The House on Christmas Street

Sunday, December 9, 2012

The Bright Side of Town- Hurrle Residence, Fruitland, ID

December 2 was an uneventful driving day. I was very happy to meet Terry and Joni Hurrle at the hotel in Albany, OR, just over the line from their home in Fruitland, ID. Their house was on the tour in 2010, and we've stayed in touch. Recently, Joni made a beautiful cross stitched ornament of our departed dog, Buffy, sporting angel wings. It was a lovely, thoughtful thing to do and something I will cherish always. So I had big hugs for Terry and Joni when I saw them!
We had pizza at the same place where Terry took me two years ago and the pizza was just as yummy as I remembered! Terry is a talker...boy can he talk! I thought no one could talk as much as Philip and me until I met Terry! But he is so enthusiastic and excited about everything that it is fun to listen to him and I enjoy spending time with him very much. But poor Joni...she could hardly get a word in!


Dig that shirt!

I spent all of the next day catching up on work and laundry until it was time to head to Terry's for the show. When I say "catching up on work" I mean answering emails, making calls, putting together orders...all the things I still have to do to keep my business running. I found the post office and sent out a bunch of CDs. I was glad to have a day to try to get caught up.
Terry's display has undergone some upgrades since I last saw it. He's created all new wireframes of Dave and The Chipmunks and Elvis and they look great. He had new LED lights and stars and the whole thing looked fresh and fantastic !

At the risk of repeating myself, it is impressive how many hours the decorators put into their displays all year round just to put smiles on the faces of perfect strangers. They're the nicest people in the world ... Incredibly creative and generous. My world has been improved so much by knowing these wonderful people and being accepted into their world.
There is a lady named Gloria...she doesn't know the Hurrles but she came to the 2010 concert at their place and since then has posted many encouraging and lovely messages on my Facebook pages. She was really happy that I was returning to Fruitland and arrived early with her two beautiful grandchildren. I was so happy to see her! She is really a bright, shining spirit and I'm just blessed that she likes my music. Gloria, if you are reading this, I want you to know that it really meant a lot to me that you were able to come.
I was also really happy to see another decorator, Tyson Schmidt, who brought three of his kids up from Boise for the concert. All of the kids at the concert were dancing and having fun and making me smile and laugh.One of Tyson's daughters has some very unique dance moves...I was cracking up while singing just from watching her! Tyson, thanks for bringing the kids all that way to see me. I hope they all conked out on the way home and you had a restful drive!

Santa was there, too... And I so enjoyed singing "Santa Whatcha Got" to him in person while he did a crazy dance with the kids, even though I look at little "out of it" in this picture!

I think it is safe to say that a jolly good time was had by all!! Thank you, Terry and Joni for hosting me once again...and for the pizza and the good company! It was another memorable night I'll be thinking of in January when I'm back home and all the excitement is over. These memories will keep me warm during the long New Hampshire winter.

Dec. First, Travel Day

Traveling like this is a lot of fun for me, but, of course, it can sometimes be lonely, too. That's why I try to see as many friends as I can along the way, if there is time. So Saturday, Dec. 1, found me headed for Anaheim, CA, to meet up with Jamie Shaheen, a friend from The Children's Music Network. I've only actually met Jamie in person one other time-- at the children's music nominee showcase during Grammy weekend in 2011, but we really hit it off and have stayed in touch.

Jamie is a talented singer, pianist and songwriter, and you may have seen her on TV if you are a "Modern Family" fan. She was the pianist on the episode where Cam directed Manny's school musical!

Anyhow, we'd been planning for months to try to meet up on this trip, and so I headed for Downtown Disney, which was near my route, and Jamie showed me around and treated me to a delicious and delightful lunch. Our visit was too short! Jamie plays piano in the Grand California Hotel, so look for her if you are visiting Disney!

I had 7 more hours to drive to my stopover in Carson City, NV, and I stayed with Jamie longer than I should have because we were having so much fun. I didn't hit the road again til 3pm.

The first part of the drive was okay; driving through the desert is easy. Here's a little burg where I stopped for a potty break

But just after sunset the first bad thing happened. In an instant there was a jackrabbit in my headlights. It froze, looking at me and there was nothing I could do. It sprang off and I heard and felt something hit and my heart shattered. I called Philip, bawling. I felt so awful. As usual, he knew just what to say to calm me down.

