The U is Silent; We Aren’t Podcast-Episode 1
A Little Mischief, A Lot of Magic – Meet Sarah Lynch
Sarah Lynch is the founder of the Queen City Mischief and Magic festival and owner of Baja Bean. Sarah reflects on how she took an idea for a community book release party to a gathering of 40,000 wizards, witches, and muggles in a small Virginian town.
About This Podcast
The U may be silent, but Staunton has a lot to say. Join Visit Staunton as we sit down with inspiring individuals at the top of their craft. We’re chatting about what drives their passion, the actions behind the impact, and a little about the place where they’re making it all happen.
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Transcript
Hello everybody, welcome to the U is Silent, We Aren’t podcast right here in Staunton, Virginia. I’m so excited to tell just the stories of passionate people and the amazing people right here in Staunton and just like the awesome people. It’s what we’re great at here. So I am so happy to be joined here, and it was like in our clause that we created in our heads, the very first person had to be Sarah Lynch. That’s an honor and thank you so much. Welcome, thank you, thank you for joining us Sarah. You’re the owner of Baja Bean right here in Staunton and also the founder and mastermind behind Queen City Mischief and magic and also just all kinds of awesome stuff. So you wanna just tell us a little bit about you? I just turned 50 and I’ve been doing Baja since I was 20, wow, and over here in Staunton for 27 years. And so I was 23 when I came, and I think you and I have discussed, it’s almost hard to believe how nice and sweet this town is. I kept. When Ron sent me over here from Charlottesville, he would call, you know every other day or whatever and ask how things were. And I’m like, I feel like these people are like programmed.Nice, like it’s not real. Like there’s something in the water. They’re all on some medicine. It just turned out that everybody was just really, really nice. And so it’s been like the best happy accident of my life to end up here.I say that too, it was so, you know when we, my family was making the decision like, do we relocate here? Do we not? We were coming from a very nice, yeah, area where people were nice, people cared, they held the door and, and just greeted you on the sidewalk.And so even when we were first exploring and trying to make this decision, like people are so nice on the sidewalk and they would interact with my son and like just ask how our day was passed.Did you ever have that skepticism of like, is this real? Cause I, I was way into the X Files at that stage of my life, and I was like, what’s going on here? Haha, yeah, people are way too nice.Yeah, my first real hire, Laura Sutton, who’s one of the head girls. I mean I just, it took me two weeks to really trust her because she was so nice. And now, you know 20, however, many years later, we’re still tight, yeah, before we made the full decision, like, yep, we’re gonna uproot our whole family and go. I asked somebody here.I was like, I, I need you to be very, very honest with me right now. Is this town as good as it seems? And again, like, every town has challenges and, and disagreements and things.I don’t I don’t want to sound like Utopia, but it really did just like every box we were looking for, it was checking off and, and seems so good. And so I just had to ask him, like, I need you, yeah, to be so honest. Is it as good as it seems? Yeah, or do we pay everyone to be right? And, and she told me she’s like, no, it’s, it’s as good as it seems, and it really has, it’s lived up to that.Yeah, but yes, I had that exact same moment, like, it’s like Andy Griffith meets some even better version of that in the future. So tell me, I’m repping today Virginia’s for magic lovers. I love it so much, and I love how much Virginia loves it too. Tell me about Queen City mischief and magic. What, like, what, how would you define it for the world outside world hearing? I mean, Staunton is always magical, but it’s especially magical that weekend of the year.So it’s almost always the fourth Saturday and Sunday of September. This year is the 27th and 28th officially. And we just transform about 16 blocks downtown into scenes from story books and magic books.And we won’t necessarily mention names of the series, but we’re not gonna say the series, but it’s a series and there’s a very avid fan base. And, you know, I was reading these books to my son thinking, gosh, Staunton, it was already over by the time I had a son.The everything, the last 7th book had come out. And I think it like book two or 3, I was thinking Staunton has every single thing in these books. We have a train station, we have that tiny little clock shop that’s like the, the house that disappears in the fifth book; a great bookstore. We have, you know, little sneaky