A guy in my old Indian Princess nation invited me back to play for their campout and I jumped at the chance -- even at the expense of having to postpone a Borders Mission Viejo date to do so. The San Mateo campground is just 17 miles from my house, and has a really nice little amphitheater, with nice benches and a stage and power and even lights.
To make it more fun for the kids (or to buy the audience's favor), I went to the swap meet in the morning and bought 60 tiny LED flashlights, and gave one to each princess. The picture above is half the crowd with their lights.
I started with my greatest hit, "Waltzing With Bears", and a bunch of the girls (and several dads) got up and danced between the stage and the front row. Nobody dances like little girls, aged 5 to 9. And after each song, they all went back to their seats, only to leap up and dance all the way through the next song, and the next...
It was huge fun for me, and all too nostalgic. We did all the hits, including "The Indian Princess Song", with the cue cards. Since there were several dads there that came up and welcomed me, I asked for 3 volunteers for the cards of girls "who have seen this before!", though I think one of the girls that I picked may have fibbed a little, 'cuz she was completely confused. But that was, and always has been (though inadvertently), part of the fun.
It was far too short, because (a) they scheduled in the girls' skits in the middle (though that was fun/nostalgic too), and (b) it got really cold and a lot of the girls just wanted to go back to the tents and go to sleep. I had made up 30 "Bears" CDs, and left them (and a donations hat) out for the guys to take, and 15 of them disappeared. I heard a lot of girls begging their dads for one, only to have the dads tell them that they already had one. Apparently the girls wanted a back-up -- even more flattering...
About a dozen guys came up while I was taking down the equipment to thank me for coming out, and several girls, too -- some of them even without their dads making them do it. A lot of them mentioned how much they missed having the music at the campouts. Me too! Call me any time!
3 comments:
I thought the Indian Princess was no longer?
Doug -- You're right, my old "nation" is now an "expedition". Indeed, my old tribe, the Pawnee, is now "The Surfers". Ouch.
It's not widely known that when I originally wrote the words to what's now known as "The Indian Princess Song", it ...was "I'm a Pawnee Princess", which fit the meter of the melody ("Puff") better. We pretty much got away with shoehorning "Indian" in that spot, but it'll *never* work as "I'm a why-eye princess...".
Fortunately, nobody seemed to notice or mind when we sang it with the original "Indian" cue cards on Saturday. Some traditions won't, and shouldn't, die.
I miss the good old days!
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