Columbus and the Valley

Downtown Columbus Didn’t Disappoint

Saturday night in downtown Columbus was a perfect night for me. We have been trying for what seems like years to get dear friends, Doctors Janie and Danny King from Eufaula, Ala., to shoehorn us into their busy, busy schedules and come to Columbus for an evening of dinner and entertainment. These guys are really busy with their internal medicine family practice and a robust list of Eufaula social obligations. We love being with them and Saturday night was a perfect storm of perfect for me.

Even though they have been to Columbus many times over the years, they aren’t familiar with Columbus neighborhoods and many of the newest amenities that are coming online in our fair city. Until Saturday, Danny hasn’t even seen the inside of the Bill Heard Theatre at RiverCenter for the Performing Arts. My absolutely favorite thing to do is to get my hands on someone who isn’t familiar with Columbus. I get to regale them with stories of the people and places of our area, the public/private partnerships that have shaped our landscape, our river, the beauty of MidTown, the new west bank jewels in Phenix City, new restaurants, the longest continually-performing symphony orchestra in America, our hotels and venues, downtown shopping and the promise of many more great things to come.

The Piano Men show with our Columbus Symphony Orchestra was so damn good. I sang along and chair danced my way through the two and a half hour long show. The CSO provided the perfect backdrop to the timeless music of Billy Joel and Elton John, performed flawlessly by a Canadian dude, a couple of side men and a local sax player they added to the show for a few numbers. If CSO conductor George Del Gobbo was put off by having to play an evening of pop music, he didn’t show it. He hammed it up with the Piano Men performers and seemed to be having a great time. Doing shows like this makes our symphony so much more approachable by folks that aren’t so much into classical symphonic music and I think these shows help people connect with this hugely important cultural resource.

We ran into Chamber President and Chief Executive Officer Brian Anderson, his wife Heather and his sister, Whitney, from Charleston, S.C. twice during the evening. They had as much fun as we did, it seems, despite last night’s chilly and blustery weather. I was a little bit disappointed that the streets of downtown weren’t quite as busy as a usual Saturday night. Broadway is a vibrant, exciting place to be on most weekends.

Way to go, Columbus! Our Eufaula friends were wowed by what they saw here on Saturday. I’m sure this is a scenario shared by many who come here for a visit and fall in love with this bend in the river. I’d call this a Chamber of Commerce kind of night. Wouldn’t you, Brian?

RiverCenter is a Jewel!

I’M SO FRUSTRATED! I’m three weeks post surgery/food poisoning and I am still nowhere nearer to being my old self. What is so frustrating is how different I feel from day to day. And the area of concern is my stomach. For instance, last night we had made plans to grab dinner and a performance of “Young Frankenstein” with my neurosurgeon, Dr. Mike Gorum and his beautiful wife, Tammy. Right up until the appointed time we were supposed to meet, I didn’t know if I was going to make it.

The thought of food was making me sick and it didn’t help matters that there was a guy who we were seated next to who had just pulled his jacket out of a 100 pounds of mothballs. During this latest recovery,  my sense of smell has been the most likely sense to pull my vomit trigger. Last night it was mothballs. Over the past few weeks colognes, dogs, casseroles, cpap tubes have had me wretching. I never know where it is coming from.

I’m so glad I got through dinner and that show last night. We had a nice time talking over dinner and “Young Frankenstein” at RiverCenter was just so good! I am so thankful for our RiverCenter. It would be spectacular in New York City. But, it is really a show stopper in Columbus, Georgia.

Jill has helped me organize my case files and we’re getting ready to shop around for a renal cell carcinoma specialist to take our case to discuss next steps. I’ll keep you posted on how that goes.

For now, I’m trying to get into the office a little each day and with physical therapy starting tomorrow, I should be getting stronger each day (if they don’t kill me).

Sorry for the delay in getting out this post. My head just hasn’t been in it. I’ll try to do better.

Tuvan Throat Singers

I’m so excited about an upcoming event at RiverCenter for the Performing Arts! For about 10 years I have been interested in the Tuvan Throat Singers. They are a colorful tribe of people in a small country called Tuva, near Mongolia, who can use their voices in fantastic ways. They create a drone sound and then shape their voices so you can hear multiple overtones and harmonics.
I have watched a couple of documentaries beginning about 10 years ago and have heard them perform on various public radio broadcasts and on these couple of documentaries. I discovered last night that a group of the Tuvans (a couple of the ones I’ve seen on the documentaries included!) are going to accompany Bela Fleck and the Flecktones at the December 4 show at RiverCenter! I’m so fired up about this show, particularly since I’ll be taking all four of our sons to the show. Jill couldn’t be any less interested in either Bela Fleck, the Flecktones or the Tuvans. She has overheard for years now, me listening and watching the haunting performances of the Tuvan throat singers. As far as I’m concerned, this show will be a cultural tour de force.
That we’ll have these Tuvan ambassadors here in Columbus at RiverCenter is something you must not miss! Hell, I know I’m easily amused. If you know anything about me, you already know that. But this is a really unusual and special event to see. You really need to go out and see them. The throat singing is not the easiest thing to listen to, but it is so fantastic that, for me, it is like watching a train wreck. I just HAVE to listen. Click on the title of this post and it will take you to a link where you can see and hear them perform. Then buy your ticket to the show on December 4. You can thank me later.