Tuesday, September 08, 2009

"Sauce Boss" nourishes Kipona

Welcome to KIPONA, Harrisburg’s Labor Day Weekend festival along the Susquehanna River.

While I drove to pick Patti up from her care facility, multiple aides using a lift got her changed, dressed, and ready for an outing. Monday's weather was ideal for Multiple Sclerosis, partly sunny and 74° F (23° C).

Parking for our wheelchair rampvan can get challenging so I headed for the "accessible" parking lots on City Island, right in the middle of 13th Annual Native American Pow Wow.

Most of our outing was paved, though walks and streets are frequently criss crossed with cables and cords.  

With an estimated attendance of 350,000 over all three days, it is too crowded for Patti's scooter, so all in all it was about 2 miles of pushing Patti for me.

First stop bracelet shopping at the Pow Wow vendors. Then we grazed our way (chicken on a stick, pumpkin funnel cake) up Front Street to catch a performance by Bill "Sauce Boss" Wharton.

While Jimmy Buffett sings about the Sauce Boss in "I Will Play for Gumbo": 
"The Sauce Boss does his cooking on stage
Stirring and a' singing for his nightly wage
Sweating and a' fretting from his head to his toe
Playing and buffetting with the gumbo"
you really have to see to believe!



Mixing Florida Slide Guitar Blues with a cooking demonstration of his own gumbo recipe … the Sauce Boss not only entertains but at the end of his performance, everybody eats!

Pushing Patti down close to the stage so she could see better, I spent more time spinning her wheelchair around because the Sauce Boss is every where, on stage then in the audience and back again.

Running around imitating a monkey while performing “She’s A Monkey” he stopped by Patti’s Mom to pick through her hair.


Between paying gigs, the Sauce Boss performs for and feeds those in need at homeless and disaster shelters, “We play for people who really need a good show and a good bowl of gumbo." For more information check out Planet Gumbo.

Finishing our bowl of delicious gumbo we headed back to the van. With darkness settling in, the lights along River Front Park and the bridge to City Island provided an enchanted close to our Labor Day outing.


Caregivingly Yours, Patrick Leer
web site: http://caregivinglyyours.com/
videos: http://www.youtube.com/daddyleer
musings: Patrick Ponders ...

3 comments:

  1. Sounds like it was a great day for you and Patti! Thanks for sharing your experiences with us.

    And on a different note, thanks for your words of encouragement on Jennifer and my blog, and in response to your question, I posted a response at http://danandjenniferdigmann.com/?p=951.
    Thanks, Patrick!

    ReplyDelete
  2. sounds like fun! Sauce Boss is a keeper for interacting with Patti and his work with the homeless

    a very nice way to "close" summer this year :)

    betty

    ReplyDelete

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