And The Sign Says...

 .....a great time was had by all!

At a fantastic fundraiser for cancer research in Merrickville over the weekend.

And a big part of it was the fact that Les Emmerson And The Hitmen - known to some as Canada's Five Man Electrical Band - played a concert there.

And, of course, played one of their big hits "Signs, Signs, Everywhere Signs" among many others.  Les is there on the right, warming up the crowd.

But it wasn't all fun and games.

Under the cover of darkness the night before, many brave souls spent the better part of the evening setting up the stage and tent.

And one of the reasons it took so long was that the worker to supervisor ratio was pretty near one to one.

And why was that?

It seems it's not only Les and the boys who have seen many winters come and go.  The Bad Back Moving Company had several, okay most, of their members on the permanent Disabled List.

"I can't lift that."
"Can you lift that?"
"Who can carry this? Can Bob?"
"No, Bob can't."
"Hmmmm....."

And on and on.

But, once morning had broken, everything was in good shape.

We did have lots of volunteers to set up the small, plastic chairs though.

Things started to kick into high gear with the highly anticipated arrival of the "beverage" facilities.

 Followed closely by the beverage removal facilities.

Our host for the afternoon, Mike Neelin - full time owner of Mainstreet Family Restaurant and part time ham - did a great job warming up the crowd and auctioning off many donated items throughout the afternoon.

Mike, his restaurant manager, Terri, and his team put the entire cancer fundraiser shindig together.

That's Mike in the grey jacket and, oh my God, socks and sandals.

Come on, it was only 11^o, give the guy a break.

Here he is welcoming the band and introducing the day's emcee, Jim Hunter.  In the yellow jacket and....that's good...boots.

It didn't take long for things to take off as folks were up dancing most of the afternoon.

Although there was lots of room nearer the band, seems like the a lot of the Merrickville gang didn't want to stray too far from those beverage facilities.

Apparently some stayed closer than others.   

With our host keeping a watchful eye on the proceedings.

Our host was everywhere.  Tireless!

Many, many people donated their time and expertise to making this a great event.  Not the least being Les and the Hitmen, who donated their time and brought their team in to set their gear up.

The music was fantastic.

Now because the blogger was not on his A Game and perhaps he, too, did not wander far from those delightful beverage facilities, no audio recordings of the band were actually made to share with faithful readers.

However, a local music store donated a guitar and Les graciously offered to autograph it.

Now, to show you what type of world we've come to live in, the band manager said we actually needed to document that it is indeed Les signing the guitar.  They asked if someone could snap a photo of the deed.

The blogger suggested, what about a video?

So here you go.  No one will be able to dispute the authenticity of this signature.

To make the process even more foolproof, someone - not sure who - suggested that perhaps the videographer should also sign the guitar, as a form of witnessing.

......Les didn't think that was necessary.   Nuts.....

Anyway, here he is signing, not singing, but it's all we've got....

And the fun continued well into the evening.  Well, later afternoon, anyway.

An additional big thanks goes out to Terri and the Mainstreet waitstaff and to Blaine and the cook staff for keeping everyone well fed and hydrated.

And the sign says, long-haired freaky people had a great day!