The Ninth Annual Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Golf Tournament

How many of you remember reading those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books when you were a kid?  Or, if you’re a little older, like I am, you remember reading them to your children, or buying them at Maple Street Children’s Bookshop as easy gifts for birthdays or holidays.  The premise was simple, but brilliant: two scenarios were set up at the beginning, and depending on which one you chose to follow, the narrative took different twists and turns and the alternate stories came to completely separate conclusions, so by the end of the book, you could start all over again and read a brand new story by making another set of choices.  Well, this blog entry is going to be like that.  Ready?  Here we go!

A. The morning of Friday, May 10th, had a gloriously beautiful dawn–the clear rosy sky at 6 am was free of clouds, there was a light cool breeze rustling the fragrant jasmine vines and creamy white gardenia bushes, and as the sun peeked above the eastern horizon, everyone involved with the 9th Annual Pat Browne Golf Tournament knew that it was going to be a perfect day for a game of golf.

B. There was no dawn on Friday, May 10th.  It was 6 am, but it seemed more like midnight–the sky was thick with ominous slate gray storm clouds, and a steady, rumbling growl of thunder in the distance could be heard.  The humid wind smelled like ozone.  As the first few heavy raindrops began to fall, everyone involved with the 9th Annual Pat Browne Golf Tournament had an anxious, sinking feeling in the pit of their stomachs.

Did you pick A?  Well, I didn’t say YOU could choose.  I’m afraid we’re going to take B.  All right, next round!

A. As the morning crept into the early afternoon, Natalia and Rachel discovered that an amazing thing had happened:  a group of unusually tall, broad shouldered and handsome firefighters had heard about the tournament, and the afternoon before had loaded every beer, soft drink, and water bottle onto their shiny red fire truck, then swung by Stein’s deli to pick up the ingredients for the sandwiches.  They spent the evening in the firehouse, assembling all of the corned beef, turkey and roast beef sandwiches, wrapping them and marking them appropriately.  At ten a.m., they arrived at Audubon Clubhouse, and by 11 had iced down the drinks, organized the ice chests according to contents, set up chairs and golf carts, and cleaned the shelter.  The hunky firemen decided to set up a kissing booth to earn extra money for WRBH from the lady golfers (and anyone else who was interested) but some idiot HAD to start a fire in her kitchen, so the firefighters had to leave.  Natalia and Rachel had time to get mani-pedis before registration.   Jackie’s hair was smooth. glossy and perfectly straight.  The tournament was ready to begin!

B. As the morning crept into the early afternoon, the backbreaking work of loading the beer, soft drinks, and water bottles into Jim Lazare’s truck had begun.  Rachel and her mother had been up until the middle of the night assembling, wrapping, and marking over a hundred sandwiches out of the fixings supplied by Stein’s Deli, and although the event had been planned to perfection, no one had anticipated having to field so many calls from golfers deciding they weren’t going to risk getting soaked to the bone today.  The damp, sweating WRBH staff, volunteers, helpers and committee members (Laura, Larry, Jim, Marie, Melinda, Sharon, Elaine, Peter, Brian, and Jackie) manned their stations as Natalia and Rachel ran interference and took care of last minute details.  The tournament was ready to begin!

Yes, that’s right.   B again. Next round!

A. After registration, the cheerful golfers, armed with mulligans, ice cold beer and sandwiches, hopped into their golf carts and began simply the best game of golf they had ever played.  It was everyone’s lucky day–no one had to use a mulligan and not a single ball was swallowed by a sand trap or lost in the lake.  The temperature stayed at 70 for most of the day, and the gentle sun flushed the golfers’ cheeks and warmed their backs. After 18 luxurious holes, the golfers made their way to the shelter and waited for the prize drawings and the crawfish and oysters to arrive.  Meanwhile, back at the clubhouse, the staff and helpers were getting massages while being treated to a performance of  AFTERNOON OF A FAUN by a wandering freelance Russian ballet troupe.

