Stacey Earle and Mark Stuart Concert

Today was another stormy rainy day in mid-Michigan. The sun did show its face on occasion but the storms really took over in the late afternoon. The gardens and lawns are looking lush again. My lawn was mowed yesterday so it looks all clean, green and spiffy. Most of the downed trees and branches from the tornado and high winds are laying along the roadside on all the streets in town. I haven't ventured too far into the hard hit areas but the news is pretty sad about the damage to homes and the loss of many very large old trees. The homes can be repaired but the old trees can never be replaced.

I had a long lunch meeting with Becky and Jim L. today about our high school alumni association. Jim is a new member and a very big supporter of everything involving kids and Eastern High School. It was very productive and we were able to discuss many issues and ideas involving Eastern High School, its students and alumni. Jim is active in many school related activities including the Community Dream project http://www.thecommunitydream.org/mi_index.htm which hopes to fund a large athletic stadium to be jointly used by Lansing Eastern and Lansing Catholic Central. When it is completed it will be a tremendous asset to our community.

We had lunch at Mama Bear's in Old Town. The food is healthy and tasty at this small restaurant in the arty part of Lansing. The word must be getting out about the great food because there was a big lunch crowd including some other friends of mine.

Tonight Lisa and I went to the Studio 1210 Concert also in Old Town. Stacey Earle and Mark Stuart were the performers and the concert was fantastic. The venue is an art gallery that holds about 50 seats so the atmosphere is very intimate and the singers look straight into your eyes when you sit in the front row as we did.
Stacey and Mark are singer song writers from the Nashville area. They are married and both are great guitarists. Stacey's voice is just beautiful. Stacey is the sister of the famous singer song writer actor, Steve Earle.
Stacy told stories of growing up in a musical home and that her brother would often have other singer song writers spend the night and she would get up in the morning and all her favorite cereal boxes were empty. She said she never understood why they ate cereal in the middle of the night. She said that Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark were often at her home and she grew up thinking that you couldn't sing other people's songs, you had to write your own.
During intermission Stacey sat down next to me and I had the opportunity to talk to her about their travels and her family, growing up etc. It was awesome to be able to converse with someone who performs 278 days a year and travels all over the US, Canada and Europe. She showed me pictures of her sons and her first grandson. She does not look over forty and certainly not old enough to be a grandmother let alone old enough to have sons age 31, 29 and 27.