Mission accomplished.
I have now played the song, "Ice Cream" at least once (C chorus only, not the A-minor verse) and Mrs. bloke has seen Reelfoot Lake...
Whatever the festival was that they were holding up there on the lake shore, it was incredible, and - for the previous twenty miles south of there - it seemed like half of the houses were holding yard sales to take advantage of the traffic to the festival. I didn't anticipate the yard sales, nor them defining the traffic as going only half the speed limit (ie. gawking), and I had planned on getting there about 40 minutes early. I drove up about a minute early, the bandleader handed me a jacket, Mrs bloke. went and parked the car, and we started when we were supposed to. I was actually standing there ready to play before one of the other people in the band was ready to play who had been there for a while.
Combining errands, we also dropped off an expensive baritone saxophone repair on the way back with a very nice/cooperative school principal, as well as handing them the invoice.
The King sousaphone - after its test run - can use lighter (Yamaha) valve springs and a stronger main tuning slide water key spring.
The amount of time that we played was disproportionate to the amount of driving. Since the park rangers asked us if we would be willing to come back and play the festival next year, I'm going to suggest quietly to the band leader that he asked if we can play sets that are twice as long and ask for twice the money. certainly a tremendous amount of money changing hands at that event. Also, he needs to find a cording instrument way before the last minute. There was not one on this job and that made my job a lot more difficult, even though all the tunes we played are out of and imaginary Dixieland beginner band book were there such a thing. Basically as it was so hollow - in addition to playing just about constant four beat bass lines - I had to alter my bass lines so as to cover more of the harmony pitches which were otherwise missing.
