Cheryl's Trip Report

Cheryl went to Chicago last weekend to start going through the old family photos to sort and divide them up. There were a lot of pictures, going back into the 1920's and even earlier, with photos of ancestors. Sister Joyce has taken on the job of scanning the hundreds of photos we were interested in preserving.

Here is a photograph of the picture-sorters:

Back row, left to right: Roger, Carl, Jeff
Front row - Cheryl, Dad, Joyce

Other family members came along for good food, and moral support.

But going through the photos was not the only thing we did. On Saturday afternoon, some of us went to see Joyce's younger daughter Niki perform in a local benefit dance recital. Here she is back at her Grandpa's house. She didn't want her photo taken (she is still in stage makeup) but she is radiant for the camera . Her performance was spectacular.


Carl spent much of Sunday jamming with old friends, which we did not get to enjoy, but Niki was not the only performer - brother Roger had a gig playing for a retirement home in Oak Park. (No flash on these photos so as not to disturb the performance.)


Pictured behind him is his new wife Laurie. Roger played a selection of tunes dating from the early to mid 20th century. He started on the guitar, pictured above, then moved to the piano.

Many of those tunes, like Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, were sung by our mother. He also did a lot of show tunes - Gershwin, Frank Sinatra - and one that you wish you would hear more often, A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes from Cinderella, 1950. But it strikes you how difficult all those selections are, with complex chord sequences and big melodic jumps followed by long sweeping lines. Hard enough to sing, or play, let alone do both at the same time!

The setting in the home was just like a very large living room.


You can bet there were many members of the audience who sang along, and came up to thank Roger, hoping he'll come back.