hidey holes and sort of an underbelly, like Baja itself has the sort of front facing three broomsticks kind of place where kids hang out and Seward Hall and whatever.And then we have the backside the Baja bar that’s a little bit darker and yeah, generally more fun. And so, you know, every year for the festival, we have a like Haveli head with some bloody towel hanging over door.It’s like the right of it knows, it’s it knows that time of year when, when the screws go up outside for that thing and it becomes a photo op. So yeah, it’s like a suspension of disbelief.And you, you happen into this town of really lovely, nice humans that we’ve been talking about and we invite, however many tens of thousands 50, however, many people show up, it’s impossible to keep track of, and they are all really nice and they are just happy to be here.And it’s the perfect backdrop, you know, with our historic buildings, unfortunately, they all, almost all are intact and everybody participates and does something to endear themselves to the people that come. And what we have found is that Staunton has become almost a second hometown to these people. I remember the first year we did a whole weekend, this bus full of ladies from Nashville came to shop Small Business Saturday because they were like, this is what this is what we associate with small business.It’s like a whole, you know, four blocks of Main Street and then beyond of small businesses that they loved. And it was like their adopted home away from home. So they showed up during the festival. They came for the festival, and then they came back for Small Business Saturday in November.Okay, cause we’ve had it in reverse at times of people have come not realizing what the weekend was. And they’re like, this is the craziest most, yeah, amazing place. And I, and I say this often, like, there’s so much just, and I say it with love.There’s so much not normal about this town. Like the, the fact that we can be a birthplace of a president and also like 40,000 wizards for a weekend is like that those things who exist in the same space is just amazing. And so I think that’s what’s incredible is for this weekend and, and the lead up to it, so I just experienced my first QCMM, you nailed it.And it was so much fun and especially like the week leading up to it, like anytime I’d go into a business, like everybody was, was getting into it and buying into it, and, just getting ready to tell this incredible story.And you see all ages participate, so we see 30, 40, maybe more thousand people, yeah, come in to experience this weekend here in, in downtown Staunton.So this is a town of 25,000 people, like, well, multiply the population, but you see like five year olds all the way to 95, 95 years old on walkers, yeah, yeah, and all different levels of expression of some, some dress and participate and, and go all in, and others just enjoy the other side of it as an audience almost.And it is so fascinating, but one of, and I’ve told this story many of times of places, but I would love for you to share. I know you said it started with like you and your son, but can you go back to like the very first year it happened? Like how, how did this all it?It was not right. What it is now every year, it’s getting bigger. It has gotten bigger and better.The first year I was thinking about this morning, getting ready because I spent like, I Learned that the eighth book, it was like a follow up to the real series written by JK, was coming out. And I just heard it, like I saw it on Facebook or something and I texted Aaron Blanton at pufferbellies and I said, event question mark, event exclamation point. And she said, can we meet? And so we met. And she’s like, this is not a book. This is a screenplay. It’s not written by JK. It’s like, you know it is authorized or whatever. But I knew there was gonna be a book release at midnight. They could do a book release at midnight, all the things that happened with the original books.And I was out of the loop on the original books cause I didn’t have a son yet. So Susan and Aaron, who are always like level heads where said, if we can get eight people to stay open till eight PM, we’ll do a midnight book release. And we were gonna do it at Baja in the dining room, the three broomsticks bright happy kid friendly side.We’re gonna have a birthday. It was on Harry Potter’s birthday. We’re gonna have a birthday cake for him, and I guess that’s also JK Rowling’s birthday. I, I know that it is, I don’t know why I said, I guess. I mean, like by 2 o’clock that afternoon, I had 20 some people.I just went to the Gryffindor block, and it was the block where everybody’s like, I don’t really know.You know, literally every single person said, I don’t really know anything about it, but we’ll do it. And I’m like, okay. I met again with puffer bellies and I was like, we’ve already got 24 