After literally months of preparation, tomorrow night, starting at 5PM is the test. We have combed through literally thousands of pieces of paper: photographs, letters, documents and an enormous amount of ephemera to put together about eighteen minutes of video for presentation to roughly 275 people who will be gathering to enjoy a wonderful meal, very fine wines, and root beer floats for dessert in Fresno. It should be raining which will add some excitement. People will be coming from far and wide — Hawaii is so far the farthest, but Texas, Wisconsin, Maine and even Oakhurst will be represented.
A video made by the Central Sierra Historical Society will be excerpted and shown. It will be a wonderful tribute to Adeline Smith and her family.
I hope I don’t blow my lines; there are some really good jokes to be told. I promise to stay away from the bar so I stay sharp. But after the show, I just might have a beer.
3 comments:
Congratulations on completing the DVD and on getting such a wonderful response. I know it has all taken place by now. Hope it went super well and you remembered all of your lines :)
Susan, you wouldn't believe how successful this whole affair turned out. Somewhere near 300 people showed up. The food was fabulous. People poured through the entrance and were greeted by Karla and me and Hilary and Luke and went into the part of building where the bar was and were enchanted by the four Swedish musicians competing against the crowd noise. We truly didn't have a plan for how things would happen once they were escorted in to the enormous dining room where the tables were decorated with bandanas with messages printed on them from the response cards we received from the invitations. Roses and candles were on all thirty tables. The wait staff were superb. Our video presentation went off with truly heartwarming response. The speakers were eloquent. I was the master of ceremonies and never had so much fun in my whole life. It was the easiest job I ever had. We had speakers from the audience that made the whole show simply superb. Adeline was there in spirit so strong that absolutely nothing could go wrong. We finally ended a half hour before midnight and everyone was totally jazzed.
In other words, it couldn't have been better. No way.
The following morning we got to have breakfast at the Marriott where so many people stayed. It was another celebration. Incredible! Karla and I are still in awe. This will be terribly hard to duplicate. Amazing. Wow. Can I say more? No.
Tom, that is truly wonderful. I am so glad it went so well. What a memory for you all! And what an amazing woman Adeline was to inspire such an event.
Post a Comment