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Here to Yosemite
That
Fifty-Year High-School Reunion
No
More Waiting for Godot
FROM HERE TO YOSEMITE
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Mention Yosemite Park and a black & white photographic
image by Ansel Adams of a granite monolith, some icon of America's western
wilderness, pops into mind. Thanks to Adams, Yosemite has for me always
been a setting of dramatic black and white scenery. Not any more. Now
I've seen the park in living color.
Well, some of it.
July would not have been my choice of a time to visit Yosemite Park
but we had friends from Virginia who were vacationing in San Francisco
and decided to rent a cabin in Yosemite along with another couple. They
invited my wife, Gwen, and me to join them and share the cost of the
cabin for a two-night stay.
The drive to Yosemite is about 5 to 6 hours from Santa Ynez where we
live. A third of the drive is up the coast on four-lane US Route 101
before heading east on State Route 41, a narrow highway of grim history
and desolate beauty. James Dean was killed on this road at the intersection
with Route 46 while driving his Porsche Spyder to a racing event. There's
a stainless steel marker near the sight of the accident put there by
some Japanese businessman. It's actually tasteful. I still find myself
fascinated by any of the three films Dean made; classics performances
that now seem like documentaries on his life. Also, I could do a good
imitation of him during my high school years even going so far as to
roll out of my car like he did during the "chicken run" scene
in Rebel Without A Cause. Driving across a field, I would shift into
neutral, cut the ignition switch, yank on the emergency brake, and when
my Ford coupe slid to a stop, I popped open the door and rolled out.
Stupid, but I thought it a neat trick at the time.
Consequently, I slowed for a close look at the marker for Dean and felt
a tug of nostalgia and a definite regret for his loss.
Continuing on toward the parched San Joaquin Valley (approximately seven
inches of rain annually), Route 41 goes by the largest hazardous waste
facility in the western United States near Kettleman City. (We didn't
stop to take pictures.) Nearby are the Kettleman Hills where in 1928
oil was discovered. It became one of the most productive oil fields
in the country. Some of the wells are said to have spouted almost pure
gasoline and people came from all over just to watch them spurt. (Exciting
thought to keep in mind while driving through the area.) A few miles
further along, Route 41 seems to dip slightly as it runs through the
lakebed of what was the largest fresh water lake west of the Great Lakes.
That was Tulare Lake, now shrunken into wetlands during rainy seasons
and relocated further to the north. The full lake was a major habitat
for Chinook salmon before being transformed into rich farmland to feed
a growing nation. Due to river diversions the only water to be seen
in the area today is in the irrigation ditches along side the highway.
Hard to picture the ferryboat ride people used to take to reach the
town of Lemoore, 25 miles up the road.
Fresno was the next point of interest and blessedly the highway widens
to four lanes and traffic zips right through the middle of the city,
the largest inland city in California. (Not yet even one million.) Eventually
the High Sierras come into view and the straight flat road starts winding
as we begin to climb. Periodic markers indicate 1000 feet, 2000 feet,
3000 feet and up. The outside temperature dropped from 104 degrees into
the upper 80's as we approached the park. At the entrance gate to the
park my wife and I were warmly greeted and offered a Senior Citizen's
lifetime pass for $10 for the two of us. This might be the best deal
offered to ordinary citizens by the US government so we jumped at it.
Or course they probably figure we won't be using it for very long.
Once gathered with our friends, we dined on fresh produce from our garden
and drank wines from our winery (Tantara). Instead of hitting the nightlife
in Yosemite Valley, we decided to rest up that evening and get an early
start for sightseeing the next morning. After a hearty breakfast of
fruit and granola all six of us squeezed into one car and we headed
off. But nine o'clock wasn't early enough, for the other cars were already
backed up far past the "Expect Delay. Stop Ahead" signs California
roads are noted for. In Yosemite they appeared every three or four miles
on the road ringing the park. Not much real activity on the road itself
but the crews had their traffic-minder men with their red flags out
holding up traffic in either direction.
After an extended wait -- while I wondered aloud how many bureaucrats
it takes to plan this repair work during the height of tourist season
-- we were motioned on through. It was hard to see what work was being
done although there was the usual crew of sturdy-looking men in hard
hats standing near dump trucks, leaning on shovels while mentally preparing
to hurl themselves into action. "They've got to spend that stimulus
money," announced someone from the back seat. There followed a
collective murmur of wonder.
