Sal Goes to Public Square to See the Fleas on the Big Screen

Tonight was the night!  The Cleveland Jumping Fleas would be seen by thousands of people on a Jumbotron on Public Square before the Cleveland Orchestra's annual free concert to celebrate Independence Day!  (See the post from May 31st if you don't know the back story.)  A bunch of Fleas talked about meeting on the Square by the Moses Cleaveland statue to watch the Jumbotron together.  The rest of the Fleas were alerted through postings on Facebook and Meetup.  The Jumbotron video was to be shown from 5:00-5:30 p.m.  Sal and I were anticipating a really fun evening with a bunch of cool people...

The day began with ominously cloudy skies and the forecast was for possible thunderstorms, but I kept hoping the evening would be dry.  As a pessimist (or a person who has been in Ohio for the past couple of weeks) might expect, it began to rain just as Sal and I were setting off!  As I drove to the Rapid Transit station, the downpour was so hard that I had my wipers on full speed.  I began to doubt that any other Fleas would be crazy enough to show up, but I had said I was coming, and I'm a woman of my word, so I kept on driving.  It was raining as I went from the parking lot to the train station, and it was raining as the train was traveling downtown.  When I emerged onto Public Square, it was no longer raining -- Yay!  And as I turned a corner and saw a couple of Fleas by the statue, I heard a familiar voice coming from the Jumbotron nearby -- the voice of Melissa -- our fearless Flea leader!  I quickly got out my camera and took some shots of the Fleas on the Jumbotron.  There was no time to find a way to include Sal in a picture -- the Fleas were only doing one song in the video!  I was very happy to see that I was not the only intrepid Flea who braved the rain to see our awesome group on the really big screen.  Unfortunately, because of the weather, there were not thousands of other people watching the Fleas -- or the other local musical groups featured on the Jumbotron.  For some reason (the torrential downpour perhaps), there were very few people on the Square.  

Luckily, because of the magic of technology, you can watch the video (minus Melissa's introduction) here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY13gdQsOPk

The Fleas are on the Jumbotron!

A close-up of the Fleas in musical action.

After the Fleas performance it was time to get a photo of Sal with Moses Cleaveland.  Of course we had to include the other Fleas who made the trip downtown in such horrible weather!  I think everybody had fun despite the rain -- I know Sal and I did!

Not afraid of a little rain!  Amy, Tom, Melissa and Sal, Lynn, and Moses Cleaveland.

Melissa helping me get a shot of the statue without an orange cone in front of it. :)

Sal and Moses

Everybody taking pictures of Sal.  (Full Disclosure: When I saw one person doing this I asked everybody to do it.  I thought it would be a fun photo -- and it is!)