So on I went. The flatlands turned into hills and the bad weather appeared before too long, and I hit signs like "last gas for 110 miles". I was in Nowheresville.

About two hours short of Carson City, my destination where I had a pre-paid motel room waiting for me, the tiredness set in. I broke into a bag of popcorn I'd purchased at Disney and munched on that to stay awake. When that was gone I began opening the window and blasting myself with cold air, while singing at the top of my lungs and periodically whacking myself in the face. There were a few small, one- horse towns that popped up now and then and I paused in the parking lots of two separate motels and considered stopping, but in the end decided they were too sketchy -looking.

I was within ten miles of Carson City I came upon one of those little towns. I dutifully slowed down, but before I slowed down enough I saw blue lights behind me. Yep , I got a speeding ticket. The officer was actually very nice but not nice enough to just give me a warning! Ah well, I deserved it, took my lumps and crawled on to Carson City, and a very cute local motel with a comfortable bed where I instantly collapsed after brushing my teeth, with the dulcet sound of Wakko Warner singing , "Nevada, Carson City. That's all the capitols there are!" swimming around in my head.

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Simmons Family Dancing Christmas Lights 11-30

WOW! To wake up in beautiful Palm Springs was really something! I'm writing this days later in a hotel room in Oregon (just over the border from Fruitland, ID, where I performed last night) and I can still feel the sunshine and warmth from Palm Springs. It was gorgeous. I remember when I was little, whenever we heard about Palm Springs it was always the place the movie stars hung out and it was really cool. They have managed to maintain that "cool" factor with lots of retro design and decor (my hotel had a lot of green and orange and it was very 60's...I could picture Marilyn Monroe and Bobby Darren hanging out by the pool.

Speaking of the pool, this is the perfect opportunity to thank all of my hosts so far for providing me with really great accommodations. When a host agrees to sign on for the tour they have to do three things: Get as much publicity as possible for the concert, collect for a charity and provide me with a room in hotel/motel/b&b. I always tell them it doesn't need to be fancy.....just clean and bug free (!)...but all of my hosts so far have really gone out of their way to make sure I've been taken care of. Every hotel has had an exercise room or access to a gym, for example, which is really important to me as I struggle to continue to lose weight while on this tour (so far i've just plateaued.) SO THANK YOU to all of my hosts. I am very grateful!

Getting back to Palm Springs....my host, Michael Simmons, treated me to a lovely outdoor lunch at a cool PS restaurant and then took me sightseeing...including seeing Bob Hope's former home (which, Michael informed me, wasn't really owned by Bob Hope but by the Chrysler Corporation, who let him live there). We also saw a statue of Lucille Ball sitting on a bench, and this GIGANTIC statue of Marilyn Monroe:

Michael told me this is actually a traveling statue and not a permanent part of Palm Springs. It was pretty amazing. She looked like the 50 Foot Woman!!

The concert at the Simmons' house that evening was so much fun. His display is bright and beautiful and has even been featured on national television. My pictures do NOT do it justice.
What I loved the best was the decorated palm trees! There's something ya don't see in New Hampshah!

There wasn't a huge crowd there, less than 100, but Michael had told me that four of the surrounding towns had tree lightings that night, and so I understood what might happen. Still, the people who did come were really into the show, and there was this one Grandma who was dancing with her Grandson and they were very entertaining! This woman had ALL the moves...I bet she loved the Beach Party movies when she was a kid! They were having so much fun and it was great to see. There were many children there and that made it even more great for me, but everybody seems to be a kid at heart at this time of year and so I enjoyed singing to the grown-ups just as much. This one guy who did the duet on "Candy" with me was pretty stoic, but afterwards I talked to his teenage son who was very proud of his Dad and said, "He's the best." That made my NIGHT.
Michael, if you are reading this, please don't feel bad that there wasn't a huge crowd there. I had a wonderful time and I think the people who were there had a good time and as long as you had a good time then it's all good! I'll come back next year if you want me to and let's get that float in the parade!
I also want to give a big shout out to the folks at http://www.facebook.com/burkemedia whose staff was there covering the event. They were great fun to work with and I look forward to seeing the footage they shot!.
THANK YOU SIMMONS FAMILY! I had a GREAT time in Palm Springs and found it very difficult to leave your beautiful city!

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Castaldo Christmas Lights Concert 11-29

Thursday was a very busy day!

