May Day Play Day and BEYOND!

it was a magical full moon night in Stockton at Albert's place when we jammed on ukuleles for  SEVERAL HOURS!

So, each year the Fun Strummers in Modesto host this very awesome "May Day Play Day" -- and even though it's in Modesto, it is definitely worth the drive to the Central Valley for this. $20 for an entire day of Ukulele Playing FUN and even workshops! I left early in the morning and picked up Steve along the way -- we got there right on time, around 9am ish. People were there from all different ukulele groups -- a few from our Silicon Valley Group, including Dave Fitchner, a bunch from the Grass Valley Strum Bums run by Dan Scanlon who was doing a workshop (and whom I will forever be grateful to because of his amazing rendition of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds on ukulele that I've now learned and play all the time!)...michelle Kilba was there and she taught a workshop. So was Brooke Adams (who had done a ukulele rendition of Abbey Rd!) -- we're talking $20 for the whole day -- oh yes, we also come away with a May Day Play Day songbook as well and we are fed lunch. It does not get any better than that.

Albert joined us -- he just had to drive from Stockton where apparently his "other" house was -- I had always known Albert to live over in Santa Clara -- south bay -- and I kept forgetting that he also had a place in Stockton.

Anyway, we had an amazing day and played ukuleles ALL DAY long...people commented at the end of the day that their fingers hurt from playing so much -- especially that big long jam at the end! You'd think we would have had enough right?

Wrong!

Albert invited Steve and me to his house in Stockton and we said sure -- since Stockton is not very far from Modesto apparently. He has this lovely yard that's a perfect place for jamming and the weather could not have been more perfect, not too hot or too cold, that is until evening came...I had heard that we were supposed to have the biggest full moon that night (or it would appear the largest) in many years...so I was excited to see the moon rise in the distance since we were in the valley and it was a crystal clear night!

And, ohhh man did we ever JAM! we jammed and we jammed some more...Albert played ukulele, guitar, bass, you name it and Steve and I mostly played ukuleles. I'm trying to remember which ukuleles we played that night... Albert has this huge binder with loads of cool songs -- and we just went on and on...

the song I remember the most from that night was Freebird! It never even occurred to me that people could jam on Freebird on ukuleles and later I realized the song is even in the Santa Cruz Ukulele songbook, although I'd never heard anyone play it and no one ever picked it to play down on the beach...

We had sooo much fun jamming on that song -- at least for 30 minutes, on and on...Steve and Albert taking turns on solos while I kept playing those chords over and over again (because that's what I do and that's okay). I even remembered how I had listened to Freebird on the radio at that 7 Eleven parking lot the night before my mother passed away back in early 1997...when we still lived in Oregon...this is for you, Mom, I found myself thinking on that beautiful full moon night! But I didn't say anything to Albert and Steve about that, or did I?

Albert's parents had showed up -- they often stayed in the back house...and they LOVED listening to us jam! what cool people Albert's Mom and Dad were! I loved them right away! they even made food for us and everything...

Sadly, not too long after that, Albert's Mother passed away suddenly... that's why we didn't hear from him for a while after that night...I had wondered what happened to him.

But what a special night that was. I'm glad we got to play all that music for Albert's Mom and Dad that night... and I hope one day we can play music for his Dad too...