We’ve known Mark and Linda for over 30 years. They’re master gardeners, dancing chefs and fun conversationalists. They’re fellow RV’ers with lots of travel tales to tell and TWO campsites at their home – the garden site and the treehouse site. They’re also crafty instigators, having planted the irresistible kernel that caused our exploration of Maine to include this stop in Simsbury, Connecticut.
First, the back story…
Mark and Linda love learning new things and having interesting experiences. In 2001, they arranged to host a high-school exchange student from Germany. This is how they came to meet Carolin (the student). Each of them (Mark, Linda and Carolin) says it was a great experience for them all. We never met Carolin while she was in residence. She and our friends have stayed in touch – there have been live, face-to-face get togethers in CT and Germany over the years. Fast forward to 2024, and now Carolin and her husband Claudius have 2 beautiful kids – Anouk (5) and Nino (2).
Carolin and family were visiting New England for a few weeks. Claudius is a music teacher and bass player. Mark and Linda’s neighbor Scott is a guitar player. Both Claudius and Scott like to play whenever they can, and both were interested in an impromptu jam. Perhaps you can see where this is going…
Kids of all ages love drums…
Mark and Linda instigated and hosted a summertime BBQ picnic with a music jam at their place, and the timing coincided perfectly with the tail end of our trip, so we could play, too. Although the weather didn’t fully cooperate (yup, it rained on our picnic – no problem, we moved indoors), they served smoked pork butt (the vegetarians passed, though it looked and smelled wonderful!) with an amazing assortment of home made salads, baked beans, and more. Mark and Linda’s good friend Lori, whom we’ve met several times, also came over for the festivities and brought the dessert – an awesome watermelon and berry salad!
We’d made space for our four-piece band at one end of the living room, where we could all see each other (since only two of us had ever played together before) and the non-players could see, hear, sing along, and maybe even provide some backup vocals and percussion. During our sessions both before and after dinner, we went through about 20 songs – well known standards, some lesser known tunes, and even some original songs from Scott and Doug.
Of course, the kids loved the music and dancing (and the video camera!), as well as the bass and the drums. And we, the players, certainly enjoyed our audience’s enthusiastic participation.
It was a delightful jam, a wonderful visit with lots of friends both new and old, and we all hope to find another chance to connect at some time in the future.
We were delighted to finally meet Carolin and Claudius and the kids. It was a pleasure to play with Scott, and to see Lori again. And major thanks to Mark and Linda for instigating and hosting another great weekend!
For anyone who’s interested, more Simsbury picnic jam pix…