people just between me and Cranberries, between Baja and Cranberries.So we proceeded and everything was just like homemade. I mean, everything got printed on my office printer which I broke. I’ve broken a printer every single year. We, Paul Borsellino who has Modern Boy wood shop, he took like little scraps of signs.I don’t know if you’ve ever seen our original signs, but they’re all misshapen and cuckoo crazy. And he, you, but I told him I was like, I have like $400 and he made 40 wooden signs with bases.And then we started every Tuesday night drinking a bottle of wine and painting signs in the Baja dining room after 9:00 so that everybody had a sign. We made the maps all crazy, so they folded crazy. My servers did that.And then the day, so the day is starting to come, you know, we’re getting to the event. It’s July 30th at midnight. It’ll be the 31st and the books will be released, so it’s a Saturday and I don’t even like, we are not marketing, we are not pushing, we are not. And it happened to show up on that only in Virginia, like only in your state thing. And within 20, in less than 24 hours, it had like 28,000 shares or something. And so Sheryl, who was in your position at the time, caught wind of it and called an emergency meeting at the city.I think we were like three weeks out at this point. And Steve Rosenberg, who was the assistant city manager at that time, said, what do you think?And I’m like, I mean, I’ve been telling people we might get 500 or 1,000 people, but you know, they’re not Baja like sheltered all the buy in and expenses or whatever, so there was no obligation or concern for commitment. And he’s like, okay, alright, well we’ll just, we’ll have a Plan B which would be to shut the streets if you get too many, enough more people.And that sure enough, like Henry and I left our house, we got all dressed up in our wizard wear at like 7 in the morning and we are going to cranberries to have waffles before it all started. And we had a whole plan. Like I had an itinerary where we were starting and how we were going.I had the insiders track. I knew how we were gonna do our day. And we pull up at cranberries and there’s not a, there’s a line out the door. There’s some family that we met right away that had like passed through on their way to Myrtle Beach this summer and came back from Canada for the festival.And Henry and that girl paled around all day. And I was so glad for them because I couldn’t leave my business. Like we went to work and started, you know, scooping ice and doing whatever and making butterbeer and up to our elbows and sticky cream, soda cream business. And I just let my son, who literally has never had a babysitter, like I let him go with these nice Canadian people, haha, and their daughter of his similar age to experience today because I couldn’t leave. Yeah. And, there was a magic to that. Like I would walk outside with a tray or two if I was feeling real frisky of butterbeers. And I would have exactly the right number for a certain number of guests. And they would have the right change. They were making change for each other. They were putting money. It was just like crazy. Everybody was so well behaved and happy and patient. And all day long I just cried. One thing that I think has completely defined the festival from that day forward is this woman who came up to me from Virginia Beach. She had four kids, including a little Hufflepuff bee. And I identified as Hufflepuff at the time. But Laura asked me cause she’s nicer and she said, I have never been able to bring my kids somewhere and get all of their faces painted. It’s always been, which one or which two can I afford to get? She’s like, when I walked up to that face painter and I didn’t have to tell my kids to she said, it was the greatest gift.And we just boohooed and hugged each other and I was like, we’re gonna do this from now on.Like this is how we’re gonna do this thing. And so you literally can come on a plane or on in your car or on your feet or on the train and spend no money and have the best time with your whole family, from babies that are, you know, in a Mandrake pot to your grandparents that are walking around in a walker. And it feels really good.And, you know, occasionally it’ll like branch off so, you know, a lot of people are involved so different things will happen.I remember the first year there were like black market shirts. I was like, we have arrived. It’s like a, you know, a dude with a backpack so it’s the first time I, it’s been like a decade ago.The first time a festival I was organizing, I had protesters, not of the festival, but, you know, yeah, they’re out there of other things.Yeah. And people are like, how do we get out? I’m like, we have made it. That’s so funny. It’s just, it feels good. And, like it is so easy to get emotional about, yeah, which is a wild but so true. And I think, it, the