Rockwood Ferry

Another series of events the School for Continuing Education puts on is Friday night concerts on the arts quad. Being Ithaca, the five groups performing this year – Rockwood Ferry, Not From Wisconsin, Joe Crookston, Mutron Warriors, and the Ruddy Well Band – are described as progressive chamber folk, chamber folk, folk, Afro-funk, and Americana/folk. Good thing I like folk music.

I made it to the first performance of the summer by Rockwood Ferry, and it wasn’t bad. It was free, so I really didn’t have anything to lose except some time and inner ear hair cell functionality. But my time is worth about minimum wage (you can make more money working in the dining hall than being a TA) and the sound was kept to a very reasonable level, so I came out ahead on both counts.

Friday after work, my roommate and I packed dinner and a Frisbee and headed over to the arts quad. When we arrived, a decent sized crowd had gathered to enjoy Rockwood Ferry’s progressive chamber folk songs. There were plenty of families who live in Ithaca, and children running around. We found a spot near the back of the crowd to sit down, enjoy the music, and eat dinner, which in my case consisted of the highly nutritious combination of a peanut butter and jam sandwich and a Boston kreme donut. A Dunkin Donuts just opened up in Collegetown, and as a New Englander, it was my duty to go get a donut. They’re not the best donuts I’ve ever had – that honor would have to go to freshly made apple cider donuts from a cider mill in Vermont – but . . . it’s a donut. I like donuts.

(Stage is behind the tree)

After dinner, we listened to a bit more music then broke out the Frisbee. We found a mostly clear patch where we played for awhile, but we were between two trees and on opposite sides of a sidewalk. We moved to a spot farther away but with much more clear space. The night’s festivities featured throws under the leg, t-rex Frisbee, stand-in-one-place Frisbee, left-handed Frisbee, one-handed Frisbee, and heave-the-Frisbee-as-far-as-possible Frisbee.

When the concert ended, it was getting a little dark to see the Frisbee, so we called it a night and went to do a bit of sunset chasing:

All around, it was a great end to the week and start to what would turn out to be a very busy weekend.