Last Saturday, 23 August, I got out there again, using my horns to raise money for VFW Posts 8870 (Edmonds) and 1040 (Lynnwood). The yellow sign reads, “All Donations go to VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars),” and people gave generously, as usual. I started busking here in 2017, but I missed a few years, starting with Covid-19 in 2020. My last appearance was in June 2022.

I played for more than one and half hours. My busking book contains some 100 songs, and I played about half of them, some more than once, as the large crowd kept changing in and out, mingling, sitting, eating, coming and going. I always play in the Veterans Plaza in downtown Edmonds, adjacent to the Edmonds Museum Summer Market (please see https://historicedmonds.org/summer-market). The warm, clear summer day was perfect.

The crowd responses are always great fun. For example, parents give their little kids a few dollars to toss in the trumpet case. They approach carefully, one eye on the open case and one eye on me, quickly drop the money onto the pile, and run back to their parents! Other kids will dance to the music, and both kids and adults will talk to me. Remember being taught to donate to charities? Remember teaching your kids the same? Often, people just say, “Thank you for your service,” and I reply, “You’re welcome.” (I’m a Navy vet who served on three ships in the Pacific and taught NROTC at the University of Washington.)

After I played “Summertime,” a woman came up and told me that’s her favorite song. After “Wand’rin’ Star,” one man shouted “Lee Marvin!” [the actor (and a Marine) who sang it in the movie, “Paint Your Wagon.”] We waved to each other. An elderly lady in a motorized wheelchair came up and asked me if I have seen the movie, “The Legend of 1900.” I have not. She said there’s a great trumpeter in that movie. “That’s when I fell in love with the trumpet and that trumpet player,” she said.

I brought only two of my five horns this time–my cornet and flugelhorn. One song got stuck in my mind, and so I played “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows” three times. It was written in 1917, shortly before WWI ended. I always loved the tune but never paid attention to the words. So, I looked up the lyrics. It’s about a depressed person who always dreams about success and happiness but is just a natural-born loser who always fails. But I remember it from the MGM musical, “Ziegfeld Girls,” in 1941, early during WWII. Judy Garland sings the song, but eventually her character does become the top showgirl in the Ziegfeld Follies.

As is my custom as VFW Post 1040 Bugler, I split the donations in two and gave half to each VFW Post (please see https://vfw1040.org and https://vfw8870.org).