space and what you do reminds me so much of, like, my, my mom growing up.You know, we didn’t grow up with a ton, but she was, she’s always been so good at, like, creating something out of seemingly nothing.And it just being like, oh my gosh, amazing. And it reminds me of that, of like you with your son, like with your son and Tyler, you know what we’re gonna go create something awesome together.And it’s just, and it’s so easy with this crowd because it’s magic. I mean, it’s like a chopstick can be a chopstick that cost like $20 for 3,000, a case of 3,000.And then I just got washable markers and some little jewels, like the first however, many kids probably got a little jewel on there. It’s a wand. I mean, once these kids make it make it into a wand they see it as a wand, and it’s great.And I do wanna touch on, cause I think something I don’t, I don’t wanna just talk about the festival, cause there’s so much you’re involved in. But something that really stood out to me, cause, like I said, I’ve, I’ve worked over a decade in events and planning events.And when I attended QCMM in this year for the first time, it threw what we describe as a festival, like, on his head total. And what I mean by that is, is there’s never a right or wrong way to do a festival or an event, but a lot of times you see, you plan an event in especially a community or downtown, and you look to bring vendors in or, or experiences in. And, and then we hope there’s traffic to businesses.Yeah, almost and the way you guys went about it was like a total reversal of that thought process enough. There’s a right or a wrong way of however you go about it. But I mean, you see dozens and dozens of businesses in town, brick and mortar that have transformed their businesses.And all week I loved it. I would pop into a restaurant or a shop or whatever it might be and they’re like, sorry, look around, we’re getting ready for QCMM. And it’s just, it was awesome. And, and so it really did, it was like the whole town buys into it.And from economic side, I mean, nearly every business reports their large estate and sales from it. But I guess for you, like, how did you, how did you create that buy in from businesses to like own this experience? And what difference do you think it makes? I mean, we have meetings, you know like all meetings the same people attend, but my heart is here, like my heart is in downtown Staunton.I love it. I love all the area where we are, but I really love downtown Staunton. I try to shop downtown. I try to, you know. And so from the beginning it was like, this is going to be here and it’s going to benefit the people here, partially just because of geography. And I never ever, ever left my business other than to like feed my child or whatever back then. But the first year, you know, I talked about the woman with the Hufflepuff, PufferBellies another store 3 blocks away, came down and said we weren’t gonna be open at Christmas and now we will be because they did, I mean, they sold everything. Pufferbellies sent me a video on Monday morning after that festival. She’s like, why am I open? She like scans with her phone and it’s like some fireballs in a little plastic container, like three stuffed animals.I’m like, I don’t know. Maybe you should just take the day off. And now we do that. Everybody be warned, like a lot of businesses close for two or three days afterwards. Yeah, and catch up cause we’re working hard to get ready.Yeah, yeah, and what I love so much about the story, and I’ve, and I’ve told your story to rooms that you’re not even in at times, especially when I talk to, to college students or those looking to start a business is I think a lot of times I think a lot of times we tend to think we can’t make a difference or do something. We have an idea, if we don’t have a certain title, or if we don’t work in a certain field, or if we’re not in a certain group organization.. You didn’t wait on the right situation. You were like, okay, if we can do this and this, we can do this and I just, I always use it as an example of you don’t have to believe you have to have a certain title to go make a massive impact. And massive impact is defined as many different things. Yeah, like it, it may be 40,000 people, but it also may be 500. It may be 25 kids coming out enjoying a book together. Like it’s impact has all different scales, but it’s impact nonetheless. And it’s done nonetheless. And I feel like in our town, you know, like from the smallest scale to the biggest scale, we get that 90 some percent of the places you walk in downtown, you get that level of service that you didn’t believe existed anymore. And so those impacts are made constantly. I also feel like talking about having a title, you know, that whatever the saying is about, you don’t even know what you don’t know. Like I had no idea what I was doing.I had no idea