Rocking A Flooded Ohio

The trees leaves that would be green were brown, as far as you could see in the valley, the water was lower than it had been, as evidenced by the brown leaves half way up many of the trees. The valley along Tymochtee creek on St. Rt. 53 was still flooded. This being almost a week after the northern half of Ohio was hit with the biggest floods some areas had ever witnessed. Twenty six years of driving all over Ohio to play Rock & Roll, we have seen heat waves, droughts, & huge thunderstorms. Sometimes we are the only car on the road for miles, driving through snow storms & freezing cold, but not flooding like this. The Tymochtee valley, looked like a lake. Corn fields were buried in brown water, and roads were closed.

Traveling around to the shows has has been nothing but an adventure from the start of the ignition, the first crack of my snare drum, to the last beer poured into the trombone. I wouldn't trade these moments for any others.

This years tour has been no exception, so many people and places, so many stories. The huge crowd at the first ever United Way Dance at the Car Tunes on Main in Findlay, Bill & me singing the National Anthem for 5000 people at the Greene County Fair to open the "Calf Scramble", or Dave, standing at the top of the grandstand at the Coschocton County Fairgrounds, doing guitar windmills for a large crowd of predominantly senior citizens, all with big smiles. In that crowd, an elderly man, stretching his three pronged cane out, to reach the play money that had been tossed out,sliding some of it to his wife, who then leaned over an picked it up, or the 12 or 13 year old Jacob Wasserman, from Atlanta, who joined us for 3 songs at the Maumee River Yacht Club and rocked the tent!!
At Bremenfest, bringing up Terry Wyngart to my drumset accomapined by his seeing eye dog, and hearing him play a great version of Johnny B Goode!!

The National Tractor Pulling Championship at Bowling Green was truly awesome. Walking around looking at 9000 horsepower "tractors" and talking with the participants was lots of fun. The setting for the show had all the looks of a dud, one end of the oval track at the Wood County Fairgrounds, not a soul in sight. Probably 300 racing haulers with huge tractors sitting next to them, but not a lot of people. About 5 minutes before show time, like out of a science fiction movie, golf carts came from every direction across the infield, members of the Pulling teams, hanging all over them: instant crowd!

Over the years, we have spent a lot of time in Toledo and this year was no exception. The Cinco Di Maya party thrown by Clear Channel was huge. That was extra fun for me, because Bill could not make the event, my keyboard playing brother Sterling came in from Los Angles and rocked with us. My brother stayed in Columbus for three days and our progressive rock trio,The Load, recorded some tracks for our new CD. We put in about three 12 hour days. The Ribs on the River Rib Festival is always fun, quite hot on the open stage, and cool in the shade of the trees where the crowd sprawls across the natural amphitheater. Thanks to all the participants who brought their ribs up to the stage, they were delicious!! The next night was the Maumee River Yacht Club, perhaps the most rocking event we play every year, and there is a reason. Set up on the banks of the Maumee River, the crowd is at an angle to the stage and right up against it, they either have to participate or leave!!

The Dangers have an unspoken motto, the less people that are at a show, the crazier we get. The Greene County Fair at Xenia, lived up to that. Our first time there, we had a fairly small crowd of people mostly sitting under a tent as it was very hot. As Dave was playing his guitar out in the crowd, he spied a golf cart with a man getting off of it to take a phone call. Dave promptly commandeered the cart with the man's wife in tow, and drove all over the place guitar in hand. A while later, I was being driven around while singing Johnny B Goode, and Dave and Tom were on the back of the cart, on their backs with kicking their legs in the air! So much fun, which is what life should be about!

For the last couple of years we have been playing the church festival circuit, We had a large crowd at the St. Michael's Church festival in Findlay, and in Columbus St. Margaret's Church festival had the largest crowd they ever had, as reported in the Columbus Dispatch. Up to michigan for the St. Joseph's church festival, The day after their stunning loss to Appalachian State. However, these are not the first church events. We are very proud of the fund raisers we played at St. Mary's church here i german Village. We played for several years for them, to help raise money to restore the steeple on their historic church. German Village is the largest Historic District in America!!!

Above: Poultry Days Versailles Ohio



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