King George

February 25, 2010

Last Thursday was the George Strait concert in St. Louis - much anticipated since Christmas by our Marion Antique Mall manager, Sandie Newbolds - a huge King George fan. Accompanying her were: Ursula Haug, Tom & Teresa Terri and us – Ken & Peggy. The four of them arrived Wed, Febr. 17 about 9:00 p.m. at Timber Creek Resort, south of St. Louis. They are all part of our core crew at the antique mall. There are several vendors who work over and above the call of duty to keep the mall running smoothly, of whom these are four major helpers. Peggy and I arrived about 4:00 a.m. on our truck. We had been routed from Columbus, OH to Romeoville, IL (west of Chicago) and then drove bobtail (no trailer) to the resort. Due to a couple delays, as must always be expected in trucking, we got in much later than expected. However, the girls and Tom had everything organized when we arrived – food mostly. We walked in and heated up our breakfast and went to bed for a couple hours. It was a leisurely morning – the day of the concert. We all had more breakfast – sausage, eggs, hash browns, biscuits & gravy. Everything was geared towards the concert. I looked up George Strait’s bio on the internet and turned what I was reading into a quiz. As much as Sandie knows about her hero, she didn’t know his birthday (May 18, 1952,) though she had his age right. We left about 1:00, took the dogs to Ron & Debbie Box’s house in Fenton and went to ‘Blueberry Hill Restaurant,’ a landmark place on Delmar in University City. Chuck Berry had just played there the night before as he does once a month. The place is large with many rooms, and the walls are lined with memorabilia. We sat in front of windows facing onto Delmar for great people watching, and near a free, modern jukebox full of CD’s rather than 45’s. I selected many oldies and quizzed the others about who the artist was. We left there about 4:30 and headed downtown to the Scottrade Center. We were very early, but we had planned to go up to the very high priced ‘Bud Light Zone’ restaurant as an excuse to get in before the crowds. More than 2 hours before the show, the parking garage was filling up fast. At the bar we each ordered something small just for the right to sit there. Ursula grabbed the tab, so I don’t know how high it actually was… The concert started at 7:00, so about 6:30 we headed for our seats. The arena is huge, used for ice hockey, stock shows and huge concerts. As high up as we were, it was perfect for seeing the show projected on 4 huge screens facing out above the stage. One could look back & forth from the ant-like figures to the huge amplification of them on screen. First was Leanne Womack. She was okay, dressed a little strangely, not as big a star as George or Reba, but she did good – climaxing her set with a duet with Willy Nelson, who wasn’t really there, but one would think he actually was there by the way he appeared on screen alternating with Leanne, singing in perfect harmony with him -don’t remember what song it was. After Leanne Womack, there was a break to redo the stage, and then came Reba McEntire. Wow! I’m no country fan, but maybe I could be a Reba fan. She takes charge immediately and has a mesmerizing stage presence. She makes a production of her singing. The stage had microphones at each of the four corners, so each artist would move from one corner to the next to play to the audience on the floor. Reba danced and strutted around the stage. She knows how to work the crowd. A comic guest, apparently from Reba’s TV show, was there. Stephanie Robertson was the name I think I heard. She was hilarious, playing off of Reba, the straight woman, the serious one. And there was a music video showing Reba in a taxi visiting her old home place after she had become a refined, wealthy show girl. Then an actual big plastic taxi pulled up the aisle to the stage, and Reba got out in a fancy red dress, pranced up onto the stage and sang “Fancy.” Then came another break to set up for ‘King George.’ (And Reba is the Queen of Country.) I was satisfied after Reba was done. George Strait has many awards for best songs. He’s been around 40 years and has stayed at the top through generational changes. He is great, and he is the main attraction on this tour. But he doesn’t put on the show that Reba does. He is down to business, singing one great song after another. His style is generally pretty mellow, so Peggy and I both dozed off during his set. I caught most of it, but it felt so good to sleep a little. Ursula, Peggy and I sat together; Tom, Teresa and Sandie sat in another section ¼ of the way around the arena. I bought all the tickets, but at two different times. Sandie was in hog heaven. She knows all the words to all of George’s songs and has all of his CD’s. Sandie doesn’t care at all about Reba or Leanne. The whole show was about 4 hours. We were all glad we went. We stopped at Walmart for supplies en route back to the resort. Peggy built a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting for the next morning. On Friday, Feb 19 we celebrated Ursula’s 68th birthday, which is actually on February 23. The cake was a monster. Too tall (7 layers) and not enough frosting to cover, it was frosted across the top and down opposite sides, but the other two sides were exposed so one could see the layers. It wasn’t pretty, and it was a challenge to cut it, but it was delicious. We spent a few hours Friday at two antique malls on Big Bend in St. Louis. Ursula found some good buys. Her buy of the day was an earring rack and about 50 sets of earrings – all for $25. No-one else was in buying mode, but Ursula got lots of stuff. We stopped to pick up the dogs from Ron & Debbie about 5:00 and headed back to the resort for a big roast beef dinner, and to sing Happy Birthday to Ursula and eat that cake. Then our very successful outing was over. The four of them packed up and drove back on Friday night. Peggy and I had the condo to ourselves for the last night and watched most of a Jackie Chan movie. We had our next load assignment to pick up in Paragould, AR – 164 miles south of the resort, and deliver in Oklahoma City on Monday morning. We left the resort at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, rested and ready to roll. We had a total of about 620 miles to drive to Oklahoma City. We took our time and got there just in time for church on Sunday morning at Cousin Trudi’s church, where we had just visited with her the previous Sunday – Valentine’s Day. She didn’t expect us on the 21st, but we showed up just as the service was starting, saw where she was sitting and sat right behind her in the dark. She was very surprised when we made our presence known. We spent the day and night with her. We watched “Crash” and “Fireproof” videos. She took us to our truck next morning en route to her work. A friend of ours from Goreville, Brian Schuetz, had just pulled in to deliver as Trudi was dropping us off. Our truck had sat there for a day, so it wouldn’t start. Thankfully, Brian was right there to give us a jump, and it started very easily with just a little help. Both of our trucks started heading towards Springfield, MO, but we lost track of Brian almost immediately and later heard he wasn’t feeling well so stopped to rest. We picked up in Springfield, MO, delivered in Kansas City, headed up to David City, NE to pick up first thing Tues morning, delivered in Princeton, IL, picked up just 60 miles away in Bettendorf, IA, delivered Wed morning in Minneapolis, picked up in Humboldt, IA, stopped for supper with Mom in Omaha, delivered in Keyes, OK, and that brings us to present - Thursday. We are heading for Oklahoma City to pick up a trailer bound for Little Rock. My nephew Jason Wollberg is at Tinker AFB in Oklahoma City. We are hoping to visit him for supper this evening. God is good! The weather is getting better and better. We are seeing less and less snow. Our truck is running well, even after our off-road experience of February 13. I’ll tell you more about that – next time…