that I could ask for permission anywhere, anytime for any of these things. And I just started like printing and planning and now this will be year 10 which feels amazing and a little bit tiring. And it’s gotten more complicated, but also more streamlined and thoughtful. Every year, you’re wearing the Virginia’s for magic lover shirt. We got Virginia tourism officially involved a couple years ago. And they’ve been such huge supporters, but that’s like another whole level of details and crossing your t’s and dotting your eyes.Our city because of that event started a special permit program where you have to, like, many months before you do anything start meeting with people, haha, who may be may or may not be effective. So, we all Learned, and, I really fortunately didn’t have to apologize profusely because it was such a success and these people were so kind.I mean, if, if it had been the wrong crew, it could have gone also not, not as nicely. You know, we had, like, a beast thing the first year and then I think the second year we had a scraped knee. The police I mean, they walk. We were talking about the police before we started rolling. I didn’t know that they did this. I don’t know if you know the story, but I think it was Captain Brown did this. The first year that we moved to, a weekend that we all kind of had our ducks in a row and knew what was going on. I was communicative, basically. The police ordered Harry Potter glasses and it was, and they put their own little Staunton Police Department stickers on them. And I didn’t know they were doing it. And that sort of thing happens every year. Like no matter how many fingers I think I have, how many pies I think I have my fingers in, somebody does something that surprises me. Public Works has special shirts. Like I remember when they were going around and it was so cool to see like one from the, the police side, just enjoying it. But then also public works. I mean, they’re working so hard just making sure the street stays clear. Everybody’s, I mean, they’re constantly moving during the weekend and they have awesome shirts on. And, like, we made sure to get them ones, cause they were two guys that were just so into it, but they wouldn’t stop working, and I’m like, can you guys please just pause and come get a picture? I promise I’ll take the blame if it’s an issue, but, like, they were just amazing on it. Yeah, and so I do, I am curious from you, kind of, from a personal side, so I don’t know if I can say this or not. Many people call you the Unoffical Mayor of Staunton and it’s so funny, that’s not one of the words I was worried about this. OK, now you, you really are. People often say that. And, and so many times when people move in here, they’re like, you gotta go meet Sarah.I mean, you help me find my house help me find a daycare, like, you served as a realtor, like, you’re on my board, it’s all these things, but you really do cultivate, I think that’s the essence of this entire podcast, right? Like you, you cultivate such, I think I’ve called you like a professional community builder before. And, and it, it really is, oh my God, that term really, in my mind is such a great definition of you. Cause yes, from, from economic driver, you’ve done incredible things for Staunton, but also within your business. Like it’s become this safe space even, you know, I was talking to Vanessa, who is now the executive director of American Shakespeare Center when she was here 20+ years ago as an actor, Baha was the place for them to become part of the community, yeah, even as a guest at that time. And, and you really, or jazzercise, whatever it might be, a book club, like you, you really have this way of just creating a safe place for people to just be. Have you always been like, how, how do you think that has come to be? Like, as far as Safe Places goes, I’ve never been afraid to say, oh no, we’re not gonna, I’m not gonna hear that yeah I don’t care if I’m in my house, if I’m in my business, if I’m somewhere like I, you know, and we at Baja are really conscientious and careful about who’s there, what they’re talking about, what, how they’re approaching people. And I, one of the proudest things accomplishments for me is when I hear women say, I moved here when I was 22 and this is the only place I felt safe coming alone. And this, you know, this has been since 1998, so it’s like before it was even the way of the world. I love that. And I just can’t imagine people not playing that role or advocating for the person, you know, the lone wolf or the underdog or the whatever connect, like the community builder.Nothing makes me happier than connecting people that I know are gonna hit it off, have something in common or that will either need each other or help each other or make each other happy or, and I have, I have so little time that I’m always trying to cram everybody.Like, I’m