.
Finally, I have a new favourite phrase: “I get it!” The number of times members of the band have said to me after hearing a performance or a new composition or attending a session, “I get why you wanted to bring us here,” has been steadily increasing. This is why we came and is one of the many things that has made this trip so worthwhile. And we haven’t even played yet!
Friday (July 15), After the Performance
I thought it would be appropriate to let the PSWE members reflect on the concert and this past week. I’ve taken my computer to our post-concert bash and let anyone who wants to, write. I’ll wrap up with a couple of comments at the end.
Michelle Anderson – Past President / Eb Clarinet
I am writing this entry at our post-performance party, and I am surrounded by much laughter and celebrating. I am most struck by the incredible connections and feelings of community that have developed and strengthened throughout our group this week. PSWE has shared so many moments – musically, socially, and educationally throughout the WASBE conference. We have also had some visitors to our party tonight – notably composer Adam Gorb, various WASBE executive members and even the tuba player from the Boston Brass.
I had a momentary flashback this week to September 2003 at our annual fall retreat, when we put the finishing touches on our WASBE performance application. Our retreat takes place on a beautiful island near Vancouver, and we ended up having a two-hour ferry line-up after our intense weekend of rehearsing. We needed to review some of our concert recordings of the previous season to determine what would best represent PSWE in our WASBE application. The only stereo available was on Allan Hicks’s BMW convertible, so with the top down, we blasted band music and all sat on top of the car listening to our concerts. We were quite an unusual attraction to all of the tourists walking by, but in the process, we selected the music that we put into our WASBE application. At the time, coming to Singapore was a big hope and dream, and it seems surreal that we are here now.
Before our concert, I was struck by how each person handled their preparations. Some people quietly paced and went into their own performance zone, some people chatted and laughed, some people disappeared in quiet change rooms until right before we went on stage. Everyone was struck by the fact that we had prepared for two years for this moment, and now here we were!
The Esplanade is a beautiful performance space. During the sound check, when we hit the final chord of our first piece, the sounds echoed for seconds after we finished playing. Every sound made on the stage is projected into the audience. This certainly increased my awareness that as performers we were in a hall where every dynamic needed to be emphasized, and that we needed to take our softer dynamics to our lowest possible volume. My hope was that we would be able to create some beautiful soft moments in our performance.
Walking out on stage and seeing many people in the audience was a great feeling. We had some friends in the audience – people who had accompanied us, fellow Canadians like Glenn Price, and many other WASBE delegates. It was a pleasure to have Dennis Johnson introduce us personally since we had the privilege of meeting him in Vancouver a couple of years ago when we premiered a work by Marco Pütz that was commissioned by a WASBE conglomerate. Dennis feels like an old friend of PSWE, and having him start the show for us was a fitting way to begin the process.
The actual performance was different for all of us. Some of my favorite moments were listening to David Branter work his crazy magic during the many improvised moments of Caverns, which we premiered here in Singapore. Some of his softer moments were sublime, and made the whole concert worthwhile to me. Michael Colgrass’s Urban Requiem begins with four saxophones and organ, and their chorale sounded like we were in a cathedral. I felt like a member of the audience listening to this introduction, but I probably could appreciate it even more because I have heard this develop over the past few months and today reached new levels of expression. We are blessed in PSWE to have a collection of talented musicians who support each other in every way.
Overall, I feel that we had a good performance. We have prepared for so long for this that we were ready to deal with all conditions. Some things went better than ever. There were some small “oops” moments, but I think that across the board we all feel really proud of our accomplishments here.
Having said that we are a group that supports each other entirely, I have to say that we all feel even extra support from conductor Marc Crompton. His vision, years ago, to have us come to WASBE has carried us all here. I believe his primary reason was for us to be here was to see and hear all of the other amazing groups, which would in turn inspire us to stretch musically. I am very proud that there have been at least about fifteen PSWE members at every other concert this week, and the things we have learned from the other bands we will definitely take with us into our future growth. We can be proud of what we contributed, and we can simultaneously be in awe of the strengths of other groups that give us something to aspire to. I am certain that we will carry these memories into next season, and hopefully borrow from the talents of these other groups as we continue to grow as musicians.
Brandon Green - Percussion
I only joined this group eight months ago, and what I found was not only a group of great musicians, but also a close-knit community of people who really care for the music and each other. Despite the fact that I’m only 17, much younger than most of the band, I have been lucky enough to have been allowed into the PSWE family. This tour has made me realize how much this music and these people mean to me, and what a difference love and emotion can affect a performance.
One often thinks of notes and rhythms as the core of music, but really it is about so much more than that. Music is raw, undiluted emotion, a way of communicating things that mere words never could. What happened tonight was a group of people pouring their own hearts, their own beings into the soundscape, not trying to impress anyone, but simply playing for their own enjoyment, and for the benefit of the friends/musicians around them. With each note played, the members of PSWE allowed others a glimpse of their own psyches, and I feel so honoured to have been able not only to know these wonderful people in a way few others have, but also to share pieces of myself in the process. Thanks so much for a year that I’ll never forget.
Diana Clark – Trombone
Minutes before we were to go on stage today, I found myself breaking down and crying… the overwhelming emotion of this opportunity broke through. For personal reasons, today was a milestone, but as I looked around at my PSWE friends, I realized that there are a number of stories besides my own, of personal courage and risk taking to be told today. I feel uplifted, energized, inspired… the players who worked like crazy to improve their playing to meet the demands of the music, the players who put aside health issues to join us, the players who had big solo parts in such a prestigious concert…. I feel more deeply connected to my PSWE colleagues than ever, and am forever grateful for this experience.
David Gsponer – Trombone
After a week of waiting, a lot of excitement and checking out all the great food in Singapore, we finally reached our goal: the Friday concert at the Esplanade. The Sax players absolutely rocked. The sax section definitely is the best section in the group after the brass section of course (just kidding).
This concert went by so fast it seems to be just like a big blur. We had a lot of fun especially after the concert.
Monday, July 18
I’m sitting in a hotel in Hong Kong right now, on Monday morning. Much of the band should be home now with their families in Vancouver. I purposely hadn’t read the comments above until now and I have to say that I’m overwhelmed with emotion reflecting on the above words and on the week.
As I’ve told the band, my goals more than two years ago to have the band play at a WASBE conference were not only to expose the band to the other great ensembles and music at a conference, but equally to raise the performance bar and challenge the group. Both of these goals were met and exceeded, but other things happened that I never dreamed of. As I told one member of the band, I came to Singapore to have my professional batteries recharged. I expected that I would come back with a myriad of new ideas to bring back to our audiences at home and that certainly happened. I did not expect to be recharged on a much deeper, more spiritual level. We often speak of our ensemble being a family and it is. We have been through some great personal triumphs and tragedy together and that, no doubt, will continue. This week has brought us closer than I ever imagined we could be. The next time we meet will be at a barbeque on August 14th. I’m not sure that I can wait that long to see everyone!
©2005 WASBE