Now I Remember Why We Don't Live in Missouri!

BRRRRRR!! It’s cold here in Branson!! Thurs. night's temperature dipped to 18 degrees!! Before we left OK, the weather forecast had indicated a low of 27 for the first night we were to be here with lows in the 30s most of the rest of the time. But evidently a cold front moved in and the lows have been in the 20s. We’ve unhooked our water every night to avoid freezing and burst pipes. It's been over 20 years since we've lived in weather this cold. The last time was back in the winter of 1984 when we lived in CT! And just think we've got two more weeks in MO and half that time will be further north in Kansas City! The things we do for our Tigers!!

Anyway, as you can probably imagine, there are so many shows in Branson that it makes it somewhat difficult to decide what to see. Neither Russ nor I are big country music fans but don’t mind a little of it plus there are several non-country shows, too. Of course this time of year many of the performers are doing Christmas shows. We considered getting tickets for Andy Williams’ Christmas Show, but then figured we’re going to be at Disney World in a few weeks and will be seeing plenty of Christmas shows at no additional charge. We had pretty much decided on a particular show, and when we went to the ticket office here at the resort to ask some questions, the lady informed us that there were two shows in town giving discounted tickets to folks staying here at Treasure Lake RV Resort. We had never heard of either of the performers but for $10 each we figured we’d check them out. So Thurs. night Russ and I drove just around the corner to the RFD TV Theater to see the Penny Gilley Show with Jeff Brandt. Before we left I had checked out Penny’s website (http://www.pennygilley.com/) and discovered she is originally from Monroe, LA (maybe some of our Baton Rouge friends have heard of her). She is known as the “sweetheart of country music”, and in case you’re wondering, is no relation to Mickey Gilley. Jeff is an impersonator who until recently had spent the previous 13 years appearing with Wayne Newton in Las Vegas (http://www.jeffbrandt.com/). There were only about 50 of us in the theater (and we were definitely the youngest) but from what we understand the crowd size varies night to night. The previous evening four busloads had been dropped off for the show! Our seats were in the 2nd row, and the couple in front of us were huge Penny Gilley fans, cheering wildly like teenagers when she came onstage. They were from Mississippi and said they watch her TV show on RFD TV every week! (This was not information they shared with us directly but yelled out to her after her first song! LOL) During that first song, she came out into the audience, shaking hands with everyone in the 1st and 2nd rows as she was singing. Russ and I were pleasantly surprised with the show and only about 50% of it was country. Penny and Jeff alternated coming out onstage each doing a couple songs, then going backstage to change outfits, and sometimes singing a duet. Penny sang mostly country during the first half, and one of the numbers Jeff sang was “My Way” as four different performers…Elvis, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis, Jr….really quite good! At intermission Penny, Jeff, and the entire band came out front behind a little booth to greet everyone, sell CDs, sign autographs, and give away free Penny Gilley pins. Yeah, I got in line to get a pin and got to meet her (that's me in the photo on the right talking to Penny; Jeff was just going backstage to change so I missed meeting him). Her keyboard player, Brandy Roberts, is quite a musician and did a great rendition of "Great Balls of Fire" during the first half, and a medley of songs by Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, Chubby Checker, and others during the second half. Penny has performed for troops all over the world, and after intermission she sang her song about Desert Storm called “The Line Drawn in the Sand” wearing a jacket on which she has sewn all the patches she has accumulated over the years from those visits. Then it was time for some Christmas music, and Penny came out in her Santa outfit…so cute! The finale had Penny and Jeff singing “White Christmas” and suddenly it was “snowing” right in front of the first row…very cool! Next week we’ll check out the other $10 show, the Rankin Brothers, and hopefully the report on them will be just as good.

While Russ and I were enjoying one of the many $4.99 breakfast buffets one morning, a guy came by the table handing out flyers for a free show held daily at 2pm at the Branson Mall. His name is Jackson Cash and he performs a tribute show to Johnny Cash (don’t know if he’s related). Being somewhat skeptical, we wanted to know what the catch was, but he had moved along and we couldn’t get his attention. As we were leaving, we asked the cashier about it, and she said that it was indeed a free show and that there were several performers there everyday who sing for tips only. She said that Jackson Cash was really very good and sounded just like Johnny. What the heck, it was free, so one afternoon Russ, Scott, and I drove over to the mall but were late in arriving (due to watching the end of the Tigers basketball game on TV that ran over). Instead of seeing Jackson Cash, we saw “John Wayne” introducing “America’s Yodeling Sweetheart”….hmmmm. I guess if you like yodeling it was fine, but a little of that goes a long way! The mall isn’t very big, but Scott went venturing into the few stores that are there while Russ and I checked out the Branson Entertainment Hall of Fame and Museum. Again, not very big, but got us away from that yodeling for a few minutes! There’s a Wal-Mart attached to the mall, so we went in there to look around, then met up with Scott and left. No tips were left by any of us. A couple days later, Russ and I had to return a couple things to Wal-Mart so decided to see if we could catch ol’ Jackson, but when we arrived there was a guy named Keith Allyn doing a Neil Diamond tribute. Turns out Jackson had called in sick, and though Keith usually performs in the mornings, he was filling in for Jackson this afternoon. Now given a choice between Johnny Cash and Neil Diamond, I’d definitely choose the latter, so after returning our items we sat down to listen for a bit. Well, let me just say, he was ok...and good thing it was free. He also did a couple other impersonations by request. Since he had been an Elvis impersonator for many years prior to doing Neil Diamond, he sang “Blue Christmas” as Elvis. Another detour from Neil was when he sang “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before”, handling both the Willie Nelson and Julio Iglesias parts, and even venturing into a John Wayne and Kermit the Frog duet on part of the song. Now that’s something you don’t hear everyday! We listened for a little while and left a dollar tip. Maybe we’ll see Jackson one of these days.

In spite of it being chilly and overcast all day, Sunday was special because we got to visit with our friends, Curt and Linda, whom we haven’t seen in about 5 years. They live roughly 1-1/2 hours north of Branson and drove down for the day to see us. We know them from St. Louis, but they retired a few years ago and relocated to Carl Junction, MO, where Curt spends his days fishing and playing golf. Linda has been doing some contract work for her former employer for the past 20 months but next week will officially retire again. After enjoying one of those breakfast buffets, they took us over to the Branson Landing area, located on the waterfront of Lake Taneycomo in downtown Branson. The boardwalk area consists of shops, restaurants, and hotels, and a trolley will take you up and down the promenade, or you can enjoy a leisurely walk. The Christmas decorations were up and right after we arrived so did Santa! Every hour there is a fountain show merging water, fire, light and music, and suddenly we heard the Star Spangled Banner being sung and realized it was the fountain show with 120-foot geysers shooting into the air and fire cannons blasting...all choreographed in time to the music! From here we took the scenic route back to the campground so Curt could show us the lake and dam area. Lake Taneycomo is a man-made lake on the White River that was created in 1913 with the completion of the Powersite Dam. However with the completion of Table Rock Dam in 1958, the source of water to the lake was changed from the White River’s flowing waters to the tailwater of Table Rock Lake from the dam spillway. When the power of the dam is not being generated, Lake Taneycomo has characteristics of both a river and a lake. We made a couple stops along the way to take in the views, then finally made our way back to the campground. After a few more hours of chatting and catching up, it was time for them to head home. It was so great to spend some time together and hopefully it won’t be another five years before we do so again.