like, you’ve come to jazzercise with me I’m like, okay, I get to work out like four hours a week.Come with me. That’s, like, spoken for, and so I just bring people through that because it’s like me being selfish and wanting to, like, maximize my few hours that are out of work, yeah, away from work, and get as many people in there as possible. And usually what I find is that they all love each other.I mean, almost everybody I love, loves each other, so it’s really nice. So, I just sit back sometimes and think, this is great, you know, like, my, my, my birthday party used to be a bus ride over to Charlottesville, and I would sit in the basement of Moss Toppus and look at, you know, 25 people from Charlottesville, from Staunton and another 15 people from Charlottesville, and just think they all love each other as much as they love me. And it makes me so happy.Yeah, you know, but I, so I don’t know I think I was born doing that, like just making people be friends. Well, you remind me, I think it’s one of the reasons you work so well on the Tourism Advisory Board here in Staunton as a component of tourism here in Staunton. I always say, you know, there’s, there’s many definitions of tourism I could give the economic driver side of it, but really what I, I call tourism is our job should be, to be the glue. Like we get to work with everybody, like from the gas station to the police department, like everybody from a business to a startup. And so I, I always feel like our role is to know the best about all these groups and people. So when the right opportunity comes at the right time, we know, we know how to bring it all together and in what people enjoy. Yeah, and I’m like, oh, that’s Sarah. So well, and it, I mean, I do this at work, you know, the people, the people that are good, like Hannah Scott is an amazing, yeah, Hennessy.So she does the things that are good, that somebody that needs to cut precisely or write neatly, who is not me, and so then you’re giving people plenty of opportunities to do the things they’re good at. Yeah, same with Harry Potter. I mean, pufferbellies. You’re good at like figuring out how to make a bunch of kids happy. And they, you know, so they, they do that. It could look like a thing that I am really good at, but all I am is like storing the information of who’s good at things, you know, like Genevieve, our head girl who can make every spreadsheet and whatever.I just send her things. I’m like, this looks like your ball of wax this looks like your thing. You will love this. And sure enough, like, not only does she do it, but she does it better than I would have expected or knew that it could be done.Yeah, so it’s almost like just getting out of people’s way and letting them do the thing they’re best at. I am curious for you cause you do have your hands in a lot of pies. I have never heard that expression, but I’m gonna start saying it all the time. How do you, I know you’re talking about even like, bringing people into different times that you have set aside. How do you find joy or grounding or centering? However, you want to describe it between all these things that you’re in, how do you just re center and re ground yourself? I do, like, this is a very recent thing for me, just because, you know, owning a business is a lot. Owning a restaurant is like more than that. Getting older is another thing. So I have started like once every two weeks of just I have, I have a blocked off day that I’m like, I say, I say yes to nothing that day if I wake up that day and decide I wanna like take a whirlwind tour up to DC and see my college roommate or whatever, it’s free. Like I just have a day every two weeks where I have nothing on the docket and then the rest of time it’s kind of just crammed in there. But I love, I, I still.I remember when I was 23 and Ron sent me over here like an envoy from Charlotte to like go to Staunton and make friends. We’d sit down every six months and he’d give me an evaluation. I would usually get a raise and I would be like, I would do this for free. Like I can’t believe I get paid to do this. Every day when I took a shower, I was like, I get paid to have a party every day. You know, like it’s so suited me. And so I just kind of ooze that joy because, yeah, it, when you get to do the thing that you love to do, it’s really awesome.It’s been tricky, I mean, with, with Covid, you know, people have kind of lost the clarity about what coming to a pub or a bar or, and meeting strangers or meeting up with friends, you know, we’ve kind of lost that a little bit. And so that’s my, this year, that’s my whole thing is like connecting, connection, it’s gotta happen because that’s how I’m happiest when I’m like, yeah, having real strong connections with people.I would like them to be organic, but often they’re not forced, but they’re, you know, planned, nowadays. And