July 31

July 31, 2004

DAY 44

 

 

Happy Birthday to my brother, Russell.

WOW ... young, old, ... skinny, fat, ... tall, short, ... they can all polka here. And, without exception, quite well, I might add. I feel so left out.

Woke up early this morning ( too early for me ), so that we could catch the shuttle into Dauphin, to watch the Festival Parade on Main Street. The Festival Parade is a really big deal here. Most of Dauphin comes out to watch the parade, as well as many local farmers, and people from nearby towns. It was a great, small town parade.

We waited close to an hour for the shuttle van to pick us up, right where it dropped us off. It never showed up. With considerable annoyance, we set off down Main Street, headed out of town, with my thumb stuck out, hitchhiking. Here we go, middle aged, affluent, semi-retirees, hitchhiking in Dauphin, Manitoba. Bitaemo !

After about 10 minutes of walking backwards with my thumb stuck out, a different shuttle van from the Festival stopped and picked us up. The driver recognized us from yesterday, when we went in his shuttle van to the Ukrainian Heritage Village. This evening at the grandstand show, I bumped into the shuttle van driver who drove us out to Dauphin, and was supposed to pick us up, and confronted her about not returning for us when and where she said she would. She said she did, but couldn't find us !

The evening grandstand show was interrupted about 9:00 P.M. by a brief thunderstorm, lasting about 15 minutes. Everybody left the grandstand area, and sought cover. We returned to our trailer to change jackets, and get umbrellas. When we returned to the grandstand area, about 200 dancers and other performers, all in full costume, were mopping up the wet stage with paper towels, while the Festival Choir stood out in front of the stage, in the first few rows of bleachers, and sang, without benefit of amplification. BRAVO ! The show must go on !

After the grandstand show ended, we wandered over to the secondary stage, where the Festival house band, Kalabai, was playing, and the crowd was dancing up a storm. We sat and listened to the music, and watched people dance polkas until we became tired, just from watching.

Are they born here knowing how to dance like that ?

DSK