Arkansas MAGIC!

Hi friends! Welcome to a very special 2-part blog entry about our time in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The first part of the entry is going to be the part that most of you want to read - detailing our time in Fayetteville and our shows. The second part of the entry is going to be a little 'Anderson Family Experience' recap. For those of you that want to read it, go right ahead.
No offense to those who don't want to read it. (Unless you are an Anderson family member. Then it's just plain rude.)

PART 1: WE LOVE FAYETTEVILLE

Here is the Walton Arts Center. Inside and out!

Sooo...I'm actually writing this from Rolla, Missouri - our stop on the road (enroute to Dayton, Ohio) after leaving Fayetteville on Wednesday afternoon. The only way to sum up our stay in Arkansas is to call it surprisingly perfect. I think we all left loving Fayetteville a LOT more than we thought we were going to - even more than Tulsa and the fair.
We also left with the ability to say that we had the 6 BEST audiences we've had along the way in Fayetteville. I wish there was a way to adequately describe WHAT made these audiences the best. But even putting it in writing doesn't really explain it. Let me try and give you a few examples: previous to Fayetteville, when we do the Oompa-Kickline, I think we have had ONE audience (a public performance) cheer/clap for it. I may be off on my numbers here, but in 6 shows we did in Fayetteville, I think we had 3 of the audiences cheer/clap for the kickline! And 5 of the 6 audiences went CRAZY when Charlie finds the Golden Ticket. (Which is funny - because backstage today, Tara and I were standing there listening to them and Tara said, 'It's just so FUNNY. Don't they KNOW he's going to find one?' Silly Tara.) Plus - when I say that the kids were vocal, the description pales in comparison to what they really were. When the lights go out at the first of the show, there is normally a rustle - but with these kids, there was screaming and cheering and clapping...so much that standing in the wings, I couldn't ever hear the music start. And during the BURP! song, they were laughing/clapping so much that a couple of times, Eric almost couldn't hear them music for him to come in to the song!
I think the BEST example of their excitement was the 2 school shows we did on Wednesday. During BOTH performances, as we were singing the Oompa-Loompa songs...YOU COULD HEAR THE ENTIRE AUDIENCE OF KIDS SINGING ALONG WITH US! I'm going to guess that the theater sat about 1200 or so - and both audiences were packed and had kids all over the theater singing out "OOMPA! LOOMPA! DOOMPADY-DOO! I'VE GOT ANOTHER PUZZLE FOR YOU!" Singing loud and proud!
After our shows, both on Tuesday and Wednesday, we left the building as the busses were loading up and heading out, and it was so funny to see all the little arms and heads come SHOOTING out of the busses - shouting 'Hey Mike! Mike Teavee!' or 'HI VERUCA!' and of course, 'CHAAAAAAAAAAARLIE! CHAAAAAAAAAAARLIE!'
The audience reaction in Arkansas made me start thinking about this program that we are a part of...and what a unique experience it is. First and foremost, we are actors and we get the chance to do a silly little show that is an hour long. We get to sing and 'shmance' a bit. We get to travel around the Midwest and see cool cities and some boring ones, too. We get to try cheesecakes and fried foods and hotel chains and local laundromats and see historic sites and buildings. But above it all, we have this amazing opportunity to touch the lives of these kids that we are performing for! And trust me - I'm the first one to think 'that is SO cheesy!' once I typed it - but I can't deny that it's true. We're bringing these kids in all of these communities a chance to see something maybe they normally wouldn't get to see, locally. And we get to bring a story that kids know and love. During our shows today, I kept flashing back to our final little meeting with Graham in Indianapolis a few weeks ago, when he got a little emotional and just asked us to be honest with the show and our performances - and not to get a point where we are just going through the motions. He told us that we NEVER know how we will affect a child in the audience on any given day. To hear those kids reactions today, and the past 2 days in Fayetteville and all along the road thus far, I know that there is a lot of truth to what he said.
And I feel pretty blessed to have this chance to see it all in action!

PART 2: Anderson Family Experience

BROTHERS! Tim and I backstage after our first show. I'm not hot. I swear...

So, as previous mentioned, my younger brother, Tim, came out to Fayetteville, on his way to Atlanta to see the show (and HE got experience one of our CRAZY school-audiences on Wednesday. They were ON!) It was good to see him and spend a little bit of time with him.
Tim is a HUGE geneology guy - tracking our Anderson family history. He has been involved in it for the past 4 years or so, since our Grandma Queenie passed away.
So when Tim said he was coming, he said that he wanted to go up to a place called Eureka Springs, Arkansas (about an hour northeast of Fayetteville) on Tuesday after he landed. I had wanted to go there, as well, since my friend, Holly told me about it and I looked it up on line. (You can do the same: www.eurekasprings.org) It's a cool little Victorian city that sits in the heart of the Ozark Mountains. It also turns out that (un-beknownst to me) THIS is the city where my Great-Grandmother Queen (we called her Ma-Ma) grew up and was married. (And about 15 miles to the East of here is where my Grandma Queenie grew up and went to high school! WHO KNEW!?)