B.   After registration, the cheerful golfers, armed with mulligans, ice cold beer and sandwiches, hopped into their golf carts and began simply the wettest two holes of golf they had ever played.  In what seemed like a relentless monsoon, the brave golfers trudged through the sodden course with rivulets of rain running down their cheeks and necks, soaking their backs.  As the pinkish bolts of lightning flashed in the distance and the thunder rattled the clubhouse walls, the tournament  was adjourned and the golfers returned to the shelter to await the prize drawings, crawfish and oysters.

Can you guess which one?  Good job!  You’re getting the hang of this!  Next round!

A.  In the shelter, the mood was convivial and relaxed.  The golfers had enjoyed spending time with their friends and raved about the delicious refreshments, and the staff and volunteer helpers had had a wonderful day visiting with each other and noshing on the mouth watering sandwiches, chips, cookies and pralines.  When the names were picked for the prizes, it seemed like just about everybody got one (except poor Jeff Hernandez, but he had won big the year before!)  The luckiest of the winners were Peyton Bush, who got the first prize of golf and overnight stays at the Grand Biloxi; Larry LaHoste, who won 4 tickets to events at Tales of the Cocktail; and David Radlauer, who scored the gift certificates to Perlis.  When Acme arrived, the oysters were plump, cold, and salty, and the freshly boiled crawfish were huge and meaty.   The meal was accompanied by lots more cold beer and drinks, and La Divina donated luscious ice cream sandwiches for dessert.  Patrick Browne’s wife Joanie arrived with their adorable little boy, and his demonstrations of golf swings with his baby-sized club charmed everyone.  The sounds of laughter and talking in the shelter were louder than the cracks of thunder and lightning, and the sheets of rain didn’t dampen the spirits of the group–they were survivors, and they had a great time.

Nope, there’s no B.  This adventure had only one ending, and it was a good one, regardless of how it began.  The Ninth Annual Pat Browne Monsoon Radio for the Blind Golf Tournament was a blast, and a great success, and we thank everyone who helped to make it so.  Hope to see you all next year!

Good Vibrations, or, Warning: This Blog is Rated R for its “Contents”.

     Wednesday mornings, for me, are usually pretty hectic.  I’m not an early morning person, and knowing I have to be at WRBH for 6:45 to be half of the live newspaper reading team on that day means I usually have to set the alarm for 5:45, and sometimes, depending on traffic, snooze buttons, and how tired I am, an hour isn’t quite enough time to get there before the Wall Street Journal ends and the live reading begins.  May Day was one of those mornings.  I arrived at 6:55, unlocked the door, threw my purse on my chair, grabbed a cup of water and my reading glasses, and darted into the studio with barely a minute before I could clear my throat, watch for Tim to point his finger at me in order to give the “start” signal and begin the broadcast by saying, “Good morning!  Today is Wednesday, May 1st, and your readers are…”  I had noticed the big brown box addressed to me on my desk when I came in, but there wasn’t enough time to open it.  Also, as the coordinator of Writers’ Forum program,  I get a lot of packages.  Usually, they are padded envelopes containing books, which I then have to look over and decide to which reader they should be assigned.  Once I got a parcel with three different kinds of See’s candy inside, a special thanks sent by an author for recording her book onto CDs so that Stephen King could listen to it (evidently he’s not a big reader) before writing a blurb on the back cover.  There was enough decadent chocolate in that package for everybody, so divvying it up was easy–we all took some home.  This box seemed pretty large for books, and it wasn’t really heavy.  It also seemed awfully big to be candy, although if you love chocolate as much as I do, hope springs eternal.

     So by 9 am, with the live newspaper reading over and the rest of the WRBH staff on their second cups of coffee, my interest had been piqued.  So had Natalia’s, who stood next to my desk looking at the box.  “What’s inside?” she asked.  “No idea,” I answered.  “Who’s it from?” she wondered.  “Don’t know these names,” I said.  “Open it,” she urged, “it might be something fun!”

