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We went dancing - Contra or English - on 90 days or nights in 2019
- I might be off by one or two days

22 nights at Gender Free English Country Dance in JP
16 nights at Gender Free Contra Dance in JP
19 nights at BIDA Contra Dance in Cambridge
8 nights at Challenging Contras at the Scout Houe in Concord , MA
3 nights at Harvard Square English in Cambridge
6 days/nights at LCFD Dance Camps in Woodstock, CT and Becket, MA
3 days/nights at the Dance Flurry in Saratoga Springs, NY
3 days/nights at NEFFA in Mansfield, MA
2 nights at Thursday night Contra Dance in Concord, MA
1 night at Village Contra in NYC
1 day/night at the Peterborough, NH Snowball
3 days/nights at Beantown Stomp in Cambridge
1 night at the New Years Eve Contra Dance in Concord (+ a few minutes of the 2018 one)
1 night at the English Gala in Concord

And we are starting 2020 off on a roll. A few minutes this morning at the New Years Eve dance in Concord, Challenging Contra on Friday in Cocord, Saturday night at the English Gala in Concord, and Sunday night at BIDA in Cambridge.

Every year in April there is an all weekend New England Folk Festival. We always go to it and for the past many years our group (Lavender Country & Folk Dancers) runs a food booth in the cafeteria. It takes place at the campus of the Mansfield, MA Middle and High School. This skirt is the traveling skirt brought to many dances by Mark Galipeau and worn by many people.

There is a huge variety of folk dancing and folk singing and other stuff there. We did a fair amount of Contra Dancing and English Country Dancing. When you walk around the halls there are always people jamming. Since we go there regularly and dance at various places there are lots of people that we know. And I ran into various people from past lives - work in the '60s and '70s, the Quadrivium...

Our foodbooth serves a variety of food: pasta with meatballs (real and veggie), marinara or pesto sauce), scones, cookies, muffins, croissants, tea, coffee, lemonade, popovers and frittata in the morning. We have over 30 volunteers rsc is the volunteer coordinator. Some of the volunteers work just a couple of hours, others such as Chris Ricciotti and Sam Arfer are at work essentially the whole time (plus before and after) (Chris did go off to call a couple of times). We do all the purchasing, preparation, cooking, and serving. We are very popular. The profits (amount unknown as of now but usually between $5,000 to $7,000) go to the various affiliated dance groups where the volunteers choose where their share goes. Without these funds our English Country Dance series would no longer exist. I like my few-hours-a-year career as a food-service worker.

The school cafeteria and maintenance workers are extremely friendly and helpful - they always greet us warmly when we show up. I suspect we are a lot easier to deal with than the kids that usually encounter. At the end of the day I saw one of the maintenance men riding around a floor cleaner/polisher and joked with him that they should get a bunch of them and let the kids used tham as bumper cars.

Here is a 1 minute video taken by Doug Plummer - a well-known dance photographer that gives a good idea of what the festival is like.

This weekend was another great Lavender Country and Folk Dancers (LCFD) dance camp. We have them twice a year. rsc and I went to our first one in the fall of 1997 and I haven't missed any since then (Robert missed one because he was sick).

We do lots of Contra Dancing and some English Country dancing. Our band was Perpetual e-Motion. They are a very interesting and unique band - one fiddle, one guitar, occasional didgeridoo or voice and lots of electronic enhancement. They record themselves while playing and then patch in these recordings while playing so they sound like a band of 4-6 people at times. We've had them at camp several times before. Our Contra dance caller was Lynn Ackerson and the English caller was Graham Christian.

We have a costume (optional) dance on saturday night following a variety show - I always do something - usually a scientific or historical lecture - this time about some unpublished items in the Magna Carta; after our trip to Egypt I reported on some hieroglyphics in a 2,000BC tomb that described a contra dance.

It was friday-sunday event at a YMCA camp in Woodstock, CT - 2 nights and 6 meals. Lots and lots of dancing of course. The weather was beautiful this time; lots of people enjoyed the outdoors. I got to do a bit of archery. Of the ~15 arrows I shot, one reached the bulls-eye and most of them hit the target somewhere.

It's a very social event - and of course Contra dancing and English country dancing are very social in nature. Many of the attendees are regulars so it is wonderful to see people you see at other camps and in dances that I go to. The Eval forms (not yet processed for this camp) usually show that the thing people like best is the community. But we have great callers and bands and I usually dance close to every possible dance.

I am treasurer of the organization. We made a profit but I don't know exactly how much because of a few expenses that haven't been reported yet.

