The "Gathering" in Philly!
The "Gathering" in Philly!
| Well
"The Gathering" is over and what a time we had! It was great to finally
meet the fellow Croce fans that we had become friends with via the internet
over the last year. There aren't any people nicer than Croce and Muelheisen
Fans!!!
What we will attempt to do, is take you through the Gathering as it happened. Some of our pictures didn't come out, so if any of you that attended can fill in the gaps, we would appreciate it. If you have any images scanned or have doubles of your pictures, please e-mail me! Well here we go!
New Videos!!! We have added new videos to this and the following linked "Gathering" pages. These are in the form of Windows Media (wmv) files. Just click on the thumbnails and the videos will play. For "dial-up" subscribers, these may take a few minutes to load (so please be patient) but then the video will run smoothly!
Friday, September 18th, 1998 ROOM 202 As people started checking in at the
Comfort Inn, we started to "Gather" in Tom & Christine Orecchio's room,
# 202. There was Tom (awtom) and his wife Christine, Scott Lamaestra (slam)
and his girlfriend Rose, Don Parsons and his mom Sylvia from Alabama, Margaret
Cafarelli from Connecticut, Ron Gletherow from London England, Tom and
Debbie Brun from Rhode Island and Steve Schueler from Philadelphia. We
were all anxiously awaiting the arrival of one of Jim's closest (The next few paragraphs
were contributed by Margaret Cafarelli)
It was a quieter more subdued party
by that time. The guitars had been put away and what was left were
2 storytellers, telling of their experiences with Jim and Maury.
Steve had many stories of the early days, growing up with Jim - up to the
times Jim was just starting to make it big, and the last time he saw Jim,
at the Philadelphia Folk Festival in 1973. John Beitzel, who had
met Jim and Maury through Joe Salviuolo (aka Sal Joseph), also related
interesting tidbits about times he spent hanging out at Jim’s house, watching
everyone jam, much like the "jam session" we had just had. These
late-night Croce fans hung on every word and felt very special to be in
on this private storytelling circle. But soon even the die-hard late-night
fans started fading. Wanting to get a good night’s sleep - so that we’d
all be alert for the next day’s events - we decided it was time to part.
So everybody said their goodbyes for the evening and went on to their respective
rooms.
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friends
from college, Mike DiBenedetto, for a first night, get acquainted, full
blown Croce Jam.
The crowd was slowly thinning out and
people were dropping like flies.It had been a long day of traveling for
most everybody there - and a long day of setting up and planning for Tom.
So we let Tom get some rest and the few of us who were still standing moved
on to Margaret’s room, just across the hall. Aside from Margaret,
there was Mike and John from New York, Thom Brun and his wife Debbi, Steve
Angelucci and his sister Helena and John Beitzel.