Extreme Coincidence

Last week Extreme Makeover (the extremely sappy tv show) razed and built a house just outside of Poolesville, just 6 miles from my home. The deserving family has 14 kids and one single mom. The story (this is what I heard anyway) is that 2 sisters were separated as children and adopted by different families. They found each other as adults and knew each other for just four years, as one of the sisters died of cancer, leaving 10 (yes, 10!!!) children behind.
The surviving sister took all the kids in to raise as her own and moved into a tiny house near Poolesville.
I did not get a chance to see all the extreme action (of tearing down a house and rebuilding a house large enough for 15 people in just 7 days). Nor did I get to see the 'reveal' on Sunday when hundreds of 'volunteers' yell, "MOVE THAT BUS!"
But while I was in Cumberland on Thursday last week, I did see Ty Pennington and the film crew shooting pretty scenes in downtown Cumberland. The scoop is that Poolesville has no wonderful architecture and wasn't worthy of being on Extreme Makeover (maybe they should do an extreme makeover on the town!). Someone on the crew saw Cumberland with its historic downtown and thought 'THIS town could be Poolesville!" Why not? Reality tv doesn't have to be real!


I love the way the women followed Ty around adoringly. The above 2 photos are courtesy of Glenn, a Cumberland resident who was in the barber shop at the right time.

My friend, Seal and I watched Ty come out of his 'Superstar Bus' about a dozen times as he had to shoot the same scene again and again and again. He really was a trooper though and always had a smile.




The crowd was being crowd controlled, pushed back onto a side street so that it would look 'normal' and not like hundreds of people just milling about downtown Cumberland at 9:00 a.m. on a Thursday. Later on though, all these people were given bright blue Extreme Makeover t-shirts, just like the 'volunteers' back in Poolesville. I'll be watching this episode in September to see what really is being touted as real.