Special Things
I heard on the radio that Ty Herndon was going to be in Santa Clara at a club called Avalon. I e-mailed them to see if their facility was wheelchair accessible because I did not want another experience like last time Ty Herndon came to this area. It was a couple of years ago at the KRTY club. I called them to ask them if they would be able to accommodate me in my wheelchair to see the concert, they assured me that I could so we showed up. They were very nice and one of the guys was helping us to our seat. We got to some stairs that went down into the sitting area and the guy stopped, looked at the stairs and then turned around and looked at my chair and he looked a little embarrassed. I said "this is not going to work is it"? He walked us around the sitting area and let us over to some tables that were directly stage left, on the side of the stairs and the speakers. Needless to say the sound was muffled and we couldn't really see anything.
When I e-mailed Julia and she heard about my last experience she said that their facility is definitely wheelchair accessible and people with disabilities are always very welcome. She said that she would talk to her manager and get back to me to make sure. When she e-mailed me back she said that the manager, Michael, who is also her husband wanted to invite us there as his guest, I could not believe it. I wasn't looking for anything special I just didn't want to go if it was going to be another unpleasant experience. We exchanged a couple of e-mails and Julia turned out to be a very sweet and caring person. The show was to start at 9 p.m. and she said if I could be there at 7 p.m. they would seat me and make sure I was comfortable before the show started. When I got there I got to meet her husband, Michael, and he was also very caring and sweet she. They came up to us a couple of times to make sure that we had everything we needed and we were comfortable.
The concert was awesome and I will never forget it as long as I live. We were very close and got a lot of pictures. When the concert was over I wanted to make sure to find Michael and Julie and Steve, the guy who kept his company at the door, let us in and made sure we got out okay. I wanted to make sure and thank them for a terrific time. When we found her she asked us if we had met Ty Herndon yet and I said no and thanked her for being so sweet. She told me I needed to wait because she was going to make sure that I got to meet Ty Herndon, I was so excited I could not believe it, so we waited.
I didn't know what to do with Brodie and the groomer suggested that I just leave her in the van with her bed and some water. If I leave her at home she gets really sad and uses my kitchen as a toilet. I didn't want to take her inside to the concert because I was afraid the noise would be too much for her ears. She had already been in the van for a couple of hours so we went out to get her and brought her back in the nightclub. Everybody wanted to come up and see her and pet her and we met a lot of really great people.
After a while Julia let us over to the side of the bar and Michael told us to wait there and he would bring Ty Herndon out, I was so nervous. When he was performing it had a dark blue shirt on so when he came out in a white shirt he came out so fast that I didn't recognize him at first. He gave me a hug and asked me if I wanted to take some pictures and I said "of course". He bent over me and put his arm around me and we took a couple of pictures and even tried to get Michael in the picture with us. Unfortunately, only one or two of the pictures came out, the rest were so blurry that you couldn't even tell who they were. He then said it was very nice to meet me, gave me a kiss on my cheek and disappeared back into the back.
Just before we met him a gentleman came out and said"Ty cannot come out into the bar area"and I thought for sure I wasn't going to be able to meet him but I understood, because people would start gathering around and he would never be able to get out of there. Michael told me to wait there and he was definitely coming out and he did.
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