[Yeah, we were looking forward to this – kinda wondering how it was going to work? We have seen other Shaun performances in Alex, both with Tonic Sol-fa and the Big Band Experience, but never with an entire symphony orchestra?]
[Symphony president and violinist extraordinaire, Greg Donahue, sets the stage.]
[Maestro Brad Lambrecht leads the Central Lakes Symphony Orchestra with Shaun’s Big Band, consisting of a piano player, a double bass player, a drummer, a trumpet player, a trombone player, and two saxophonists. Shaun was the singer.]
[The tenor from Tonic Sol-fa joined Shaun for one song. Loved it.]
[Shaun and a groupie after the show. Actually, we name dropped. We told him we were close personal friends of Jeanne and Tom Mulder. Underwhelmed by that piece of news, he decided he would pose with the Super anyway. But seriously, Shaun was only too happy to send greetings to the Mulders, and we thanked him for a truly powerful and wonderful show. Oh, and it was quite obvious that the orchestra and Shaun’s band were really have fun playing together.]
[Citing near starvation, the Super made me stop at Subway on the way home. The basketball courts across the street (9th and Broadway) were ice rinks created solely by Mother Nature. This winter of constant thaws has made it necessary for the Obert household to drive the car to the end of the driveway every morning to get the newspaper – walking there is not possible because the entire driveway is a sheet of ice. It didn’t help that we had rain the night before – on February 11, once considered to be the middle of winter.]
After playing the violin for the cellist Gregor Piatgorsky, Albert Einstein asked, “Did I play well?” “You played relatively well,” replied Piatgorsky.
The Journey Begins
Thanks for joining me! This is the follow-up to the original, “alexandriacardinals.wordpress.com,” which overwhelmed the system’s ability to handle it any more. Thus, this is “Part 2.” As the original was initially described:
10-26-07-4
“It all began in a 5,000 watt radio station in Fresno, California” . . . wait a minute, that was Ted Baxter on the Mary Tyler Moore Show! Let’s see . . . oh yeah, it all began in 2003 when retirees, i.e., old people, in Alexandria, Minnesota, who had no desire to become snow birds, went looking for mid-winter entertainment here in the frozen tundra of West Central Minnesota. We discovered girls’ high school hockey, fell in love immediately, and it remains our favorite spectator sport to this day. Initially, and for several years, reports on these games were e-mailed to those who were actually snowbirds but wanted to keep abreast of things “back home.” It was ultimately decided a blog would be more efficient, and it evolved into a personal diary of many things that attracts tens of readers on occasion. It remains a source of personal mental therapy and has yet to elicit any lawsuits.
~ The Editor, May 9, 2014
p.s. The photo border around the blog is the Cardinal girls’ hockey team after just beating Breck for the state championship in 2008. It’s of the all-tournament team. The visible Breck player on the left is Milica McMillen, then an 8th-grader – she is now an All-American for the Gophers. The Roseau player in the stocking cap I believe is Mary Loken, who went on to play for UND; and the Cardinal player on the right, No. 3, is Abby Williams, the player we blame most for making us girls’ hockey fans who went on to play for Bemidji State.
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Photos contained herein are available for personal use. All you have to do is double click on any of the photos and they will become full screen size. You can then save them into your personal “My Pictures” file. They make lovely parting or hostess gifts, or holiday gifts for such as Uncle Ernie who wants to see how his grand niece is doing on the hockey team. If any are sold for personal profit, however, to, for example, the Audubon Society, National Geographic, Sven’s Home Workshop Monthly, Curling By The Numbers, or the World Wrestling Federation, I only request that you make a donation to the charitable organization of your choice. You have two hours and fifteen minutes. Pencils ready? Begin!
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alexandriacardinals 