The Porch Performer
Bringing neighbors together with music and song during a pandemic
An unimaginable year, 2020. A year without handshakes, hugs, birthday parties and trips to ball parks. A year with new words and phrases like COVID-19 and stay-at-home. Our regular melody of life was suddenly different. An invisible “something” had changed all the lyrics and cast a dark, gloomy cloud overhead. Everyday life was suddenly changed.
Fortunately, in cities around the world, many musically talented people became neighborhood “gloom busters.” Every day they came out of cloistered quarters, emerging onto their porches, balconies or whatever improvised “stage” they could find to perform and bring a few moments of delight to all near enough to hear.
August (Augie) Thoma is one such gloom buster. Every evening at precisely 5:15 p.m., Augie, a former Michigan college music director, stands on the front porch of his Sanibel home in Periwinkle Park and plays a short mix of contemporary popular titles. Some days it’s purely instrumental music, solos for clarinet or saxophone. Most times, though, it’s vocal with guitar accompaniment. He’s given 70-plus performances so far.
Augie is multitalented, but only three instruments from his larger assortment ever make it onto his porch. It all began some months ago when stay-at-home edicts changed life for everyone. Public events were canceled, and Augie’s 95-year-old neighbor grumbled about missing concerts. A problem for which Augie had a solution. He would help fill that gap.
And so every evening now, a small, well-separated group, usually 10 to 15 enthusiasts, gather outside on the street to listen and applaud August Thoma, Periwinkle Park’s Porch Performer.
Every evening at precisely 5:15 p.m., Augie, a former Michigan college music director, stands on the front porch of his Sanibel home in Periwinkle Park and plays a short mix of contemporary popular titles.