Janis and Dolly - Same birthday - Same emphasis on Purpose!

I was pleased to discover this morning that Janis Joplin and Dolly Parton, icons of American music, each expressed strong thoughts on living a life of purpose.

"Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got."
- Janis Joplin, born January 19, 1943

"Find out who you are and do it on purpose."
- Dolly Parton, born January 19, 1946

Happy birthday, ladies, and thanks for your music and for your words on purpose.

Concert in the Park - The Four Knights

This summer's second Concert in the Park in Brunswick Forest was another smashing success. A great crowd of adults, kids, and even some (well-behaved) dogs turned out on July 10th to listen to The Four Knights, a Carolina beach music band.


The band played in Annsdale Park, a 12-acre park in the middle of Brunswick Forest with a tree-lined walking path all around the park and a raised performance area at one end.

Greg Darrow (the debonair dude with the backwards baseball cap) was on hand to take photos of the crowd.

Not long after the band started playing, attendees starting dancing. The line dance numbers were particularly popular.

A blog post about a Leland event isn't complete without a photo of Ava Grace Williams, here with her dad Justin on the left, mom Kristy on the right, and North Brunswick Chamber of Commerce President George Murray (hugging Kristy).

So it was a great time. See you at the next concert on August 14th, 6PM in Annsdale Park in Brunswick Forest.

Come see The Buckinghams Live on June 20th at 7PM at Odell Williamson Auditorium

The North Brunswick Chamber of Commerce presents The Buckinghams, live at Odell Williamson Auditorium at Brunswick Community College, 7:00PM June 20th. Come see this awesome group, even better now than in the 60s when they topped the charts with a whole passle of hits including "Hey, Baby, They're Playing Our Song", "Don't You Care", "Susan", "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy", and "Kind of a Drag".


The video below has lots of music from The Buckinghams along with stills and video clips of the NBCC Concert Committee hard at work.


VIP Tickets are $45 each - including reserved, preferred seating, a party the night before the concert with The Buckinghams at Murray Art & Frame in Leland, and a prep-concert party at Odell Williamson.

General Admission tickets are $25 each.

Tickets are available at:
North Brunswick Chamber of Commerce, (910) 383-0553
Murray Art & Frame, (910) 371-3833
Odell Williamson Auditorium, (910) 755-7416

OK the Vote Is In, ABBA over Bee Gees!

OK, so Marge and I drove to Connecticut Saturday to hang out with family during the Christmas holiday. We're going to see lots of people and do lots of things, so you can kind of count on my blog being about our visit for the next few days.

Today, however, an important determination was reached and I can't wait to share. Our granddaughter Annabel is definitely an inside kind of kid. As the photo below shows, when you suit her up to go outside, she's not a happy kid.

Our Grandson Seamus, on the other hand, digs being outside. He even enjoys cleaning snow off cars with a lacrosse stick.

When she's inside, however, Annabel is in her element.

She's quickly becoming a boater, but I think she'll prefer to boat in North Carolina, or at least when it's summertime in New England.

When he's inside Seamus is big on furniture gymnastics.

Annabel, however, starts laughing and swaying whenever she hears music. So, being a music fan myself, I decided to check out her preferences. I started with the Bee Gees and she was OK with that. BUT, when I started playing ABBA, the girl got down! She jumped and rocked her head to Waterloo, Honey Honey, and several other cuts. Now I'm really looking forward to family weddings because there's another natural dancer in the family!

Waterford Fall Festival a Great Success

I had a blast today at the Waterford Fall Festival. Located in the parking lot of the shoppes of Waterford, approximately 60 artists, craftspersons, organizations, and companies set up tents and booths. The morning started off bbbbrrrrrrr chilly (my car said it was 36 degrees outside at 8:15AM), but by mid day the temperature was, as predicted, in the mid 70s. The event was held to benefit Manna Ministries of Leland and the Lower Cape Fear Hospice.