Fun.  Well, um, hmmmm.  After struggling with the packing tape, I lifted the lid…and closed it again.  Natalia looked at me in surprise.  I checked the contents again, opened my mouth to speak, closed it, and once more shut the lid.  “Well, what IS it?” Natalia said, dying of curiosity.  By my reaction, you’d think we’d gotten a box of anthrax, or ricin, or a ticking time bomb.  It wasn’t any of those things, though.  More like sticks of dynamite.

“It’s…VIBRATORS!” I said in shock.

Yes, folks, I had received a package with SIX, count ‘em, SIX, Trojan vibrators.  Three had interchangeable heads, and three had different speeds.  All were in fancy silver and purple boxes, as lovely as boxes of candy, except that this sure wasn’t candy.  This was a really large box of embarrassing.

After we finished shrieking with laughter and amazement, we read the PSA enclosed in the package.  Turns out they were sent as promotional gifts to radio stations in order to advertise a special event, and as PSA coordinator for the On the Town program, they were sent to me because my name is listed as the contact person. For your information, on May 3rd, from four to eight p.m. at the House of Blues, Trojan is having a vibrator giveaway, featuring two models, the Tri-Phoria (with three different heads) and the Pulse (with three different speeds.)  They will be distributed from the “Pleasure Cart”, a small wheeled truck that resembles a hot dog vendor’s wiener stand in the Quarter.  Yes, I know what you’re thinking.  We thought it too.  In fact, the whole rest of the day was given over to giggling, double entendres, and crazy ideas on what exactly we were going to DO with them (and no, absolutely not, you dirty minded reader, we certainly didn’t discuss what we would DO with them in private, just how on earth the station was actually going to deal with a box of vibrators.)  Among our many brainstorms: maybe they could be door prizes at the golf tournament?  “Only if they get a hole-in-one,”  Tim suggested.  After a cascade of jokes about putters, strokes, Big Berthas, birdies, etc., we moved on to the idea of selling them on e-Bay.  That idea “petered out” when we couldn’t figure out how to word the ad so that it would seem perfectly normal for a reading radio station to be selling six $40 sex aids.  Special gifts for volunteers?  Define special.  No way.  So far, the only way they have been useful is to provide unlimited snickering and tons of immature jokes for the blog.  Eventually we gave up and all went back to work.

So, at the present time I have a big box of vibrators behind my desk.  Life was sure a lot simpler when books and candy were the things that came in the mail.

 

 

 

Some Things Appreciate in Value, or, The Value of Appreciation

Another blog post on appreciation?  Didn’t I just write about this?  Sure, but there’s more to report–last Friday, April 19th, was the Volunteer Appreciation Luncheon, and the day was filled with all sorts of things we are always happy to have, like good food, lovely music, and  rooms full of interesting people.  There was even a prescient sign sent by the universe (or was it Confucius?) to let us know the event was going to be a success–a fortune from a cookie I’d gotten at 5 Happiness weeks before and left in my car ended up getting stuck to my coffee cup, and eventually landed on the desk where we set up the salad.  It read “Great!  You’re ready for a party!”  I am absolutely not making this up.  Rachel even took a picture of it and posted it on our Facebook wall.

It was really a kick to see everyone out of the studios, meeting and mingling.  After all, even though the readers all come to the station to donate their hours of time, it doesn’t necessarily mean they get to know each other.  The Monday readers have never met the folks who come on weekends, and the late afternoon people aren’t there when the early morning newspaper is being read; amazingly, sometimes readers who are even scheduled at the same time on the same day don’t know each other because they are secluded in a soundproof studio, alone, while a wall separates them from the others.  That’s why this luncheon is so much fun and so important–it’s good to get to know the other guy in the next room who embodies the same values and dedication to WRBH.  I’ll give you two examples to prove my point: Carolyn Cornia and Ray Lang seemed to be hitting it off famously, laughing and talking like old friends.  Turns out, they’ve known each other as NEIGHBORS for years, but had no idea that they were both readers at WRBH..  Same thing with Brian Sands and Kerry Ermon, who’ve shared many happy memories as close friends, but didn’t know they shared the station as well.  It was also fascinating to observe when someone recognized another reader by voice alone, because after all, that’s how most of our listeners do it, too.