A cool building in Eureka Springs.

So Tim wanted to check out a couple of area cemetaries and look for a couple of headstones.
So we went up to Eureka Springs (took Chris, Tara and Eric and dropped them off downtown Eureka Springs) and found our way out to the Rock Springs Cemetary and Church. Through some of his previous research, Tim found out that our Great-Great-Grandfather (Ma-Ma's Dad)
was buried here. (And he wanted to see if any other family members were.) So we found the cemetary, and after walking around just a few minutes, we found our Great-Great-Grandfathers headstone. He was a veteran of the Civil War and died in 1908. He name was James Cash - and there were some plastic flowers on the grave that looked like they had been put there within the last month or so.

Here it is. What started it all....

So after looking around the Cemetary and the school and church, Tim decided that we would drive around (we're out in the middle of NO WHERE on these little dirt country roads!) and find someone to see if any Cash families still live in the area. We talked to a couple of old women, and one of them knew of 3 Cash Sisters (she actually called them 'Old Maids')who lived about 3 miles down the road.

The school and the cemetary. The church is to the left of the school. And then there is one of me ringing the bell. My silly antics.

Tim and I hopped in the car and drove in the direction she had mentioned - with Tim recounting the woman's mumbling accent PERFECTLY along the way. After a few wrong turns and twists, we ended up finding the place - and driving down their long driveway. As we parked, one of the
'Old Maids' came out on the porch, and Tim approached her and identified himself by saying his G-G-Grandfather was James Cash, who was buried up at the church. She smiled and said that she was related to him, as well and that he was her Grandfather. Her name was Dorthea, and she lived in this old family home for the past 72 years! Her father and Ma-Ma were brother and sister! Dorthea called her sister, Emma out and explained who we were ('Emma! Emma! These are Thelma's grandsons!') And she also told us that she and her sisters were cousins of our Grandma Queenie. As soon as she identified us, Emma starting going in and out of the house, bringing us pictures of Ma-Ma and her brothers growing up! And I sat, listening, snapping pictures of the pictures with my digital camera! What turned into a search for a headstone quickly turned into a rich experience for Tim and I - sitting and learing more about our family and where we came from! ( Who KNEW I had such deep roots in Arkansas!) We spent about an hour with them, all the while Tim was asking them questions about the people they were talking about and writing all the information down. (They even had a picture of our Great-Great-Grandmother with her 14 brothers and sisters and their parents - and when Tim looked at it, he asked Emma if she knew any of the names of the people in it, and she said, 'Sure. I have it all written down with their birthdates. Let me go get it!') We found out that the school by the church (the one I rang the bell of) is where Ma-Ma and her brothers went to school growing up and that she was married IN Eureka Springs - somewhere downtown.

Here you go - 4 of the pictures of my Grea-Grandmother and her family. So cool.

The Booth-Family Picture...and TIm.

It was an amazing experience - and no real way to describe it fully. And to think it all was made possible by the fact that I'm touring the country doing Willy Wonka! (I just kept thinking of my friend, Amy Archibald, from back in the day. She used to always say, 'Heavenly Father is in the very details of our lives!' How true is THAT!?)

Tim says good-bye to the Cash Sisters. L-R: Dorthea (85 yo), Emma (72 yo), Ernestine (92 yo TODAY!), Tim (28 yo in 2 weeks.)

So there you have it - a few days in Fayetteville that turned into, I know, MY favorite stop so far on the tour. We're on the road again - and have an 8 hour drive on Thursday to get us back up to Ohio! I'm still loving the road and uniqueness of the experience...and love the people I'm with more than ever! (That was cheesy, too....HAHAHAHA! BUT IT'S TRUE!)
Until Dayton...
Gussy.

Dickson Street in Fayetteville. This is where the theater was and all the restaurants and clubs and stuff. Eric is showing off his families street in Fayetteville. (Thompson, for those of you who don't know him.)

Lunch today was BACK at the Hog Haus Brewery (the building behind Eric). We wanted to go to Bourbon Boys - for their crazy appetizer spciy, spreadable cheesecake. But they were closed. Chris and Andrew do quick test shots of Hog Haus' rootbeer.

How is THIS for Arkansas Random? This women in full mullet is just riding the horse down the street. (And please note - we right near the Interstate entrances and exits. People are weird.

So. This is the raspberry white chocolate cheesecake. It had a lot of hype and it really did nothing for me. a high 6 on the MASE. It tasted a BIT old...like it had been out a couple of days. Oh well.

So - my GENIUS photography skills got the ANDERSON, MISSOURI sign. Look closely...it's kind of sideways.