We set up our Coldwell Banker blue tent with a settee and a couple of rocking chairs. Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Realty agents from various offices had scheduled five open houses in nearby Waterford of the Carolinas so we had a combination flyer for them. Our purpose for the day was to be low key and to talk to people, a community bonding effort, which we truly enjoy. The very first person who came to our booth was Edna Stacey, who with her husband Irwin lives in Mount Pleasant, SC. It turns out that their two daughters work for (different) Coldwell Banker companies - one in South Carolina and the other in the Wilmington office of Sea Coast Realty. So meeting Edna was a nice start to the day.

The attendee numbers were steady most of the day. When you consider it was a beautiful early Fall day, it was the first year of this festival, and that the Beach 2 Battleship Ironman competition was going on all day in Wilmington and tieing up both lower bridges from Wilmington over the Cape Fear River, not to mention it was the last day of early voting for the Presidential election, the turnout was just fine. From 2 till about 3PM attendance fell off noticeably (that was also the hottest part of the day and we were on tarmac), but for the last hour (3-4PM) there were a good number of folks present.

And . . . some of the folks present had more than two legs. For example, Bentley Willis, a spaniel who rules Naomi and Ophard Willis' home came to the festival for a couple hours in the morning. Naomi makes and sells watches with nifty jeweled watch bands and Ophard is Broker with Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Realty. When it got warmer Bentley went home to meditate. As you can see below, Bentley is an extremely self-possessed dog who makes his presence known.

Music was a big part of the day, which is only fitting since George Murray of Murray Art & Frame was one of the organizers of the event and George is well connected with the music community - for that matter George is pretty much down with musicians around the country, some of whom will fly him across country to do portraits. The first band, and I apologize for not having a better close up (they're in the back center of the photo below), was Three Pieces for a Dollar Blue Grass Band. They did a fine job and had many feet tapping.

One of the coolest booths (IMHO) was Justine Ferreri's, whose whimsical clay sculpted pieces are also sold at her store in Chandler's Wharf on South Water Street in Wilmington. Marge was also thoroughly enamored by Justine's work which led to an immediate purchase.

Pretty much out of the blue a bagpiper showed up piping. You forget how loud bagpipes are but it comes back quickly. It's easy to recall they were used to lead fighting men to battle.

The second band to play was Like Flint Band, a local cover band. If you're not from the Wilmington area you might not realize how good our music is, but these guys made it very clear. They were good and playing from a balcony was pretty cool, too. I caught several folks dancing in place including Linda Rhodes, local attorney Randy Rhodes' wife. Randy is running for County Commissioner in Tuesday's election (Go Randy!) and Linda was sitting in his booth when I caught her singing with the band -which I noticed because I was singing along, too, or at least lip-synching.

One booth that was different was Betty Weihs' Electric Scooter display. She had a snazzy yellow model that actually belongs to one of her customers that looked all the world like a full-sized Vespa. Electric scooters are turning up more regularity in communities with private roads and Betty's booth attracted a lot of attention.

A local author was on hand as well. Dr. Frank Malinoski had a booth for his book Crescent Veil, which he wrote with Judith Sanders. The book is based on the premise of actually discovering weapons of mass destruction in post-Saddam Irag.

So the day wore on and we were all having a fine time, but the true highlight was a scheduled but iffy appearance by none other than Ava Grace Williams, Kristy and Justin Williams' brand new daughter. Ava came with Kristy to check out the Festival and was pretty spunky for a two week old. If you think Bentley the dog attracted attention, you shoulda seen the folks swarming around Ava. Tammy Flynn, who is Kristy's mom and Ava's grandmother, was there, too, and Tammy enjoyed the music and the Festival but was mostly focused on little Miss Ava.

All in all, it was a successful, fun time. I'm glad we were part of it and look forward to next year.

Countdown to the HoeDown - 7 Days to Go!

OK, folks, get yer costume ready, slap on some monster makeup, and party on the river on Halloween Eve. October 31st, Riverfront Wilmington, North Carolina. It's called the Halloween HoeDown and part of the Downtown Sundown Concert Series. Featured groups include The BarnRaisers with Woodwork Roadshow. Special guest appearances by the Cape Fear River, lots of cool folks, and you! So you've got to be there, we're counting on you.

