Peninsula Guitar Project
It’s happening more and more frequently these Sunday afternoons. I am coming home from Music Vespers at the Oysterville Church laden down with gifts. I’m not talking spiritual gifts here for they come along almost as a matter of course when you spend time in our lovely little church. No, I’m talking about actual pick-it-up-and-carry-it-home sorts of gifts. Today there were three!
First, was a CD that Bill Svendsen handed me just before today’s service began “The Peninsula Guitar Project – Live at the Oysterville Church” it was called and, lest there be no doubt, there was a picture of our church right on the disc! Bill had set up the recording equipment last week before Ken Emo, Jason Sheaux, and George Coleman — The Peninsula Guitar Trio — took center stage. How lucky I was to be able to listen to them all over again this evening!
Vespers Flowers by Sue Svendsen
Then, as I was leaving the church, Sue Svendsen called to me and offered me one of the bouquets she had done for today’s service. I took the smaller of the two and it was absolutely the right choice. It is perfect on our entry table in the living room and cheers me each time I pass by.
And… before I had even reached my gate, Deborah Perry called out to me and came hurrying over with a loaf of bread that her friend had made yesterday. “The loaves are small, but she made 15 of them!” Deborah said. “If you have company, I can give you more than one loaf!” Wow!
And as if all of these treasures weren’t enough… I am still basking in the glow after a familiar looking woman came up and spoke to me as I was helping gather up hymnals. She said she was from the Sacramento area of California and she has been coming up to visit our Peninsula each summer for years. “I remember your sweet mother,” she said, “and the wonderful hats she always wore to Vespers.” How lovely it was to have someone speak to me of my mother. It was the best gift of all!
The 43rd year of Vesper services begins a week from Sunday — “God willin’ an the creek don’t rise” as our friend George Talbott used to say. The Oysterville Restoration Foundation waited until Governor Inslee made his July 1st “proclamation” regarding Covid protocols for the rest of the summer — assuming, of course, that things continue to get better, not worse.
So, as of July 1st, Carol Wachsmuth and I got to work! (You might remember that both of us have long since “retired from our volunteer scheduling jobs, but it seemed important to get started” and no one else had stepped up.) We divided the responsibilities — Carol would book the ministers and the ORF members who would present the Oysterville Moments; I would schedule the musicians and the organists. Vespers would start August 1st and continue every Sunday afternoon through September 26th. A bit shorter season — only nine Sundays as opposed to twelve — and a much shorter time span in which to do the scheduling — three weeks as opposed to our usual six months!!
Seeing the “Church Open” sign from my dining room window once more makes me feel that all’s right with the world again — at least with this little corner of it. In the vestibule, though, on each of the inner doors — one leading to the sanctuary and the other to the room we’ve always called “The Sunday School Room” — are signs asking visitors who enter to please wear masks. Perhaps instructions/suggestions will change once we get Governor Inslee’s promised July 1st Directives.
As for scheduled events — the first to take place since sheltering began in March 2020 was a wedding last Saturday. And what a wedding it was! All the men arrived in kilts and the women in ankle-length pleated skirts or other authentic-looking regalia and, from what I could see, all in the same tartan. Perhaps, because of Covid uncertainties, they had confined the guest list to family members only which would explain the matching tartans. Even the pipers’ kilts matched. I wish I had taken a picture, but now that I am no longer the church scheduler and have no interaction with brides beforehand, I felt it might be a bit intrusive.
The other regular church usage in the summer, of course, is our twelve weeks of Sunday Music Vespers services. Traditionally, they have begun on Fathers’ Day and continued through Labor Day Sunday. At the present time, the Oysterville Restoration Foundation does not have a Vespers Co-ordinator, so Carol Wachsmuth and I have agreed to do the programming for August and September with the caveat that the scheduling will remain flexible — just “in case. ” All things being equal, there will be nine Music Vespers services — five in August and four in September. Keep your fingers crossed!
Yesterday we went on the Fresh Food Foray — to CostCo and Fred Meyers (curbside) to get some of the items we can’t get through online ordering. Before we went, Nyel had baked oatmeal raisin cookies (yum!) and then added sugar to the CostCo list.
I told Marta and Charlie about it during our weekly conference call last night “It’s sounding a lot like World War II when everything was rationed,” Marta said. But she was a generation too late to remember that first-hand. I, on the other hand, well remember rationing books and standing in line at the corner grocery store when their supply of sugar came in. Desserts were a rare treat when I was a little girl. I remember my mom saving up sugar for my birthday cake when I was six or seven.
And, then, the aha moment! Never in all my years since “the war” have I put rationing together with hoarding. But… of course! How else to give everyone a chance at the items that had suddenly become rare commodities? And if, as some medical professionals predict, this virus will be with us for a while, is rationing in the near future for us? If our hummingbirds had a vote, they’d probably say “yes!”