March 23

Jean Scully reported that on Sunday, the nineteenth of February, they were on our way over to Mark and Robins for a shiva call for Robin's mom and Dave, and they were going down their front steps and Dave missed the bottom step and fell and landed on his knees on the concrete walk and ruptured his quadriceps tendon in his thigh. So he ended up having surgery on Tuesday, the twentieth. Their main concern was that I live in a 100-year-old house with one bathroom at the top of a flight of 12 stairs and Dave is in this immobilizer brace where he can't bend his knee for a month. So he went to a rehab for about a week, a little over a week, and has just been doing amazingly, and is way ahead of where they expected him to be. He's been working really hard on his physical therapy, and they work with him every day on getting him able to get up out of bed because it's hard because he's so tall that he was longer than the bed. She added that everything was difficult, but he's been doing amazingly well, and they sprung him yesterday to come home. They were both relieved that all the concerns that they had about him being able to move around in the house were set aside. He's really fine, able to go up and down the stairs just one step at a time. He uses a walker right now outside the house, just for safety reasons for pavement and stuff, but in the house, he's not using anything. He's just walking around.  He went to see the surgeon today for a follow-up, and they were really happy with how he was doing. They were frankly, really surprised. She went to help him up on those one of the big high exam tables, and he just got himself up there by himself, so he's just doing great, and he's got a new high tech brace on that has a hinge in it, for the knee although he's not allowed to bend it yet, but it's got dials on it that can set be to 30 degrees deflection, and it won't go past 30 degrees, but for right now he can't bend his knee yet. He's starting PT this week, and they had initially told them 6 months for him to get back to where he was, but he's way ahead of where they thought he would be.  At this point, they're hoping it's not even gonna be that long. She thanked Mark and Robin, because, although they didn't need it, they initially thought because of the stair issue, that he was gonna have to go somewhere, and Robin had very generously offered to let him come stay there for a little while.

Sam Edelston announced that he is recording a Dulcimer album in a real studio. 

Tina Ross reported that her mother moved to assisted living last August due to an injured leg, and moved into independent living on March 6, and is blossoming at 92 in her new environment.  She had a CD release party on Zoom and had about 50 people who celebrated with her, including guest artists Ellis Paul, Christine Lavin, Sam Robbins, Carole Wise and others. They had a lot of fun.

Mark Schaffer grumbled that he, George Otto, Chris Riemer, Ken Galipeau and Mike Agranoff have been playing penny poker together for about 40 years, and he was a little bit pissed because for the second time losing a dollar after 3 hours of strategic poker brilliance, and this particular game is very kind of meaningful to him. He also said that he and Robin are taking 5 or 6 trips, mostly overseas. This year they went to the Cayamo music cruise, which draws many famous people, and they try to do it every year. There’re 5 concerts going on, and their overlapping most of the day. They start at 10 in the morning, and they go on until about midnight. Their size varies between 2-3,000 people, 1,000 people, down to 100 people. He considered Tommy Emanuel the greatest living guitar player, and last year, on the way home, saw him on the elevator, and gave him a very embarrassing hug that startled him. This time he went to apologize at breakfast. He said nobody should apologize for giving a hug. He hugged Mark, and he spent an hour at breakfast alone with his guitar Hero, and probably the best guy on the planet So they had a great conversation about the state of music. He could talk personally about individuals that they admired. He felt that the inscription on his gravestone should say "father, grandfather, husband and had breakfast with Tommy Emmanuel for 1 hour alone". He also talked about how Robin's mom passed away in the middle of the cruise, and that the Norwegian cruise people took them back into the captains room, and 5 of them helped Mark and Robin get on a different island flying back over to San Juan and back to Boca for the funeral in time. He felt that the Norwegian cruise was just beautiful and elegant. Six Man Productions runs the festival on the boat, and they actually take over a Norwegian boat for the week cruise in the Caribbean and they were very generous with follow-up and help. He thanked those who were able to make the Shiva a week later. It was very nice. It was in 2 stages. He was touched by Henry sing the song he's been singing as he makes at the Shiva. Finally, 2 days before Mike Agranoff's streaming Tuesday's concert [Mike had a really bad cold], Mark  got a call from Gary, who, since he had threatened that if anybody ever cancels he'd be happy to sing "The Sheriff's Wife" for an hour, said, "No, but if you and Robin would like to do a concert... " and we had a blast, and it was it was really fun, great songs sung by 2, very much in love happy amateurs performers that they got a good reaction and raised a couple hundred dollars for the Getaway. They got a lot a lot of accolades from their friends.

Allan Kugel noted that while we've been taking a lot of things to avoid Covid, it turns out you can still get a pretty nasty cold, and both he and Cecilia had one over the last week week and a half.

George Otto doubled his money in the Poker Game that Mark described in his report, most of which he got from Mark.

Elizabeth Lachowicz got a stomach virus that caused her to miss the last meeting. She reported had the opportunity to go to Phoenix, Arizona on a great facilitator and trainer training program, and while there, got to see her cousin, which was wonderful, and also got to shuttle down to Tucson and see Barbara Wolfsey and Andrew Hines, Folk Project friends that moved to Arizona. They had a wonderful time. It started off with an unexpected 4 inches of snow down in the desert, so it covered the palm trees and cactus. It melted quickly, and they went down to Tubac, the artist community. They also went to the mountain passes. She said it was beautiful. She is looking to returning to Arizona in the future.