it doesn’t matter I just have to show up and do it and then I feel recharged and refreshed. Yeah, I also took a three week vacation last week, last year for the first time ever in my life and it was amazing. We’re abroad, right? Yeah, I came back from that feeling 20 years younger. I wanna try to do that every couple years we have-Visit Staunton, also suggest traveling. It really does. I think traveling has always taught me, one, we’re not nearly as different as we all think we are. I mean, I think the way we express things are very different or staggered, but at our core, our family and what we believe and it is, that’s our root. And, yeah, and I think most humans are connected to that in some aspects. So you realize like, okay, you’re not, you’re not as far out there as you think you are and also just that recharging of if you travel, hopefully, you’re connecting with other people. And like I’m notorious for getting turned around or lost somewhere. And I’m like, oh, it’s a great time to say hi. My mom used to always say, cause she was the same way when we would travel of just getting turned around the wrong direction. She’s like, look as long as I have money in my pocket and gas in my tank, I’m not lost. I’m just on an adventure. I’m like, okay, mom, but also we’re like 30 minutes out of the way, but it’s true. It’s a great time just to ask people, yeah, where you are and what’s going on, and what conversations happen here, what cool things are there to do here? Yeah, I wanna meet your mom, by the way. You guys would hit it off so much. I would almost be afraid of you in the same room together. Yeah, that’s amazing. So on that side of things, kind of, as a, as a last bit, and you’ve, sort of answered it in a way, but you’ve had so many experiences over your career that’s still going strong. Are there any lessons that stand out that you think you would like to share with anybody? Or if there’s, you know, what, let me rephrase. Okay, cause I know you came to Staunton when you were what, 23? You’re running a whole restaurant, a business. It has now turned into all kinds of things now from the restaurant to events and everything in between. Somebody that’s 23, like, what lesson would you share with a 23 year old wanting to do something that they care about? I mean, that’s funny because I have a 21 year old. So, yeah, and I think it’s a different culture, but just do some, be adventurous, don’t be afraid that you’re gonna fail all the time. It’s great, like, don’t fail big, like, fail little and fail small, and, you know, hedge your bet so that it’s not life changing disaster. And I remember when I started Baja, Ron, my business partner who was like a dad to me for forever, and then I realized actually we’re, kind of almost the same age because that happens when you get older. He would call and say, can I do this? I was like, I just need to do it. Like, I just let me try to set up the beer guys, and try to set up the Pepsi guys, and try, you know, because if you do it, then I can’t, yeah, keep up with it, you know, or I can’t do it again if I open another one of these for you or whatever. So just taking on things that, using your brain to figure out how to do something new. And, my dad also one of my favorite pieces of advice that I’ve gotten in my whole life, he said never do anything for money that you wouldn’t do for free. And I think that that’s pretty important, you know, yeah. And when he said it to me I was like, I don’t even know what that means and then when I found myself telling Ron, you don’t have to give me a raise, I can’t believe what, you know, I was like, okay, this is what my dad, yeah, you know, Dad’s a smart cookie, he is a smart cookie, he’s still barking at my tree every day, hahaha. He called me yesterday, I was like, dad, I don’t feel well. Can we talk tomorrow? I love it. You’ve got a good crew, you got good people around you, and you’ve built good people around you. I do, I’m so lucky. Like Baja is full of people that could do anything and they choose to be there and they, you know, again, before it was like the thing that everybody did, we had health insurance, we had paid vacation, we, you know, 1998, we had that stuff. And people would come in and go, you’re so lucky of people that have been here 17, 20, whatever. Clinton’s been there since 1999 on and off, and I’m like, well, they get treated well, and they get to use their own brains and judgment, and they’re supported in that capability, and it’s, it’s worked out well. I’m not, knock on wood, I got like 10 more years of this and then I might get to travel more. There you go. Yeah, thank you so much for your time today, QCMM coming up, tenth, which is crazy. Yes. And how can people keep up with all the stuff you’ve got going on? The most up to date information for both Baha and QCMM is on Facebook. Our website lags a little