It’s not the notes you play, it’s how it sounds

SCHOHARIE — As we arrived at the Your Way Café this week, someone commented that it was over 20 degrees warmer than last Tuesday. This Tuesday, July 29, it was just short of 70 degrees as of 7 a.m., as compared to 47 or 48 degrees last week.

Warm weather is good for the OMOTM; we like that. Maybe we should all go to the warmer states in the winter. Nah, and miss the two-foot, 60 miles-per-hour Nor’easter snowstorm? Not a chance.

Another thing that was brought up was the fact that we have lost an hour of daylight already. It seems like only yesterday we were all waiting for the days to get longer and for the rain and cold temps to stop and dry out and warm up. Well, it did.

The days got longer and the rain stopped. In fact, we could use a good old-fashioned thunder-and-lightning storm about now. The lawns are looking a little brown. It has gotten hot and muggy; the water in the lakes has warmed up so everyone can just jump in without fear of freezing and, except for last Tuesday morning, we really don’t know or care where our long pants are.

One regular summertime event that is fast becoming a tradition is held in Middleburgh on the fourth Friday of the summer months, starting in May and ending in September. Starting around 5:30 p.m. and ending around 8:30 p.m., there are many, many local vendors lining both sides of Main Street, many of whom have set up their tables and booths on the wide sidewalk right in front of their own businesses. Many of the shops stay open during the Street Fest time.

There is live music as well. One musician was playing what sounds like a big bass violin. It isn't. It is electric and has a far-out modernistic look to it, but man, oh man, can he play it!

He was overheard talking to an older person who had stopped to listen to his music. He was saying that it doesn’t matter what note is played (who knows or cares?); it is all about how it sounds to the listener.

There is a serious life lesson in that statement that goes much further than music. Either you get it or you don’t. I simply do not have the talent or ability to expand on it and, if I did, this isn’t the column to write about it.

I’ll leave that to the pros, the Ralph Waldo Emersons of the world, the great composers, the playwrights, the poets and painters, and the authors. They get it, and continue to play, in their respective ways, their kind of “music” just right. I hear it, I see it, I read it, I get it.

But let’s get back to Middleburgh and its Fourth Friday Street Fests in the summertime. As you stroll along the wide sidewalks with all the vendor booths, you step aside for some of the OMOTM and their spouses walking along with their grandkids and great-grandkids.

You can smell the food truck vendors and see the picnic tables set up for you to sit and enjoy the food. Maybe you just duck into a nice cool tavern for a draft beer or a Coke and watch a group of dancers perform out on the sidewalk.

It is all there on a warm Friday evening when everyone is smiling and the dogs are all on leashes, wagging their tails. There is even a dunking booth where you can try and hit the target and dunk your favorite local businessman or businesswoman.

I overheard a man say he couldn’t hit the side of a barn even if he were inside it! The person in the booth said, “No problem, just press the button!” So he did, and splash! Down he went. Again. Everyone was laughing, everyone was having fun.

All this is happening on Main Street, Middleburgh, just a couple of blocks from the town park where local high school bands and orchestras give free concerts during the summer from the bandstand. It may not be Tanglewood or SPAC, but it just might be better!

I am not suggesting that Middleburgh is alone in doing something like this. It isn’t. From just the little amount of research I did, it is clear that across this land of ours, events like the Fourth Friday in Middleburgh take place. The people from the towns and neighborhoods hold square dances, celebrations of some local event or happening.

It is who we are, it is what we do. Like the man with the bass fiddle says, “It’s not the notes you play, it is how it sounds.”

We had another nice group of OMOTM having breakfast together at the Your Way Café and we too laughed and smiled as we told our same tall tales for the umpteenth time. Those present were Harold Guest, Wally Guest, Miner Stevens, Roland Tozer, Russell Pokorny, Chuck Batcher, Warren Willsey, Frank Dees, George Washburn, Pete Whitbeck, Wm Lichliter, Frank A. Fuss, Robert Schanz, Lou Schenck, Gerry Chartier, Roger Schafer, Joe Rack, Glenn Paterson, Mark Traver, Pastor Jay Francis, Al Schager, Duncan Bellinger, Herb Bahrmann, Jack Norray, John Jaz, Gerry Cross, Dick Dexter, Elwood Vanderbilt, Alan DeFazio, Dave Hodgetts, Paul Guiton, John Dab, and me.