One of Doug Heacock's videos:

This weekend was the annual weekend event called NEFFA. It is a festival full of folk dancing of every type, wonderful music, several thousand smiling people all having a great time and a huge crew of volunteers who make it happen. It takes place in the Mansfield, MA Middle and High schools; the gyms are the main dance halls, the auditoriums and various classrooms are used for other activities. Morris and sword dancers dance outside. I did a lot of Contra dancing and English Country Dancing, lots of schmoozing with people I see at our dances, other dances and at this annual event, and worked at our food booth.

There are always groups of musicians in the halls jamming. Various crafts people sell stuff - shoes, clothing, musical instruments, pottery, etc. I bought another skirt from my favorite skirt vendor - I saw a versions of the one I bought last year and the year before skirts there.

If you want to know what NEFFA stands for see this Jan 27 comic strip:

I made a Tshirt using an iron on thingie with this on it to wear on Saturday and lots of people got a kick out of that. Someone said it is unfair to have a tshirt with so much writing on it that makes it hard to read the whole thing while dancing with me.

Our several dance groups run a food booth. This was the 12th year we did it. We serve pasta with meatballs (veggie or hoofed); marinara, pesto, or butter sauce; hotdogs, meatball sandwiches; salad with homemade dressings, scones, cookies, muffins, croissants and stuffed pockets, popovers and frittata for breakfast; teas, coffees, lemonade and iced tea. We cook in the kitchen and follow all the health regulations. The kitchen staff washes the pots and pans. Sam, Chris, Read, and Rich work essentially full-time with a cadré of about 30 volunteers serving and selling and coin miscellaneous tasks. rsc is the volunteer coordinator; we sometime worry that we aren't filling enough shifts and some people are reluctant to commit to times until the last minute. But we had plenty of people and some people just show up and say can I work. It just shows how strong our community is.

The profits (we don't know how much yet) - but it usually is in the $4,000-$7,000 range go to the dance groups to help make up losses and make sure we can keep hiring good musicians and callers. Our lightly attended English Country Dance series would no longer exist without these funds.

I love working at this food booth. Everyone has a good time, it is fun to banter with the other workers and customers, many of who I know from dancing.

I had to leave one of the dance sessions before it was over to serve a shift at the food booth, but as I was about to change my shoes I espied a cute guy who clearly needed a dance partner so I stayed for one more dance. Then on the way back I passed a group of musicians jamming (a group that has played at our dances in JP) and I had to stop to listen - especially since it was one of my favorite tunes. Then further along there was another group that I had to stop to listen to and dance a bit informally with someone standing there. So I was late for my shift.

At the end we sell off leftover food at bargain prices e.g. make us an offer. Some nice giggling kids bought a huge slew of cookies as we were closing down.



The cafeteria and maintenance staff at the Mansfield Schools are great. They are friendly, cheerful, extremely helpful and enjoy having us here. (It is at the end of School vacation week). I always talk to them and express our appreciation to them. This is a welcome change from the school system where the festival used to be held.

It was such a wonderful weekend. I'm still a bit exhausted. Pretty nice month - dance camp the previous weekend in California, NEFFA this weekend, a whole weekend off (well we have a dance on Saturday night) \, and then our weekend dance camp.

Last weekend was LCFD Fall Gender Free Dance Camp. We were at a YMCA camp in Becket, Mass - the site of many such dance camps - we have two a year and the fall one is at this site; the spring one at another YMCA camp. Also our West Coast affiliate runs a very similar dance camp - I've been to all three of them and will go to the next one in April.

There were 115 of us this time - all but ~9 were returning campers. It's so great to be part of this weekend community - many of us have been there many times (this was my 27th) and also see each other at local dances as well. It is the sense of community (which contra dancing helps) that seems to draw many people again and again. We have good bands and skilled callers (different ones at each camp) - a necessary ingredient for good dancing.

The main theme is Contra Dancing, but there is also some English Country dance and something else - this time it was Hambo (a swedish couples dance). There are sessions aimed for beginners and for experienced dancers and this time there was a musician's workshop and a caller's workshop. Seven of the caller's workshop demonstrated what they learned by calling a medley - they were quite good - thanks the great teaching by Chris. Saturday afternoon we had tea, scones and waltzing. Some of us spent a session Sacred Harp singing, others constructed a labyrinth - and then there was the Variety Show at which I taught everyone how to do Matrix Inversion (don't ask).

Our band was Loco Mojo - two fiddles and a piano, and they were joined by Marco Brehm, a well known bass player. Loco Mojo is a pretty new band and they've gotten really good over the past several years. They played for all the Contra Dances and some of the English - other musicians from our community played for some of the other English sessions.

We finally got Steven to come to this camp so although a new camper he knew some of the people from Morris dancing, Shape Note singing and from the NEFFA food booth. Here's what he said.

