Can You Hear the People Sing

Did you know that Arizona was the 48 state to enter the union? That it became a state on Valentine's Day? Did you know that Wyatt Earp's Great Grand Nephew looks exactly like him? Did you know that all houses were adobe in Arizona until the railroad was brought in and with it lumber to build houses? Did you know that a senator from Minnesota 98 years ago did not want Arizona to become a state in the union because he said "all they got is Mormons and Mexicans?" I didn't know any of these things until last Saturday when we went to Pioneer Village for a performance of mine. It is a 28000 acre recreated village from Arizona at the turn of the century.

We learned a lot that day...

1. When you are singing on risers and end up on the back row, you really need to pay attention to the drop behind you.

2. Don't refer to the likeness of Wyatt Earp's nephew as creepy during his leading of the pledge of allegiance and the Arizona State Proclamation. Both the nephew and the microphones are sensitive.

3. When your son says "look mom, she looks like Sacajawea," don't think American History is being taught younger, be grateful for the $8 you spent to see Night at the Museum three years ago.

4. When a miner hands each of your children a bag of gold, tell them it's probably not real gold before they try to spend it at the gift shop.

5. When a pioneer teaches you how to knit off of a spool and says that children a hundred years ago did it for fun, don't believe her...it's not.

6. Penmanship was better and more fancy a hundred years ago because there was nothing else to do. It was knit or write pretty.

7. Homes were a lot smaller a hundred years ago. A three bedroom, 800 square foot house house held 6 people and still had a parlor for the piano. I probably don't really need much more when I think about it.

8. Wildlife is a lot closer to us than we probably want to admit. Like the mountain lion that lives on the mountain next to us, or the bats the we catch glimpses of in the car headlights at night, or the scorpions that scale the stucco beams on the front porch.

9. DO NOT stand too close to the pig pen, it is a decision that will cost you a shot of pig poo and mud to the eye, cheek, mouth and shirt.

10. I am so grateful I was born in the 20th century and not the 19th. I was not cut out to be a farm girl, or live off the land with the animals. If anyone doubts this, please refer to the incident in number 9.