FIRE ON THE
MOUNTAIN AT BAYFEST
Director Linda Carolan writes:
Thick mud caked my white
tennis shoes as I inadvertently stepped in an unfortunately placed mudhole
while exiting the clogger van. My feet
looked three sizes bigger than normal.
“What a mess! No one will be in
the audience,” I kept muttering to anyone within earshot. Intermittent raindrops had graced us with
their presence throughout 
portions
of our trip to Corpus. By the time our
troupe had walked the few blocks to the festival grounds I had succeeded in
cleaning my tennis shoes using the trusted method of standing in each pool of
rainwater we happened to pass. The
cloggers would laugh and make fun of me in the middle of each puddle. After successfully becoming mud free my
spirits lifted considerably and I began to joke, “Jeff, you’d better do that
step right because the audience is going to be giant.” Boy, was I right! No more raindrops fell, Jeff did all the
right steps, and the two shows we did at Bayfest had the rather large tent
packed to overflowing.
Earth Day symbolizes a return to nature so we
revisited our roots and provided traditional, freestyle dancing at our annual
performance there. Memories emerged of early settlers gathering after a hard
day’s work of barn-raising; the fiddler would pick up his bow and the dancers
would shake the dust from their weary feet.
We demonstrated mountain figures such as Take a Little 
Peek (now run home and swing your sweet, step right up and peek once
more, …), Right Hands Across (now back by the left and don’t get lost), and
many other Southern Appalachian Mountain Figures.
Church festivals clogged every weekend (pun
intended). St. Gregory’s Catholic Church
played host to our bluegrass laced performances and then we planted our best
foot forward at Colonial Hills United Methodist Church Family Fest. The call of the dance even lured us to do two
performances in one day as we braved the menacing threat of raindrops to
perform at St. Rose de Lima. After the
show Lane and Sheryl continued the merriment on the downhill slopes.