Produced and sponsored by the Downtown Business Alliance with a lot of help from a bunch of other folks. Here's the official list:

Sponsors of the 2008 Downtown Sundown Concert Series: Part 2 include Coors Beer, Waterford of the Carolinas, Dish Network, MADD, 106.7 The Penguin, encore, 103.7 The Bone, The Star News, Slice of Life, Loose Lucy's, Wilmington Downtown, Inc., and Blu Zeus Interactive Marketing. Support services provided by the City of Wilmington.

Costume prizes, door prizes (which since there's no door might be hard to win), and the chance to be silly and have fun in public.

The usual rules apply: no outside booze or beverages, no coolers, no pets, no pets in coolers, like that. You can bet everything but coolers and pets will be available for purchase, so don't let that stop you.

Questions? Call Katie Lucas of DBA Wilmington at 910-343-4114 or e-mail
katie@dbawilmington.com .

REALTOR Booty Call ! Steel Band Entertains at Stevens Fine Homes Design Center Grand Opening

Thursday afternoon 150-200 REALTORS gathered outside in the parking lot and inside Stevens Fine Homes Design Center on Oleander Drive in Wilmington, North Carolina. Entertained by Pantastic Steel, fueled by food and legal libations, and glued to the spot by near- continuous giveaways, including the big booty, a gorgeous blue topaz David Yurman ring, a great time was had by all. Stevens Fine Homes, with neighborhoods under development in Wilmington and Leland, now has a central facility at 5710 Oleander Drive, space formerly occupied by Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Realty.

Key West Band Downtown Sundown Concert - Wilmington Riverfront, Friday Oct. 17th

Great fun is available for free Friday late afternoon and early evening at Riverfront Park in downtown Wilmington. The Key West Band , a Jimmy Buffett tribute band, will be playing from 5:30 - 10PM. It's sponsored by the Downtown Business Alliance and a bunch of other I'm sure fine folks. You can bring a lawn chair or beach chair but no coolers or pets, which also means no pets in coolers, I'm sure, so don't get sneaky. They also ask that you don't bring "outside" beverages, which I'm pretty sure means they want to be sure that if you show up you support local merchants who have sponsored this free event rather than carry in your own beer or whatever. For more details on this free concert, check out this Facebook event link. To keep up with other events including the Downtown Sundown Concert series, make the Downtown Business Alliance a favored link. Please note, the photo on this blog post was blatantly borrowed from The Key West Band's web page.

Great Ice Cream AND a Foot-Stompin' Business After Hours

What an afternoon! Marge and I started our late afternoon at Flavors Ice Cream, a new ice cream parlor opposite Waterford in Leland (on the right end of the Salty Dog Exxon station and convenience store). We met with Michelle Morris, one of the owners and had some fabulous Hershey's ice cream - for the record, Marge had a single scoop cup of butter pecan and I had a double scoop cone of a marvelous concoction called Denali Bear Claw (or something like that). Stop in sometime. The shop is brightly colored, squeaky clean, and the ice cream is awesome.

There's a juke box in the corner and seating inside and out. Bring you sweet tooth and indulge.

Our next stop was a North Brunswick Chamber of Commerce Business After Hours. Held the first Tuesday of every month, these events are growing in popularity, in the quality of the food provided, and even in the entertainment. This month's Business After Hours was hosted by Sheila Hanby's Capeside Animal Hospital in front of Waterford. Sheila pulled out all the stops with
catering by Charley MacGrooders including passed roast beef and shrimp hors d'ouevres with spicy jambalaya and pot stickers, plus beer, wine, soda, nice desserts and some suspicious-looking syringes filled with something red (one suspects but doesn't know for sure, the something red rhymes with "jello shots").

The foot-stomping music provided by a seven-piece bluegrass band, an impromptu gathering of musicians that may or may not have called itself the Hometown Bluegrass Band (depending on who you talked to) was a big hit. This was business networking at its best: good food, drink, music, and friends. Thanks, Sheila, you set the bar high.