We should have known not to stop in Jersey
It’s a little after midnight and Jesse is standing in front of the take out window of a Burger King pleading with an employee to let him walk through the drive-thru.
This ill-fated stop took place while we were in route back from Maryland where we’d just had a weekend of great shows at the McHenry Highland Festival. We played Friday night and all day Saturday and got to the share the stage both days with the wonderful Bonnie Rideout and her family. It was our first time at the McHenry festival but everyone treated us like old friends and the crowds who flocked to the shows both days were incredible. We’re looking forward to returning to Maryland.
But getting back to that Burger King take out window. You might be wondering why we sent our drummer/piper/brother/guitar player on foot to a drive through window, while besides the fact that we always thought it would be cool to walk thru a drive-thru, we had a very practical reason: with our trailer in tow we couldn’t fit through the clearance and the inside of the restaurant was closed.
But here’s the problem we’d learned from past experience that most fast food joints have a policy of not serving pedestrians at the drive thru window, (not a very environmentally friendly policy if you ask me). So now all our hopes and dreams (or at least are appetites at the moment) rested on Jesse’s ability to persuade the employee to break with policy and serve us. Things didn’t look good at first, Jesse had his hands on his head and the overall look of someone who’s arguing unsuccessfully with a parking cop. But then something changes, he gestures to the vehicle the guy in the window looks over he sees the trailer won’t fit he sympathizes with our predicament and agrees to take the order.
A couple minutes later Jesse returns to the car with several bags full of steaming hot fried food and it is only after I devour half a burger and a large order of fries that it dawns on me that either my memory of the wonderful taste of Burger King was some type of hallucination or this was a pretty bad Burger King, either way after all that effort sadly meal didn’t taste that good.
So the moral of the story is Maryland Highland Games was a blast (not sure if that’s really a moral it’s more of a statement but what the heck) and it’s probably a good idea to avoid fast food and instead pack food for the road.
Speaking of the road as the summer weather heats up so does our tour, in the coming days and weeks we’ll play at the International Festival of Arts & Ideas New Haven Arts and Idea’s 12 p.m. New Haven Green, CT, Elm Street Stage http://artidea.org/event.php?id=190
Then we join Taj Mahal, Arlo Guthrie, Richie Havens, the Persuasions and many more in celebrating Pete Seeger’s 90th birthday at the Clearwater Festival Great Hudson River Revival Sunday, June 21, 4 p.m. Croton-on Hudson, NY http://www.clearwater.org/festival.html
Hope to see you over the summer!
Until next time
The Pipes Are Calling Resistance is Futile
MageErik