2022 Life Logs, Day 75: Tribute to Falmouth
Date: Wednesday, March 16, 2022
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High 52, Low 38 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
My day, from beginning to end, was spent having a love affair with the town of Falmouth. I’ll start in reverse order. Tonight, I went to All Bands Night with Heather and family, the first one since March of 2019 due to Covid. Sam was a drummer in the 6th grade jazz band the last time we went. Now he is in high school. It was wonderful to be with people celebrating young musicians once again. All Bands night is when all of the public school bands come together in the high school auditorium to perform—the 5th grade band, the 6th grade band, the middle school band, the high school band, the middle school jazz band, and the high school jazz band. Sam chose soccer over band this year (you can only participate in one or the other), and Ollie is too young to participate, so this was Jonah’s night to, shine and he did it with style.
He plays the trombone in the middle school band and plays bass in the middle school jazz band. So proud of him! Falmouth is a beautiful small town and seeing the entire floor of the high school gymnasium filled with young musicians makes your heart sing. The high school band played a medley of songs from West Side Story which was so good and ended with ‘Somewhere’. “There’s a place for us. A time and place for us. Hold my hand and we’re halfway there. Hold my hand and I’ll take you there. Someday, somehow, somewhere.” When you open my high school annual, the words to that song fill the entire first page. It was our class song in 1965. This definitely brought a tear to my eye. The the evening ended with all of the bands together playing ‘America the Beautiful’ written by Falmouth’s own Katherine Lee Bates. Another tearjerker, plus an amazing feat getting all of the those band students playing that together after only an hour of practice just prior to the presentation.
I started my day by attending a Newcomers/Encore general meeting focusing on the ‘green’ beauty of Falmouth—the green open spaces preserved in our town, a bit of Irish music from the Land of Green, and a presentation by a local artist who uses the preserved green spaces in our town as the settings for her paintings. I was fascinated with the Irish harp music and the history of the harp interspersed with the music. The paintings were all of places in town I know well and enjoy every summer with the Goldpebbles or on walks with Shadow. And the success of The 300 Committee Land Trust, “a non-profit organization of people dedicated to preserving and protecting natural places in Falmouth for all of us, now and forever” is impressive. As a result of their work, more than 2,400 acres of land in Falmouth is now permanently protected. It made me feel immensely proud to sit and listen to that presentation. The organization has worked hard to protect the many places in Falmouth that I just take for granted. I now have a much greater appreciation. And while I am feeling so proud of things, I must share a post I read on Justin’s Facebook page tonight. There was a photo of Coco “ruling the ball” on the soccer field. 
Go, Coco.
Last night I wrote about wrestling with making reservations for my trip to visit my sister and wrestling with my computer. Then just before I went to bed, I won one round with my computer. I finally figured out why I wasn’t receiving my emails. One step at a time, I’ll get these issues worked out.