One of the most touching moments for me came when I contacted Adrienne Petrosini to tell her about the event (she’s changed emails and I ended up having to message her on Facebook) and she immediately asked “What would you like me to bring?”  She was surprised when I answered “Nothing!” , but part of the joy of this annual party is being able to give back to the readers for a change.  The staff took care of the food (Rachel provided the salad and the pralines, Natalia did the fruit salad and the cookies, I made the seafood jambalaya and the brownies, the generous John Nguyen donated the delectable Vietnamese banh mi poboys, and Guy Gonzalez’s Lemonade Service did the tangy homemade lemonade.)  New volunteer Kerry Ermon brought her flute and gave us exquisite background music to nosh by, and although it was cold and rainy outside and the news stories breaking on Friday were disturbing and tense, it was warm and happy from 11-2  p.m. inside at 3606 Magazine Street.  Thanks to all who came and we’re looking forward to doing it again next year!

 

 

 

 

Confirmation–It’s Not Just For Catholics Anymore

Once in a while, there seems to a a series of events or encounters that sparks a theme or causes a thought to resonate through your daily life.  At first you think it’s all coincidental, but then it slowly starts to dawn on you that there may be something more going on, something you need to pay attention to.  That’s how it was for me last week–the universe was sending me a message on repeat, one that couldn’t be ignored, and I finally realized it was because it was meant to be shared.  Literally.

Here’s how it all happened: The first event was the letter.  A person I know (who wishes to remain anonymous) received a thoughtful, eloquent letter thanking him for service upon his retirement, and I was struck by how much this simple letter of appreciation moved him.  He’s the kind of guy who firmly believes that a job well done is its own reward, that pride is a dangerous thing, and that everyone should try their hardest simply because it’s the right thing to do, and not because you wish to be praised for it.  Yet, he was touched and grateful to be recognized, and the note lifted his spirits and made him feel reassured that he had accomplished something.  I was a little surprised and also moved at how much the letter meant to him, because his reaction was so different from his usual behavior, but the evidence was clear: it felt good to be acknowledged.

Then, on Tuesday, two of the producers of the movie Beasts of the Southern Wild came to visit WRBH in order to show homage to their favorite reader, Constance McEneny.  They love the station and are devoted listeners, having first learned about it through a chance shared dinner with Natalia in 2009.  (Except we know this was all meant to be, right?)  Josh and Dan were excited and awestruck in Constance’s presence, listening respectfully to her stories of becoming a reader and her assignments through the years, and giving her their whole attention.  Now we all know Constance has plenty of fans, but it was delightful all the same to see her hold court with these two charming admirers, and witnessing her pleasure at their appreciation was a wonderful thing.

The third event occurred on Wednesday, when the winners of the first WRBH High School poetry contest, a group of students from KIPP Renaissance School, came to the station to record their poetry for later broadcast.  Under the tutelage of teacher Joella Fink, the sophomores submitted their very personal and meaningful poetry to be dissected and evaluated, an act that requires a certain amount of courage and hope mixed with fear.  Yet these talented teenagers not only were brave enough to share their innermost thoughts with their teacher and those of us at the station, they agreed to read them aloud into a microphone so that ALL of our listeners could hear these poems.   Upon arrival at WRBH, they were excited but also anxious–even the coolest ones were a little unnerved by the prospect of having to perform in front of their teacher, their peers, and a group of helpful strangers.  As I watched them awaiting their turns in the studio, the universe began sending its message to me again.  I became of aware of how these children relaxed and bloomed as Ms. Fink inspired them to do their best, as Natalia offered coaching and moral support, and as engineer Wayne Holmes gently instructed them on the logistics of speaking clearly and correctly into the equipment, while offering encouragement and praise for their writing.  “See how important this is?” the universe whispered.  “Everyone needs to feel valued, to be appreciated, to feel worthy.”

