Kathleen Staub

Sunday is Father’s Day!  It’s also the beginning of the the 42nd Annual Oysterville Music Vesper Season!  If you love Celtic music… If you are curious about the new wallpaper in the recently refurbished historic church…  If you want to give dear old dad a toe-tapping opportunity… Do come for the 3 o’clock service.  Come as you are!  No admission!

“Oysterville’s Own” Staub Family (except for older son Sean)  will  ‘take center stage,’ as they say — Kathleen Staub (Mom) playing the Celtic harp, Colin Staub (younger son) playing the mandolin, and Paul Staub (Dad) providing “The Oysterville Moment.”  The family have divided their time between Oysterville and Portland since they purchased the tiny Charles Nelson House, “BAY-VIEW,” nearly three decades ago.

Kathleen,, Colin, Angie

Joining Kathleen and Colin will be their friend and musical colleague Angie Cathie playing Irish flute and penny whistle,  The three of them have played together frequently in the Portland area at the Pittock Mansion and at the Portland Highland Games.   At the Games, Colin and Kathleen also often lead the harp circle and play some sets with the Scottish fiddlers,  even though Kathleen plays harp and Colin plays mandolin. (Colin started out as a fiddler until he learned, as an eight-or-nine-year-old that the mandolin was tuned just like a fiddle.  He has been playing mandolin ever since!)

Officiating Sunday will be Denise Westfall, Interim Pastor at the Ocean Park United Methodist Church. Veteran Vespers participant Suzanne Knutzen will accompany the congregational hymn-singing on the vintage pump organ and Phil Coffin will pass the collection basket as he has done each summer “since the beginning.”  Vespers organizer Carol Wachsmuth urges Peninsula residents and visitors to “come as you are to enjoy this service – the first since the recent restoration of the church.”

CD Front Cover – ‘Bayview’

Last year Kathleen and Colin introduced their new CD which was on sale after vespers.  At that time Kathleen announced (prophetically, as it turned out), “The church needs a new roof and I hope this begins a fund for that purpose.”  I hope the CD will be on sale this year, as well, and I can’t help but wonder what Kathleen might suggest for the proceeds this time around.

I can’t help but wish my dad were still among us to enjoy this particular Father’s Day event!  He was very involved with the first restoration of the church back in the early 1980s and was especially fond of Celtic music — especially if stringed instruments were involved.  And, of course, he and my mother dreamed up the whole Summer Vespers idea in the first place.  Oh!  And did I says he was a Methodist born and bred!  It would have been the perfect Father’s Day festivity for him!