My Weekend of Pride and Joy (Joy and Pride?)

This past was the perfect summer weekend for a TT roadtrip.


Joy: Friday. 360+ miles. Sunshine. Top down. Tunes crankin'.


Joy: Allison's 10th birthday, complete with her choice of fast food dinner at Chick Fil-A, and...


Joy: an Abba tribute band at Chautauqua! The Harle girls were "besides themselves" with a chance to sing along with every word to every song from Mama Mia! Shoot, we were all "besides ourselves!"

Joy: Front and center seats, thanks to Mark's connections, and...


Joy: ...a back stage visit with the singers after the performance!!!

Joy: Birthday shopping at the mall with Allison (Though I'm not a fan of the mall, this was quite fun).


Joy: Visiting Grandma and Joey at Wegman's. Grandma was giving out ice cream samples...what's better than that???


Joy: A wine pairing dinner at Quincy Cellars in Ripley, NY with Amy as my "date"!!! Great company, great food, great wine. Pure joy!

Joy: My first visit to the Chervenka Family Reunion in over 30 years. Did I hear someone recognize all of the "strong Czech women" in this family?


Joy: An AMAZING tour (see "Pride" below) of the Chautauqua organ.


Joy: "Family" dinner at mom and dad's with Mark and all his kids--including his son-in-law to be. It's always great when the forces of the universe give us a few short hours when everyone can be together. And this was one of those nights.




And now the PRIDE part...
In 1993 my dad and brother completed the historic restoration of the Chautauqua organ. Since that time, they've given 90-minute organ tours every-other-Sunday during the season -- for the last seventeen years. Dad did the tours in the early years, but Mark has taken over of late.

Sunday was the second-to-last tour scheduled for the season, so we decided to go take it in. On the drive to Chautauqua I was pumping mom and dad for what to expect. "So, how are Mark's public speaking skills?" They assured me that he "holds his own," so I decided to go with that.

"WOW!" Are you kidding me?

That was perhaps the greatest tour on any subject that I have ever seen!!!

Mark was so articulate, clear, knowledgable, interesting, competent, sometimes funny, confident, human...you name it. People in companies all over the world pay people like me top dollar to train executives to achieve just one or two of these qualities when speaking before others. No one masters, and consistently delivers on, so many like Mark does.

At the end of the tour (and after he wowed the assembled group of 50+ with a Bach tocatta), I heard two refined-looking gentlemen walk away in awe, saying it he was an incredible tour guide. They were clearly blown away -- and not because of any bellows in the organ!

When I asked Mark how he learned to do all that, he had to stop and think. "I don't know...it just comes naturally," he proposed. If that's so, then Mark's the Tiger Woods (I hate that it's so hard to hold him up as an example anymore) of tour guides -- naturally gifted like no one else!!

I can't remember another time in my life when I was so proud to be Carla Fischer -- Mark's sister and the daughter of an organ builder. I was swelling with pride (and a few tears) by the end of the 90 minutes.


Remarkably, at the end of the tour, one of the fascinated participants approached both Dad and Mark, requesting an autograph. Both said that was the first time that ever happened.

I don't know why, all things here considered.











Click here to view photos including video clips from Mama Mia and Dancing Queen (oh, and Waldo in a diaper)!!