Quite a Saturday

Before I get to that, I want to tie up a couple of loose ends.

I recently wrote that my Congressman, Jackie Walorski, was a coward for not holding any town hall meetings. She did finally hold one, so I give her credit for that. However, she held it in Rochester, a small rural town about as far removed from the major media outlets of South Bend and Elkhart (cities in her district) as she could possibly get. I chose not to attend, but my friend Dan did. He said there were a lot of questions about the Affordable Care Act, the NSA, and immigration. It seems that Jackie is in hot water with conservatives over quite a few things, because they feel she isn’t being conservative enough. The usual teabagger stuff. When this town hall was announced (I believe it was announced the day before it took place), it was said that there would be “more to come.” There have been no more scheduled as of today.

So do I take back my “coward” statement? Not really. While I give her credit for finally scheduling a meeting, it was in a small town that was remote from the majority of her constituents, and she has scheduled no further meetings. It seems to me that she does not want to face anymore tough questions from her constituents, those on both side of the aisle. That still strikes me as cowardly.

On a more fun topic, I also posted the poll about the best sneer in rock and roll. There were only a handful of votes on the poll, but there were also several Facebook comments on my post of the entry there. I can tell you that the overwhelming winner was none other than the Blonde Bombshell, Mr. Billy Idol. Sid Vicious got a couple of votes, but almost everyone went with Billy. I have to agree, and that was who I voted for, too. Mark commented that it is an iconic punk look, and when he thinks of punk rock, Billy’s look and sneer springs to mind. There was just something about Billy’s look...that spiked blonde hair, the gorgeous face, and the way he did that sneer. Some really fun music, too, and I still enjoy listening to Billy and Generation X. Nutwood and Friends love you, Billy!

Now, a quick write-up of our fun Saturday. The Drewry’s kickoff party started at noon, but because we had another thing to go to afterwards, we didn’t get there until 2 pm. In retrospect, that was a mistake, because they had already run out of all the tasting beers, they had passed out the last t-shirts, and it looked momentarily like they had run out of food. However...silver linings, people, silver linings! We DID get our Drewry’s pint glasses, which are pretty cool. They did bring out more food, and although it wasn’t abundant, it was fairly tasty, and we got enough to take the “edge” off. But good grief...you’d think people hadn’t eaten in a week. As soon as they wheeled out the carts, there was a horde of people following them and swarming the cart like human pigeons. Chill, people! We also saw Drew, who is earning the title of Mr. South Bend because of all the work he’s doing with the State Theater and making downtown a destination!

The silveriest—most silvery?—silver lining of them all was that because they had run out of the other varieties of beer, they made the Classic Lager (which they still had plenty of) FREE. That’s right. Free beer. I won’t say that a choir of angels were singing, because the beer wasn’t all THAT great. So maybe one angel was singing. No offense, Drewry’s, but the Classic Lager I found sort of...meh. I look forward to trying some of the other varieties, though, as they become available in local stores.

Another bright spot was seeing a long-time South Bend fixture, Billy “Stix” Nicks and his current band Motown Dance Party. We chatted with Billy afterwards, as well as a couple of band members, and apparently they play Martha’s Midway fairly often. I look forward to seeing them there, because they were a lot of fun and very talented. Billy is a living legend, and is incredibly sweet and charming. I was so pleased to finally get to see this guy...his name crops up frequently, but I had never managed to see him before. Wonderful!

But wait! There’s more! We weren’t even close to being done. We headed over to the Cove for Ken’s company party. We chatted with several of his coworkers, I got to check out some of the valves and stuff that the company makes for firefighting equipment, and I got an up-close look at one of our city fire trucks. The technology is really amazing, and total respect for the firefighters who put their lives on the line every single day! I like being associated (at least by marriage!) with a company who helps keep the firefighters as safe as possible in a terribly dangerous job.

We hung out at the Tiki Hut—a nice addition to the Cove!—saw the bartender we talked to last time we were there for Bacon & Brews, and also saw and chatted with Ben, the head chef for the Cove. I pigged out on popcorn and my favorite thing there: Philly Cheesesteak Nachos. I’ll try to hit the workouts extra-hard this coming week! The Hawks lost, but it was still a great evening at the ballpark, and the weather was perfect. Then it was a stop at Fiddler’s Hearth for one last brew, and we chatted with a guy who works at the Morris, and talked about how excited we are for the coming season’s shows. A really fun day downtown!

Today has been a fairly lazy Sunday (although Ken got the mowing done), and we’ll top off the weekend with a couple of porterhouses, some grilled potatoes, a salad with blue cheese dressing, a bottle of wine, and a movie.

I hope your weekend was as pleasant!