So, here’s the message for you, conveyed to me courtesy of the universe: this week, tell someone how much they are appreciated.  Find something, ANYTHING, they do well and give them positive feedback.  It won’t take much time, and the payoff will be extraordinary in light of how much it will mean to the lucky recipient.  And if you can’t think of anything, I’ll even help you if you come into the station this week:

Tell Tim how remarkable it is that he can juggle recording the volunteers, editing their readings,  while simultaneously collecting news stories via the internet, making small talk and figuring out how to solve the problems when the iPads go wonky at work, along with being a new dad and the chief cook at home.

Tell Natalia that it’s downright amazing how well she can focus and think outside the box when it comes to the always uncertain means of obtaining money to keep the station afloat, despite the relentless series of curveballs life has chosen to throw at her lately.

Let Rachel know she’s truly an organizational whiz and a technological savant.  Really, anybody who can manage to pull off the WRBH golf tournament every year without a hitch (or a panic attack) has got to have genius skills and nerves of steel.

Tell Wayne how much you appreciate his kindness and calm, easygoing manner.  I know quite a few volunteers (along with the KIPP students) who have left the station feeling good about their time spent reading, because Wayne calmed their fears.

Thank Abraham for being willing to take on so many shifts when Tim was out, and handle them without getting flustered or cranky.  Also, tell him how awesome looking that hinge tattoo on his elbow is.

And to all of you cheerful, industrious, intelligent, funny and wonderful volunteers, here’s a note of thanks:  you make us happy, you are doing good things for others, and we are so grateful.  And we’ll do our best to let you know that.

 

 

More Connections With That Small Town Boy

Last week’s blog post was about John Kennedy Toole and the nonfiction book currently airing on WRBH called BUTTERFLY IN THE TYPEWRITER, written by Cory McLauchlin and read (with great respect and grace) by Peter Spera.  In that post, I commented on how many people in New Orleans and beyond feel connected in some way to the book or to the story or the life of Mr. Toole.  Some of the connections are emotional, and others are tangible experiences or actual encounters with the writer, his family, or his friends.  I recounted some I knew about, and asked you, the reader, if there were any you wished to share.  Here are your responses:

Kathryn Paintin writes, “I’ve got a connection, I’ve got a connection!  My friend Jean Cranmer also took “elocution” lessons from Mrs. Toole, and she too has vague memories of glimpsing Kenny and his father wandering about the house.  She can still recite some of the ridiculous “perms” Mrs. Toole had her learn.  Not bad for a little girl from Chickasaw, Alabama, huh?  Literary connections!”

Dorothy Henriques, writing from California, said:

“When I worked at Dominican College there were tales all over about John Kennedy’s days there on the faculty, and my dentist’s wife (whose name I can’t remember now) was his close friend right before his suicide. She helped in her husband’s dental practice and one day I spoke to her briefly about the dead author. That’s my several oblique degrees of separation both with being a friend of Jan Villarrubia (his mom’s student) and my dentist’s wife, his friend. When his book was so celebrated I guess we all looked for ways to know more of him and his lost genius. Sadness in the small town we call home, I guess.”

Then I asked Peter Spera, the volunteer who read the book for us on the air, about his impressions and how he felt about the subject matter while he was recording the book.  Here is his thoughtful answer:

“At first it seems surprising that the book (A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES) won the Pulitzer prize, because it seems as if no one but a New Orleanian would “get” these oddballs and quirky characters from the book–it all comes across as much too local and unbelievable unless you live here and you know that people like that actually exist in the Quarter and in some of the old neighborhoods.  But as I read the biography, and saw that most of the characters weren’t from his imagination but were based on real life “characters” he knew quite well, I realized that there is a universality to the book that caught fire with the audience.  How many superstitious little Italian ladies like Santa Battaglia are there in the world?  Plenty on the west bank of New Orleans, sure, but also in New York, in Chicago, in New Jersey.  Same thing with Ignatius’ family, his impatience with his mother, the way he feels so put upon and misunderstood–we’ve been on both sides of that story, as children and also as parents.  Ignatius’ dissatisfaction with his jobs (at the Levy pants factory and as a Lucky Dog vendor), his inability to see his own faults and how he contributes to his own failures, his steadfast belief in his superiority, his insecurity combined with his large ego…don’t we all know a person like that?  What’s amazing to me is that the publishers who passed on the manuscript had a hard time seeing the “point” of the story, and thought no one would possibly understand it.  Instead, we ALL understood it.”

The last segment of BUTTERFLY IN THE TYPEWRITER airs tomorrow (Monday, April 8th)  and features a Writers’ Forum interview taped several months ago with the author, Cory McLauchlin.  It’s an intriguing and fitting closing with additional insights into the writing of the book.  Tune in at 9 am and again at 9 pm to hear it, on WRBH, 88.3 FM: Reading Fine Print.

Our Small Town Boy Makes Good

I’m sure this has happened to everyone at one time or another–you’re in the airport, or visiting another city, and when you strike up a conversation with a stranger and mention being from New Orleans they immediately say, “Oh, do you know insert name here?” and you not only know them, they live down the street, or your brother dated them, or they are your second cousin once removed, or your mom knows their mom.  Then, after exchanging stories, you both have to laugh and agree that “New Orleans is such a small town, isn’t it?”

This is really hitting home with me as I listen to the current nonfiction book on WRBH,  Cory McLauchlin’s Butterfly in the Typewriter.  This beautifully written biography is a heroic attempt to portray the strange, funny, heartbreaking story of New Orleans’ own John Kennedy Toole, author of A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES and winner (posthumously) of the Pulitzer Prize in 1981. 

Toole’s story is a familiar legend: the intelligent, talented only child of a fiercely doting mother commits suicide when his life’s work, a novel he desperately tried to get published, is repeatedly rejected.  Unwilling to let his genius go unrecognized, his mother takes up the cause and  through her determination and tenacity, forces Walker Percy to read the manuscript, and he in turn becomes its champion, eventually leading to worldwide acclaim and the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.  In our typical small town way, everybody claims to know John Kennedy Toole in some form or another. In this city, “six degrees of separation” is too many; for most people the connection is much closer.  For instance, my friend, playwright and poet Jan Villarrubia, was actually enrolled in Thelma Toole’s combination finishing/charm/elocution school for girls in the 1960s, and she distinctly remembers Mrs. Toole’s pale, quiet son interrupting class one day to ask his mother a question. Jan was relieved that he had barged in–they were practicing a group song for the recital, and the girls were trying to learn how to dance and simultaneously belt out “When the red, red robin goes bob, bob bobbin’ along” while thrusting those funeral home “fan” type cardboard pictures on a stick of a garish, grinning robin at the imaginary audience. Exhausted, she was thrilled to get a chance to take a deep breath and chat with the rest of the group.  Unfortunately, this meant her one opportunity to observe the genius behind the book was largely wasted.

Another example came when I was looking for quotes from the book to post on our Facebook wall, and just by thumbing through a couple of pages I found a memory from Toole’s classmate Jane Stickney Gwin, who used to be one of the Thursday newspaper readers on WRBH and is also our event coordinator Rachel Stickney’s grandmother.   Abraham Kinkopf, our substitute engineer, remembers reading the book while at Harvard, and then wondering if the house he rented on Constantinople Street when he first moved to New Orleans might be the fictional one Toole imagined for Ignatius and his mother.