I did manage to get in a workout in the exercise room at the hotel on Thursday morning, then it was shower and go off to the Rotary Club meeting at a restaurant, where I had a very nice lunch with my hosts and spoke for about 20 minutes about my career and how I came to be in Beaumont. Everyone in the Rotary Club was very nice and welcoming.
In the afternoon I performed a Christmas concert for the kids at the City DayCare and After School Program and that was a total hoot. Many of the kids recognized me from the day before at Sundance and they were very excited to see me again. I had as good a time as they did.

Then it was off to David and Vanna Castaldo's house for the evening concert. Man, I was blown away when I drove up and saw their house!


And that's not even the whole thing!

As I mentioned in the last entry, the charity to benefit from the concert was the Beaumont-Cherry Valley Rotary Club, and their youth programs. They brought the kids out in full-force. David is the Mayor Pro Tem of Beaumont, and he got the town to close off the street so that there would be more room for people. But he also did something that no other decorator has done...he provide VIP seating! The way it worked was this: I had a flat bed truck as a stage, situated along his ample driveway. In front of the stage he had a canopy with seats set under it. He sold each seat for $20 and all the money went to the club! Then everyone else who came stood at the end of the driveway and along the fence that you can see in the picture.
It was an AMAZING night. I could see as I was singing that the place was packed and there was even a TV crew there from Los Angeles NBC affiliate Channel 4. Afterwards I was told that the official police count was nearly 500 people!

David hired a talented photographer named Rigo Pena to take pictures of the event. Here are some of the great photos I've seen so far:

My host, David Castaldo, introducing the concert

This is Bruce, the coordinator of the Rotary Youth programs

Disco Rudolph!

This is why I do it, right here!

The guy from Channel 4 recorded quite a bit of the concert and I

was told that it would be used on the news at 11, but by that time I'd moved 30 miles down the road to a hotel in Palm Springs and they didn't get that station there! However, friends told me that I was in the broadcast feature on the event, but they didn't use my name or any audio! All is not lost, however, as I was also interviewed after the concert and told that I would appear as part of the one-hour special that Channel 4 produces that will run on Christmas Eve and Christmas day. That would be fantastic! I'm actually going to email them and see if they would like to use "The House on Christmas Street" as the theme song for their program. That would really give the song some great exposure.

I just want to thank David Castaldo again for making it a big night to remember. It was really all his hard work that got that many people out there, and his light show and his arrangements for me to have a "stage" all made it very fun and professional for me. I hope that everyone who was there that night had as much fun as I did. They've already invited me back for next year...and God willing, I will be there!!

First Day in Beaumont 11-28

On Wednesday morning I woke up bright and early, eager to meet the kids and staff at Sundance Elementary School in Beaumont, CA. It was a beautiful, sunny day!

Sundance is a National Blue Ribbon School, in addition to winning the California School of Excellence Award six years in a row, and it's obvious why. The minute I walked in the school I was greeted by friendly, helpful staff...the custodian, David, was a doll, helping me get my stuff inside, and the Principal, Lauren Kinney, was perhaps the most vivacious school principal I have ever met. What a fun and accomplished woman! I had a chance to chat with her about her career and the school and I was very impressed. Wish I'd had a principal like her when I was in elementary school!

I presented two assemblies (Take Me to Your Reader for k-2 and Reading Our Way Across the USA for 3-5) and the students were attentive, lively and engaged. A great group of kids! What a terrific way to start my trip to California!

My host, Mayor Pro Tem David Castaldo, greeted me at the school also. Thank you David for setting up so many opportunities for me to perform for the children of Beaumont (I also did a show for the City Daycare & After School program on Thursday). I had a delicious lunch with David and his wife, Vanna, and also a cheerful guy named Bruce who came to tell me about the Beaumont Rotary Club's youth programs, which my concert would be benefiting. I appreciated getting such insight into how the kids benefit from the Rotary Club programs, and I got to see it first hand when they came out for the concert at David's house on Thursday night. A terrific bunch of teenagers who were so unpretentious and just having fun and enjoying life, the way it should be. Cheers to the Rotary Club of Beaumont-Cherry Valley!