bit, but they will eventually be informative. You know, yeah, a lot, a lot of something that like if if anybody’s listening to this doesn’t understand like behind the curtain, there are a lot of moving parts for QCMM and Baha, but especially QCMM. People that I don’t see every day, people that I see at a meeting every two months or something. And then it all comes together at the end. And so people will be like raising a ruckus from, you know, Seattle or Alaska or wherever and we don’t know what’s happening. And I’m like, just trust there is more to do than you’ll have time to do it. Yeah, I promise you that. And sure enough, once we start loading it into the scheduling software, there’s like 800 individual events that can happen for you, many of which are free. Some of them cost five bucks or, you know, $20 see a play or something. So I’m glad you brought up Vanessa because Shakespeare’s getting more involved, yes, which is really exciting. And they were the thing that changed our trajectory in this town the most. And I don’t ever want to forget that and I don’t want our business, you know, my business colleagues to forget that because it’s, we opened in 1998 and it was a pleasant growth until Shakespeare and then it was, we just stay that way and then in September it jumps way up again. And then, yeah, so it’s, it’s nice to see that like slow and steady growth and then the bump that happens, yeah, for my event, that’s a great way to put it. If anybody nearby the state area is listening to this and wants to be involved, volunteer opportunities are always open and available for the event year round. There’s always a place to plug in and become part of the community. Like we say the little magic community. I didn’t talk as much as I normally do about the other people. But there, I mean, we have the weekend of 80 to 90 volunteers. We have 100 characters that work all year round. Like they are, they just had their first rehearsal this weekend in this building on the 15th, the day after Valentine’s Day cause I was gone. And they work all year to just pull it off. And they’ll be a cast of like 100 or more characters every year. The train people, I mean, last characters literally arrive on a train people last year we had our first night train. So like every year we try to do something new. And we had a night baddies train on Saturday. And I was like a kindergartner. I was squealing and jumping down like I had never been to this thing, but it was awesome. I had so much fun. It’s just another thing I was gonna tell you. The dean, the dean of Harry Potter College, he John something, Mary Baldwin brought him in as a speaker one year and he showed up and they were running around on that Thursday trying to find me and introduce us. And he said, I’ve been to every single festival of this type that exists and I’ve never seen anything this big and coordinated. And like he was trying to give me credit for that. I’m like, listen, everybody just has to get in line. Like I don’t have time to coordinate all this. I just say, this is what we’re doing. And when we’re doing it and everybody does it, you know, it’s like, that’s the magic of Staunton. So, yeah it’s a lot of people and a lot of people, there’s a place for everybody. So and there’s a place for volunteers. And if you’re good at anything, we will find something for you to be good at there. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely thank you so much for your time. Thanks for the magic you bring, Staunton and all of us. And I appreciate you. So thank you. Come out, come ready for quesadilla, come hang out at Ball Hall. It’s the best quesadilla around, where I love it so much. Our new menu will be up by November, by March 1st. So ooh, it was, I was thinking it was actually gonna be this weekend but I like the little sweet spicy shrimp. Yeah, yeah, it is getting close to lunch. We’ve got all kinds of other things. We’ve got, like, we’ve got brunch coming, we’ve got, carnitas, like a lot of cool stuff is coming. Falafel, which I’m excited about. Yes, which is so weird for anybody that hasn’t been to Baja, but we do healthy Mexican, healthy California style Mexican. So we have a ton of vegan things and so it felt like a really good ad because people don’t do soy like they used to. Yeah, we still have soy rice, but to have something plant based is nice.Alright. Thank you, thank you, thank you all listening for the first, the first episode the, the US silent. We are keep joining us for the episodes to come. This is gonna be a limited series, maybe more we’ll find out as we go along. You’re silent, we aren’t good luck. The u is silent, and we are never silent. We are not. So much activity here in this tiny little town. All the things I know. Thanks, guys. Thank you, subscribe and keep listening every two weeks.
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