The Enchanted Village
Birds gotta fly, fish gotta swim, and Kim gotta sing. Now that we live out here, Kim is singing with a choral ensemble called Encore. Technically they only have two big shows each year and one of those was last month in La Jolla, where she gave the Eleventh Hour solo, which was a big hit. Here we are a month later and Kim has volunteered with the group to sing in a local Christmas show at someplace called The Enchanted Village, which is at a place called Noah Homes in Spring Valley, tucked away in something called Steel Canyon. Noah Homes is a community established to help developmentally challenged adults live out their lives in a kind community that embraces their handicaps and helps them self-actualize as much as possible and care for their needs the rest of the time. It is a faith-based community that had its roots in Catholicism, but you can’t hold that against any place that takes on such a difficult and worthy task that few of us would have the patience and humanity to do. Steel Canyon in Spring Valley is probably as remote a spot near the U.S./Mexican border as you can find. It’s hidden behind San Miguel Mountain and its closest city is probably Tecate across the Mexican border. I’ve only been here at night (two nights in a row now), so all I know is that its dark and pretty much off the grid when you look at Google or Apple Maps.
They seem to have decided that in addition to a home for developmentally challenged adults, Steel Canyon is also a good place to put the regional high school because there is a massive one right next to the center, which is particularly convenient at this time of year. You see, Noah Homes has, somewhere along the way, decided that they have a property with grounds that can do more than accommodate a few twinkly holiday lights. I’m sure they found that their residents enjoyed the lights so much that they kept expanding the effort until it was probably visible from the road. Also, at this time of year, I imagine with darkness falling early, the lights were also quite visible to the high school community and started to draw attention. At some point, the people at Noah Homes must have decided that they had a fundraising opportunity at their doorstep. They went about soliciting local businesses to sponsor lighted trees and holiday displays that have grown grander and grander with time. Like any attraction snowball, it is hard to say whether it was the do-good of the sponsorships or the holiday spirit of the displays, but what Noah Homes started with a string of colored lights has become The Enchanted Village.
Its all a marvelously synergistic phenomenon. First of all, it calls attention to a worthy charity and the attraction creates what I’m sure is an annual excitement in the residents for the Center-of-Attention feeling that they probably lack the rest of the year. People come from all over San Diego and park in the Steel Canyon High School lot, guided by volunteers with light wands. Then those visitors, who average two strollers per car, either walk over to The Enchanted Village across a dirt vacant lot with guide ropes, or they wait for a big tractor and passenger cart to haul them all over in comfort, as though they were at Disneyland. This is not to say this is on a scale like Disney, but it is a production nonetheless. I paid $23 to gain admission (Kim, as a performer, was free), so this is clearly a moneymaker for the charity that underlies Noah Homes. All the staff seem to be volunteers and all the decorations seem to be sponsored. I’m sure those sponsors get a certain number of employee passes for their donation and sponsorship, but I’m equally sure that those people bring others like Kim brought me, who pony up the price of admission.
Naturally, there is holiday music wafting through the air at all times. That is where Kim’s group, Encore, comes in. Encore has committed to sing gratis (actually, for exposure, presumably) for two nights for a one hour set each night. They got the prime spot of 7-8pm at least and seem to be flanked by some combination of school choral groups and XMas DJs. Refreshments are outsourced to a half dozen local food trucks that sell everything from hot chocolate (a big item to be sure) to grilled cheese sandwiches. Yesterday I had a hot pastrami and cheese sandwich and a hot chocolate spiked with Diet Coke. Had I known what was to come I might have stayed with the hot chocolate.
I like to attend all of Kim’s shows, even if they are repetitive. While she went into the equivalent of the “Green Room” with her colleagues to get their singing game face on, I picked a seat in the outdoor audience seating. I pretty much had my choice since I was early by half an hour and the local school singers were just wrapping up and those friends and family were exiting as I got settled. And that’s when I started to realize that I had severely underestimated the cold that inhabits these inland valleys at night. I had a long-sleeve T-shirt under a light synthetic jacket I got from my beloved Duluth Trading that carries the Alaskan Headgear label, implying that it is made for braving the cold of the north country. But good marketing does not insure warmth and my AKHG jacket was feeling pretty flimsy, in fact, flimsier by the minute. But I’m a tough guy who spent a lot of years in winter climates, not in the balmy tropics or even the subtropical environs like San Diego offers, so I jammed my hands in my coat pockets and zipped the collar all the way up so that my lower face got buried and cozy.
When Kim and the gang came out, I found myself eying her pal Jacob who was wearing a pair of my black jeans, my blue suede Samual Hubbard shoes and, most importantly, a heavy maroon half-zip sweater. I felt pretty envious of my doppelgänger hand-me-down twin and wondered if asking for my sweater back was an OK thing to do. Just kidding, but he did look warmer than I felt. The concert began and had the normal Encore array of group numbers and solos (I find that a holiday show would have benefitted from more familiar group numbers and fewer obscure solo songs). The Enchanted Village is less than enchanting as a singers venue I have now found. Besides the frigid temperatures, which can be accommodated if you know what to expect, the strolling attraction visitors that do not have the courtesy to NOT walk in front of the performers and between them and the audience, are a bit much. Now, this sort of attraction is clearly for children, but I feel that if parents are going to sit to enjoy the music with their children, who are probably hyped up on excess sugar by that time, might want to apply some degree of discipline on their kids so that the other members of the audience can actually hear the performance. I think you get the picture.
By the end of the performance, Kim and I tripped our way back across the frozen muddy field to the Steel Canyon High School lot. We never did figure out how to take the tractor and trolley like the other visitors managed. We then drove the hour back home to the North County and set the strategy for tonight.
I am just finishing my stint at the local burger joint while Kim sings her heart out with a heavier coat on. I dropped her off at the special singers drop-off and will go back there to pick her up at the same spot and avoid the Steel Canyon High School parking lot altogether. As enchanting as I find the mission and the lights of The Enchanted Village, tonight I am finding the Enchanted Burger joint with its warmth and decent tables and chairs to be my most enchanting venue, all for half the price of the food truck program and no admission to boot, even though the cause it supports is worthwhile. I figure with four hours of driving and everything else, I have definitely given our support to the enchantment.