An Evening at the Opera.... House

  Last Friday, we visited the "Crown Jewel" of Stoughton. We saw a show at the Opera House. It's over 110 years old, and is really a beautiful theater. You can read about it's history here. The opera house hosts some relatively big acts for a small town: Esperenza Spalding (she won a grammy last year), Suzanne Vega, Willy Porter, the Glenn Miller Orchestra, the list goes on. It also hosts smaller local performances such as children's theater groups and Stoughton City Band.

  We were lucky to get seats for Jake Shimabukuro, an artist we'd never heard of before, but who's music intrigued us. We literally got the last three seats together, in the second to the last row. It was a sold out show. We got there with plenty of time to spare, so we settled in to our seats and waited for the show to start. Karl sat on the end so he could have a little leg room, I was comfy, but poor Katrina couldn't see anything but the person's head in front of her. The seats are the original, hardwood, but relatively comfortable. A lot of the regular patrons bring seat cushions. About 15 minutes before the show was to start, the theater manager stopped next to us and asked if we'd like the box seats. Umm, YEAH! 

  So, he escorted us to the very front. The seats I refer to as the "Abe Lincoln Seats." 

 Soft, comfy chairs, plenty of legroom, and you can't get any closer to the stage than that. In fact, the stage made a wonderful footrest.

Katrina reprimanded me for having my feet on the stage.

  The show was fantastic, it made me want to learn to play the ukelele. But then I remembered what happened when I was a kid, and it made me think again (plus I'd NEVER be as good as Jake). What happened, you ask? Let me take you back to that fateful day.

I was about 6 or 7 years old, and I had been playing with my Barbies in the living room. As usual, I left them there and went outside to play.  I decided Barbie needed to come out too, so I ran in to get her. In my haste, I didn't turn on the light, so I didn't see Mom's ukelele on the floor, and put my foot right through it. IT was a beautiful Baritone uke, and she had even taught me to play a song (I think it was "Patch the Pony" - Neigh, neigh from strangers, stay away!). To this day, I still feel terrible about smashing that instrument.

  Maybe with therapy would get rid of the guilt and go on to be a concert ukelele player. But for now, I'll stick with the trumpet.