One night, when I couldn't fall asleep, I tried to think of at least one performance in our career for every letter of the alphabet. The next day I was not well rested, but I had come up with this list:
Asuncion, Paraguay. We were there in August 2013, for Children's Day among other events.
Boston, Mass. We've done a few shows there over the years, including the FCCM convention in 1990.
Crow Agency, MT. We spent a week and a half in this town and the surrounding towns of the Crow Reservation in Montana.
Dorchester, Mass. We did a special service on Valentine's weekend one year in a church predominantly made up of immigrants from Barbados.
Essex Jct., VT. I grew up here, and my first show ever was in my high school talent show in 1978.
Farmington, ME. I went to college here, and did dozens of shows over those four years; some on campus, local bars, schools, etc.
Guayaquil, Ecuador. We spent three days in Ecuador's largest city in 2006 and did several shows each day. Saw more iguanas in one park than I have in my whole life combined.
Halifax, NS. We spent a weekend here leading workshops for a creative ministries retreat. I returned the next year with my middle schoolers as they performed there.
Island Falls, ME. We did a show at this small town's Baptist church a few summers ago.
Juarez, Mexico. Sue and I trained a group of teens from our church in juggling and joined a team for a week in this Mexican city. Naomi was potty trained on the mission bus and outhouses on the hillsides of Juarez.
Kentucky. We led teams from our church two summers in a row. We juggled, there was a construction team, musicians. We went to Corban in 2007 and Jenkins in 2008.
Lincoln County Jail, Maine. We were regulars there each year until they 'downsized' and became a 48 hour holding facility only.
Mapleton, ME. From 1995 through 2004, we went up to this little town in northern Maine to be the speakers at Baptist Park summer camp, sometimes for a week, sometimes for two. From 2004 until 2019, I had been the director, but still find time to perform often.
New Jersey. I don't remember the town, but when I was single I was part of the entertainment for a hot air balloon festival. The headline act was the Flying Wallendas, but I never got to meet them.
Orangeburg, SC. I lived in South Carolina for a few years, and did at least one show in Orangeburg.
Philadelphia, PA. I brought my class of jugglers to suburban Philly in, I think, 1998. Pastor Parks, our host, brought us into Penn's Landing where we did some open air juggling.
Quito, Ecuador. We have been there twice for a total of six weeks doing shows for everything from kids' clubs to the women's prison.
Rhode Island. We were the speakers at Camp Green, an Advent Christian camp, for three years in a row.
Santo Domingo, DR. This was my first foreign missions trip. Sue and the girls stayed home, but I spent two weeks in 1994 with a mission team in the capital city of the Dominican Republic.
Thomaston, ME. This was once the site of the maximum security prison in Maine. We did a service or two there before it was moved to a newer facility.
Underhill, VT. We had family friends in this rural town. When I was in high school, they had a cookout and invited us and several other families. I was asked to juggle for everyone, as was happy to oblige.
Vergennes, VT. Two springs ago I brought my class to Vermont and one of their gigs was at a Christian school in Vergennes.
Woodstock,, NB. We are invited to the Wesleyan church in this town north of the border every year. If you read my blog entitles "He's an American Dove" you'll read about our most memorable trip to Woodstock.
Exeter, NH. Did one show at the Assembly of God church there, and maybe 10 people showed, but it's the closest I could come to an X.
Yarmouth, NS. Again, this was with my students. We had done a series of shows in Halifax and were to take the ferry from Yarmouth back to Maine. While waiting to board the ferry, the kids and I pulled out the props and did a spontaneous show for the other waiting passengers.
Zambiza, Ecuador. Actually, this is the name for the city dump in Quito, but it is also the entire community of people who live there. See the pics. form Zambiza on our 'gallery' link.
OK, so this is hardly comparable to, say, Metallica, who just got in the record books for being the first performers to do shows on all seven continents when the did a concert in Antarctica (Who was in the audience?) but it helped pass a long, frustrating night of insomnia, and brought back a lot of memories from 38 years of juggling.