Medora

Had you told me in May I would be attending three country musical reviews this summer with Sherry Johnson, I would've thought you were kidding me. We saw shows in Nashville and Rapid City. (And we caught Carrie Underwood at the former!) But my favorite was what we saw in Medora. 

Dinner before the show.

Making dinner before the show. Pitchfork fondue. 

The musical.

Medora is famous for its musical, a variety show put on nightly during the summer months. The amphitheater is set against a hillside just west of town. Apparently, this is a tradition that goes back many decades. It's more country than anything else, but there's also patriotic music and oldies. Comedy, too.

I could tell Caroline was enjoying it from the beginning. But Sam . . . at intermission I could tell he didn't quite know what to think. In the second half, though, they brought out a comedian named John Cassidy who delivered an over-the-top performance that made this a highlight of the trip for Sam. Coincidentally, Joe had met the performer before, so Sam got up close to the fella at the end of the performance.

Caroline with a performer.

By the way, all the performers were available down front at the end of the show. The big bear. Dancers. Instrumentalists. Comedian. (Okay, the horses and their riders weren't available.) I'm struck at the availability of these performers every night. I would imagine that after doing this show nightly for a whole summer they'd just want to go to bed and avoid the crowds.

An interpreter at one of our sites paraphrased Mark Twain and his thoughts on travel as an antidote to prejudice. Apparently, the whole quote goes like this:

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”

The country music variety show has its place. I don't often make time for that place, but I'm particularly glad I made time for it that night. Medora is a very different place than Lansdale (or Doylestown or Glenside or even Elverson). The park's placement there helps make Medora more special. The musical, though, is a fascinating way of elevating the town's special-ness. And, heck, it made a trip earlier that day to the Cowboy Hall of Fame even more meaningful.