The Snow Must Go On

Photo taken by the reporter assigned from the McCall Star Newspaper, Gary Ertter.  What you’re not seeing here are my soggy snow shoes.

The snow must go on.  These were the words repeatedly spoken by Steve Herzog, director of the Valley Home Companion Show in Cascade, Idaho.  The show survived slogging slush, four feet of accumulated banks in all directions, and all manner of relentless varied sorts of frozen falling precipitation.  The snow fell overnight and simultaneously melted.  Then it rose and melted again, all the time continuing to fall.  But the towns-folk showed up nonetheless to see all their relatives and friends perform.  The refrains of Joplin rags still resound in my memories of the big show, as performed by two tenuous teenagers and one capable adult.   A pretty, terrified girl fumbled her way through Maple Leaf Rag on the piano.  All three nights when she at long last made the finish line a group of relieved siblings squealed their relief as the audience roared approval.We get this lovely opportunity as voyeurs of small-town  life to have a second-hand temporary induction in our invitation to be involved in the big show of the year.  We’ve now done it twice which lends to us a bit more depth of insight into the intertwined strands of families and talents contributing in a mixed combination of big and smaller abilities.  As well we get in return a greater sense of acknowledgement of our own contributions, making us feel almost as if we belong to the community for this brief time. The flirtation with community is sweet from this distance of a one-week yearly involvement in Cascade, Idaho.  These kind folks give us the gift of feeling, as touring artists, that we’re among the bigger fish in a slushy pond.

Kristi