THE BIG LONG DRIVE 11-27

I'm here in my hotel room in Carson City, Nevada, where it is pouring rain and windy. This is the halfway point between Palm Springs and Fruitland, ID where I have my next show. The ride to get here was really horrible. After I left Palm Springs I went over to Anaheim and met my fellow children's musician and pianist and entertainer extraordinaire, Jamie Shaheen, at Downtown Disney. I didn't shop; that's not in the tour budget! But it was fun to be there and to catch up with Jamie, and she treated me to a GREAT lunch at Storytellers. Thank you, Jamie!

But when I last left off here I'd visited the Stand By Me locations and that evening I had a really fun show at the Lebanon Public Library. It's just a gorgeous library and the Library Director, Carol Dinges, was very gracious and lovely. Lots of people came, and I recognized folks who had been at the show at Paul Aziz's house the night before. I think it is safe to say a good time was had by all...especially me!

The next day is the day I have had marked in my date book as "BIG LONG DRIVE." I started out at 7:30am in Albany, OR (where my hotel was) and drove all the way to Beamont, CA...a 15 hour drive. With stops along the way I made it to Beaumont before 11:30, so my Garmin, Sidney, was right on the mark! Sidney is my Australian Garmin friend and my constant companion on the road. I just love to hear him say "Recalculating" over and over in his "put another shrimp on the barbie" accent!

The BIG LONG DRIVE was beautiful. Here are some photos:

I stopped halfway on the drive to find Pancoast Pizza, which Emma had found a few weeks ago online. It was really fun to meet a Pancoast "cousin" and eat his delicious pizza! If you are ever in the Walnut Creek, CA area, please stop in. You'll see what I mean!

Mt. Shasta . I stopped to take this.

don't worry, I'm very careful when I do this. There are no other cars around. But isn't that cool?

last mile of Oregon

I stopped to take this one.

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Stand By Me

Hi....
Wow! The past few days have gone by super fast...so I'm going to try to catch up here.

When I last wrote I mentioned that I was going off to find some of the filming locations from the movie "Stand by Me." This is one of my favorite movies that is based on a Stephen King story. His story is called "The Body" and can be found in the collections "Different Seasons."

Before I show you what I found, here's a little side story.

In 1982 I went to work for a radio station in Bangor, Maine, where I did the news and later was a deejay. The station was purchased by Stephen King while I worked there, and he came in often and was a very generous owner. He was friends with my boss, and we were told that when he came in we should just treat him like a "normal person." But I was a fan, and had been since I read Salem's Lot when I was in high school. Anyway, I'd just finished ready the novella, "The Body," when a day or two later SK came over to the station. Now, "The Body" is a work unlike any of his others. It is not a horror story. If you've seen "Stand by Me" then you know what it's about, but , as usual, the story is much more moving than the movie.(even though the movie is excellent and one of the best, if not THE best, adaptation of a King story) It actually had me in tears and I was so astounded that such a beautiful piece of writing came from this guy who, up to that point, had only published scary stuff. Coming from Maine, I just had to know if this story was based on a true incident.
So this one day that he was at the station I SO wanted to go up and talk to him about it, but I had to play it cool. That lasted until he was about to leave. He was actually on his way out the door when I pulled all my courage together and went up to him and admitted that I was a "constant reader" and that his story had really moved me. He just stood there looking down at me (he's really tall) as I gushed on and when I asked him if it was autobiographical he looked at me and said, "I'll never tell," turned and walked out the door, leaving me standing there like an idiot and being the laughing stock of everyone else who worked there.
The upshot of this story is that some time later I came into work and my boss handed me the galley print of "Pet Semetary" and said, "Steve wants you to read this. He wants to know if you like it." HA!! So that made me feel TONS better!! And I am still a fan even though I left the station long ago. As I said, he was a very generous owner who immediately gave us all raises and bought new equipment for the station, rented the theatre and watched his movies with us and invited us all to his home on New Year's Eve. It's still a pretty cool thing, when I think about it.

Anyway, I really enjoyed my walking tour of "Castle Rock," which is actually Brownsville, OR. Here's some of the stuff I found:

Here's a page from the script. Lots of documentation from the movie is in a binder in the Brownsville Historical Society, so if you go you should start there. They supply maps so you can take a walking tour of movie locations, like I did.


As "Vern," played by Jerry O'Connell, walks away at the end he finds and picks up a penny in the street. Someone embedded this penny in the same place in downtown Brownsville. Smart town, capitalizing on their claim to fame!