I’ve got not one, but two stories myself: when I taught at DeLaSalle in 1981, shortly after the book gained national acclaim, Thelma Toole was invited to come to the school and speak.  I excitedly told my senior English class her story, and arranged for us to attend the lecture in the auditorium.  Imagine my shock and surprise when Mrs. Toole, dressed in a silver lame dress and hat, and accompanied by a muscular hunk of a bodyguard, decided to skip talking about her son and instead chose to screech out an earsplitting “Rock a Bye Your Baby to a Dixie Melody” while banging on the piano with her curled, arthritic fingers.  I have to admit, my students were better able to contain their laughter than I was.  Also, I am the proud owner of the 1954 Fortier Tarpon yearbook, in which senior John Kennedy Toole was voted “Most Intelligent Boy”.  How I acquired this treasure is a bizarre story in itself, and wouldn’t be out of place in A Confederacy of Dunces: a semi-homeless woman I inherited from the previous owners of our house would ride two buses from the west bank to exchange odd, useless, often broken items she’d acquired from trash cans for a “donation”.  Over the years, after dutifully purchasing a filthy Mickey Mouse sprinkler, a half-empty fifth of vodka she’d found under a house, and a brown satin evening gown crookedly sewn with lime green thread, I finally hit pay dirt when she arrived at my doorstep with the yearbook.  Best three dollar donation I’ve ever made.

Butterfly in the Typewriter airs at 9 am and 9 pm weekdays, and the last segment will feature the Writers’ Forum interview with Cory McLauchlin.  Tune in to hear how many degrees of separation YOU are from John Kennedy Toole.  In fact, let me know if you’ve got a story, too–I’ll be glad to share yours in another blog post.

 

 

WRBH Goes Whole Hog!

I’m going to hypnotize you now.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to make you focus on a spinning image or force you to stare at my pendulum-like pocket watch while I murmur “You’re getting veeeerrryyyy sleepy” over and over.  No, this is going to be a wonderfully pleasant and enjoyable experience, with no potential side effects like embarrassing yourself in front of others when I say the secret word (unless that sounds like fun to you–then I’d sure be up for that!)  Instead, I’m going to ask you to relax, breathe deeply and trust me while I take you on this hypnotic journey to a paradise called City Pork.

Imagine yourself on a blanket on the soft green grass, the tantalizing aroma of roasting pig wafting through the air, sipping an ice cold Mar-go-rita while you and your honey groove to the funky sounds of the Rebirth Brass Band or maybe the Revivalists. The sunshine is warm on your face, and the friendly people surrounding you are dancing, laughing, and having a blast.   In addition, among the crowd is a shared feeling of goodwill and caring, and the knowledge that this day is also meaningful: everyone knows that just by being there they are uniting in a great cause and supporting families who are so thankful for their help.

Plus, everyone is noshing on the most succulent and delectable ribs ever to emerge from a barbecue pit.

Okay, open your eyes.  How do you feel?  Are you getting veeeerrrryyyy hungry?  Do you feel an overwhelming desire to go to this paradise, this land of altruism and roast pork?

Well, you’re in luck!  Not only is this journey possible, it’s soon–March 23rd, to be exact.  This upcoming weekend is Hogs for the Cause, a fundraiser imagined by Rene Louapre and Becker Hall, to raise money for the families of children with pediatric brain cancer.  Inspired by the late Ben Sarratt Jr.’s courageous battle against an incurable brain tumor, Hogs for the Cause is in its fifth year of aiding and supporting the families who are living and coping with the devastating effects of terrible disease.

WRBH will also be participating in the fund raising–we will be working the soft drinks, water, wine and Mar-go-ritas beverage corral #2, and the Hogs for the Cause group has generously offered to give the station a portion of the proceeds of what we sell.  There are still a few available slots left in the work shifts if you would like to participate.  Call Rachel Stickney at 899-1144 if you would be interested in selling side by side with us for this inspiring cause, and she will give you the info.

Join us for this old fashioned southern pig roast at City Park, and when I say the secret word (which is “porkpourri”), you’ll sleep very well at night knowing that you didn’t need to be hypnotized to enjoy yourself while doing something good for others.