On Saturday, I had a performance at a local residential care facility about 15 minutes from our house.  The Casco Inn is not a nursing home, but rather a semi-independent living facility.  The residents are primarily senior citizens, but they are all ambulatory and, if any of them suffer from dementia, they are in the early stages. While this may seem like a fairly insignificant distinction, as a performer, it is a huge difference.  In a facility like the Casco Inn, the audience is usually responsive to both the entertainment and the message.

I went alone on Saturday - typically my 13 year old, Rose is a big part of the show, but she was trying to get homework done so she wouldn't miss a youth group outing the next day.  Seems our new pastor has a 13 year old son who's "like, so cute!"  Anyway, doing a solo gig is nothing new.  I did include a lotta bowl routine based on Elijah and the prophets of Baal, even though this is normally a routine Rose and I do together.  It worked fine, and the reaction of the lady who thought she was going to get a bucket of water on her (it was glitter) was hysterical.

The same lady spoke to me afterwards.  She was pleased that I was from Bridgton just like her.  Even though that's only two towns away from where the show was, she acted like it was the other side of the world.  It meant so much to her to talk about local sites like the ski slope, Woods Pond, and her church: St. Joseph's Catholic.  

The conversation was a blessing to this lady, but it was also a nice reminder to me of what a great little community my family has lived in for the last 26 years.