Field of Dreams

My friend and I went back to her hometown on the 11th for more wedding preparations and the bachelorette party and spent the afternoon in Dyersville to visit the "Field of Dreams" movie site. I had never seen the entire movie in one sitting, but the house and field were as I remembered it, complete with the porch swing! And did I mention that KEVIN COSTNER MADE AN APPEARANCE?!? Netflix was doing a tour across the country of movies and the locations on which they were filmed. They were moving on to Estes Park, Colorado for a screening of "The Shining", but Kevin Costner and his band were to play a concert that night. We milled around the grounds, bought souvenirs at the stand (all proceeds go to maintain the ball diamond), ate brats and hamburgers, and then at 1500 Mr. John Dunbar HIMSELF appeared on the ball diamond and pitched to the kids in the crowd for about an hour and ran the bases with them. He did a sound check with his band and addressed us as a crowd for a bit (at that time it was just mainly local-ish people who had driven themselves to the event). I even overheard a few people who happened to be in the Dyersville area and were hard core baseball fans just visiting the site say that they had no idea Costner would be there! What a stroke of luck for them! We dinked around some more (this is why it's good to be a knitter because you can entertain yourself ANYWHERE for any length of time with a sock project in your bag) and the concert began at 1900. By that time, BUSLOADS of people had arrived. The paper the next day reported a crowd of 5,000 and the organizers had only planned for about 3,000. He and his band played for about 75 minutes and it was a nice rock/countryish mix of music. They even sang a song about Leland, Iowa which is in MY neck of the woods! And did I mention that he SHOOK my hand as he came down the center aisle? I've never actually *swooned* before, but I think I came pretty close that afternoon! It was such a good day, and the entire event was free of charge! And I wished we had made a sign to hold up for him, but I couldn't think of an appropriate message in Sioux or how to spell it correctly! I must say I will always thank that man for the films "Dances With Wolves" and "JFK". They even played a montage of his films before he came down the center aisle, complete with my favorite scene from "JFK": Jim Garrison's closing arguments, "Do not forget your dying king." *sigh*