This is going to be quick. I just got back from New Mexico and Columbus and am running out of time before D and I leave for Germany next weekend. My main woman Julie (from Wisconsin) and I (from Wisconsin) got a chance to see Michael Feldman (from Wisconsin) conduct a live recording of his famous NPR variety show Whad’ya Know? at the College of Wooster’s McGaw Chapel. Wisconsin came to me. Whad’ya know?
When on the road, Feldman highlights the specialties and quirks of his host town. One of the interviewees this time was Paul Locher of The Daily Record, Wooster know-it-all and author of When Wooster Was A Whippersnapper. For instance, we learned that the town sits at the intersection of three large Native American trails, which are now major state highways. The natives held off the Presbyterian influx for quite a while until one of the settlers shot and killed a chief named Beaver Hat and took over the center of town (at which a couple of women in the audience shrieked with laughter – killing natives, very funny). We also learned that Gerstenslager, now an auto body maker, used to make carriages for the likes of German emperor Kaiser Wilhelm and Oscar Mayer’s Wienermobiles (again with that whole Wisconsin connection). And the average commute time in Wooster is 11.7 minutes. That long, huh?
Here is a slideshow of pictures Julie and I took at the event.
The WYK? band killed as usual – John Thulin on piano, Jeff Hamann on bass and James Brown’s own funky drummer and Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame inductee Clyde Stubblefield. We got to talk with Michael Feldman, John Thulin and Clyde Stubblefield at length after the show, when Thulin encouraged me to go after my dream of re-learning piano, but only on a Yamaha if I ultimately choose an upright.
And, darn it, I forgot to get Feldman on board with the HinJewism movement. Next time.