Once moving, the road wound around the hills and through forests of
grand coniferous trees that surely must look to loggers like they're
ready for harvesting. There was also an abundance of very dry looking
underbrush in need of watering. Eventually we reached a long tunnel,
a magnificent piece of human sculpturing through jagged rock, obviously
dynamited and pick-axed. Now those workers weren't leaning on their
shovels.
After several minutes driving through this rock of a mountain (and hoping
there would be no hard- hated men with red flags holding us up in the
middle of the tunnel) I saw light at the end and we emerged to a spectacular
view of "El Capitan" which is billed as one of the largest
piece of exposed granite in the world. I felt as though we had just
driven thorough one of the largest un-exposed.
The parking lot was already crowded with visitors gawking and taking
pictures of this spectacular hunk of rock. Many of them were posed with
El Capitan behind them as some member of their party snapped away, capturing
the reality of their audience with this piece of nature. The morning
sky was hazy and my pictures turned out to be less sharp than Ansel
Adams's dramatically detailed photos of that same huge hunk of granite.
But at least mine are in color and with Photoshop there's no telling
how far I can take them.
After El Capitan, we headed for Bridalveil Falls. The waterfall turned
out to be as majestic as the guidebooks described. But, unfortunately,
everyone had to relieve himself or herself by the time we got there.
I could get no closer to the U. S. Park Service toilet facilities than
about fifty yards. It was greatly in need of proper management. (Maybe
they should have charged us more for our park pass?) I headed for the
woods where I saw a lot of paper tissues behind trees. My wife and the
other two women and one male in our group decided to endure the odor
which my wife said was the worst she had ever smelled in all her 69
years on planet Earth and she grew up on a farm in Virginia with an
outhouse. "I was gagging the entire time I was in there,"
she told me, still fanning her face that was blue from a record-breaking
time holding her breath. "Don't they know about lime? The CIA could
bring suspected terrorists here. Get a quick confession," she said.
After a moment's reflection, she added, "Well, somebody would have
to hold those buggers in there."
Done with that experience, we soldiered on to base of the falls which
gets its name from the heavy mist blown by strong winds out over the
top of the falls. It's a beautiful spray -- yes, something like a bridal
veil. Somewhere I read that to the original occupants of Yosemite the
waterfall was known as Pohono or "Spirit of the puffing wind."
"Pohomo" sounds like the name of a beach I visited in Hawaii
but I'll go with it as being the chosen name by the Awhwahneechee tribe
who at one time owned the place. It was certainly a chunk of nature
worthy of worship.
While I would have enjoyed having the park pretty much to myself, as
I suppose, Ansel Adams did, I was still pleased to see so many people
enjoying the natural world. I sat on the arm of a stone bridge near
Bridalveil Falls and watched people walk by, the expressions on their
faces like pilgrims nearing a religious shrine, eyes wide in expectation,
their cameras ready to record the miracle. A perverse part of me wanted
to approach those returning along the trail, a clipboard in my hand.
I would introduce myself as a rep from CP (California Petroleum) then
ask if they would sign my petition for drilling for oil in the park,
explaining that the park was expected to provide enough oil to free
us from dependence on foreign oil forever. But I let my independent
study in priorities pass and enjoyed the air, the mist, and the sound
of that great waterfall which I knew was producing negative ions (for
positive vibes and mood boosting).
Our next stop was Glacier Point, an amazing sight and well worth the
thirty-mile winding drive climbing to it. I think it must be at an elevation
of about 8,000 feet for I felt a little light headed there (more than
usual). Looking off a sheer precipice, one sees what I assumed is the
Yosemite Valley below. Off in the distance are the snow capped High
Sierras. A monolithic rock called "Half Dome" is relatively
close by -- actually, almost right there in your face. Glacier Point
is considered a must for every visitor to the park. Since there's a
gift shop and snack stand adjacent to the parking lot that must be the
case.