This is a 3:22 video of one of the Contra dances -

We had a nice quiet evening at home. Watched La Bohème - the Movie that we'd Tivo'd a few days ago and between acts had this "champagne" and nuts and Brie. Should have had it during the Café Momus scene, I suppose. This bottle reflects the event that starts in a few minutes where the Bruins play Hockey in Fenway Park - and mimics the scoreboard. (I'm still waiting for the Red Sox to play in the Garden).

Today we go to the annual party of an old work colleague and later to the monthly Contra Dance for experienced dancers in Concord.

Last year was a very nice year; uneventful and no health crises to deal with. I turned 71 and in spite of the fact that I've been officially a "senior" for a few years have not yet reached middle-age.

We travelled to Guana Island (BVI) for our close to 20th time, to the Bay Area for a visit to the Big Sur, some friends and Queer Dance camp, to Portland (OR) for the motsscon, camping in Vermont, to LCFD Dance Camps in Woodstck (CT) and Becket (MA) and to Philadelphia to visit Robert's father, brother and sister in law - and yes they are my in-laws too.

Our garden was pretty good this year - the lettuce bed thrived now that it has been moved from being in the middle of the woods (the trees grew a lot since we started it); the blueberry crop was good, and the strawberries were fine in spite of our being away for a few days at their peak.

We went to lots of concerts in Jordan and Symphony Halls; Rusalka, Don Giovanni, and Carmen at the Boston Lyric Opera; about 15 games at Fenway Park; over 30 Contra dances in JP, Cambridge, Concord, and Montague; and about 25 English Country dances in JP and Cambridge; and 3 weekend dance camps including the 20th anniversary LCFD dance camp in Becket.

In the fall the newly renovated Cambridge Public library opened; I'm proud to say I was part of the process that led to this design. The architects and contractors did a great job and we have a wonderful facility - even better than I expected and my expectations were high. Also the West Cambridge Youth/Community Center opened - I was also very involved in that process - and is a very nice building. There was one contra dance there, and another is scheduled in mid-February. There still is a chance that the Thursday night dance could more back there if the city is willing to lower the rent (a good idea since then instead of the hall being empty most of the time it will be in great use). The GLBT Commission of which I am co-chair got an award from GOAL, Gay Officers Action League, for our work to get GLBT training into the Cambridge Police Force.

Several months ago, Chris Ricciotti, the Queen Mum of gender-role free contra dancing severely injured his hand. Several surgeries were needed that included a wrist to finger nerve graft and he expects complete recovery - he's doing well already. Since he has little medical insurance some of us decided to hold a fund raising Contra Dance in the JP church where we usually dance.

The event was on Friday night. It was very successful with lots of dancers and some donations from out-of-town dancers. The cost was $0!. Three bands (Contra Loco, Spank Me!, and Free Association); four callers (Linda Leslie, Bob Golder, Barb Kirchner, and Tony Parkes) donated their services; the UU Church in JP let us use the space for no fee; and many people brought dessert food.

I, an inexperienced sound engineer, ran the sound with the help/advice/hindrance of multiple people. The hall is very reverberant, there was lots of crowd noise, constant changing of callers with different voice characteristics and periodic changes of bands made it quite challenging. Also the sound board is at the front of the hall but the sound in the back of the hall is the problem. It would take lots of really long cables to fix that.

It was a great night. We have a great supportive community. The energy was good, the bands and callers were all excellent.

Kudos to Mike Miller who was the chief organizer of this event.

We climbed the tower and this is what we saw.

( Chris claims the cows are playing croquet )
( The top and the bottom of the tower )

As we've done for the past few years, a bunch of us (contra dancers) go camping on Labor Day weekend. This year we went to Brighton State Park in Vermont at Island Pond which is close to Canada. We were pretty lucky with the weather - Ernesto raged around and had threatened lots of rain. We had two 10x10 canopies to place over the tables to protect us and the food when it did rain. Actually there was a bit on Saturday night, and some more Sunday night, but never enough to interfere or have us get wet.

We rented four campsites.We used one for cooking and eating and the others were where we had our tents. We used my car to store food to prevent it from being attacked by animals. Other than Ember, Jeff's hearing dog, and some neighboring dogs I never saw any animals. A second's sites fireplace was used by Jeff to make his fabulous desserts (Peach Cobbler and Apple Pie). The pie was baked in a dutch oven that has a special lid that can hold coals; charcoal was used since it burns longer. I brought along my steel handle splitting maul which is a pretty foolproof way to split logs, not requiring much skill.

Dining is the big thing on these trips and that includes preparing, cooking, eating, and washing up. There was a bit of time left over for hiking or trips to Canada.



( Killing the Pie )
( At Dinner )
( Mike was dishwasher extrordinaire )

A very brief movie