Tate and the Cardboard Songsters

One of my favorite weekly rituals is going to the Portland Farmer's Market at Portland State University on Saturday mornings. We rise and shine, put on our socks, shoes and jackets, and still half-asleep and with growling bellies, board the Max train to downtown Portland. Riding the Max is an adventure in itself, with all of the hoi-polloi ambling about in their Gore-Tex and sleeping bags and knee-high socks. The train bell rings as it approaches the station, lights flashing, and every time, Tate nearly has a coronary.

But that is only the warm-up coronary to the one that we encounter once we are actually in the market, when Tate sees the Cardboard Songsters. The Cardboard Songsters is this vagabond group of musicians who sit under the same towering oak every Saturday morning, wearing felt hats and skinny ties and old leather shoes with cymbals attached to them. They play wash basins with strings attached to them (quite well) and other instruments made from the garage sale next door, and most of them are working on more than one instrument at once. In essence, they are magical. While they play, Tate rocks out on the sidewalk, clapping and bouncing in and out of beat with their ragtime. People stop and watch, then take out their cameras while I sit there beaming. It's so cute, it's silly.

Tate's weekly date with the Cardboard Songsters has enchanted him with music, and now he has taken up copying Felix with the harmonica. Here is a video of him playing (practicing) before meeting up with his fellow songsters today:

Yes, and in the next video I will try to control my gasping and sighing and clapping so that you just get the full Tate experience.