EXTRA *** Sunflower, by Sam Payne

Like you, we’ve been self-isolating, and, like you, looking for ways to reach out to our fellow humans. Sam has posted to social media a little song every day – something filled with a little hope and a little encouragement to hang on. We thought we’d bring you some of those pieces here, as Apple Seed Extras. These aren’t studio recordings, and you’ll be able to tell – they’re made with an iPad. Still, we’re happy to bring them to you here on The Apple Seed. Here’s what Sam says about today’s song: “The summer I turned 13, I was cast in a local production of Rogers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music. It was directed by Joan Lindsay, a dynamo of productivity in local theater – she directed a lot of the shows we were in as kids. And this one was performed in the very beautiful American Fork Amphitheater, one of those terrific depression-era works project Amphitheaters of which there are a couple in the valley where I grew up. Anyway, it was a terrific, kind of foundational experience for me – kind of the first time I’d been on stage in front of any kind of audience. Anyway, fast-forward to twenty years later. I’m living three hundred miles from my hometown, and I get a card in the mail – it’s an invitation to come and see a production of The Sound of Music at the American Fork Amphitheater, directed by Joan Lindsey, and even featuring a lot of the same folks who were in the show when I was in it – I mean, the folks who played kids when I was in the show were now playing nuns, or grown-up Nazis, or whatever, but they’ve tracked down most of the cast from the production when I was a kid, and those who aren’t in this 20-year anniversary show are invited to come and see the show, and attend a kind of reception afterward. And I decide I’d like to go. So I hit the road to drive the 300 miles to see the show. It’s me and my two-year-old. And the old Toyota has some car trouble, and we get it sorted out, but it makes us late for the show. In fact, we walk into the amphitheater just in time for the curtain call. And th