The altitude at Yosemite did not affect me at 4,000 feet where our cabin
was but at 8,000 feet I didn't feel up to hiking with the others. Instead,
I hung around a hillside hoping to find a park ranger and grill him
or her with questions about the park's fauna. I was particularly interested
in knowing if bears got cancer or rather if autopsies were ever performed
on deceased bears to see what did them in. I assumed bears were at the
top of the food chain so it would not be the case that some other animal
had eaten them.
I also hoped to see a marmot. Marmots look really cute in the pictures
I'd seen of them and Yosemite is supposed to be one of the favorite
hangouts of the Yellow Bellied Marmot. I suppose they resemble a groundhog
but photograph much better and certainly have a more appealing name,
almost cuddly sounding. I read that they communicate with a very loud
whistle so I listened out for them while imagining a new marmot battery
operated whistling toy I could make a fortune on. Chubby, cute thing,
stress it with a squeeze for the whistle. Beanie Babies watch out. Maybe
even a tie-in with Disney. I was already picturing my fuzzy toy marmots
and the film, The Whistling Marmots, a family of them living in Yosemite
and up to some fun-filled trouble like climbing into unlocked cars then
giving their hilarious whistles at the sight of approaching owners.
But, there were no park rangers in the vicinity, or marmots. Other than
squirrels the only wildlife I saw was a mule deer at our cabin that
walked right up to me as though I had raised her from a bottle. I felt
a wonderful connection to nature before realizing that humans must feed
them in the park to the point of domestication. Without guns we're their
friends, especially compared to mountain lions, coyotes, wolves and
automobiles.
Summing up, I took lots of pictures, or digital images as they are now
called, and some of them turned out to be quite dramatic with all those
huge gray boulders cut with splashes of white river water and snow capped
mountains in the distance under some forbidding-looking clouds. On the
drive to and from Glacier Point there were patches of snow along beside
the road. I'd never seen snow on the ground in July and it looked surprisingly
clean for having been on the ground so long, certainly cleaner than
city snow after even a day or so on the ground. Thin air up in Yosemite
but fairly soot free. Recommended.
One further note: Ansel Adams had dreamed of becoming a concert pianist
before his parents gave him a Brownie camera at age fourteen when he
was heading for an outing in Yosemite.
Well, you can't do everything.
THAT GREAT AND BLESSED FIFTY-YEAR
HIGH SCHOOL REUNION
or
If You Have A High School Diploma This Could
Happen To You
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Provided of course you drink pure water, avoid fast food and first
and second hand tobacco smoke along with other hazards and are still
moving about on the planet fifty years after getting that diploma, yes,
you too could reunite with people who were, once upon a time teenagers.
My wife handed me the phone saying, "It's some woman with a southern
accent. Wants to speak to Billy." My wife gave me a puzzled look
and cocked her head in that cute patronizing way she has while awaiting
a confession of some sort.
"Probably not about a donation," I told her. The only people
who ever called me "Billy" were girls in high school, I was
thinking. Well, sure enough, it was a call announcing a fifty-year high
school reunion of our school in Virginia. Elvis and Chuck Berry started
singing in the echo chambers of my head, and I saw my high school under
a clear blue 1950's sky. I was also picturing the person on the other
end of the phone line, Juanita, with her flaming red hair and sassy
good looks.
"We've even planned a Saturday tour of our old school," she
was saying.
"Wow, maybe we can see some of the original clay tablets we used
to write on," I offered hopefully.
Juanita changed the subject. Her voice got huskier. "I had such
a crush on you," she said.
"Now you tell me."
While I was on the phone, the reunion seemed like a promising trip down
memory lane. And for what it was worth, it was a chance to re-visit
the fifties -- a time before the planetary shift, back when Lady's Chatterley's
Lover was still banned, when The Pill was waiting FDA approval and our
major worry was The Bomb. But after I hung up, I pictured the long lines
for loopy airport security, lost luggage, and flight delays. Then there
were the mingy airline seats along with the miniature fifty-cent bottles
of bulk wine selling for $6 each! (I'm in the wine business; I know
these things.) After the flight, I would have to find comfortable lodging
for a few nights. At my age, comfort trumps just about everything else.
And where would I find nourishment? I mean real nourishment. Is a reunion
with people you never expected to ever see again worth it?
Of course it is. Here is a chance to relive a time of innocence and
optimism, a time of vigorous good health and churning hormones. Hopefully
my classmates would have good stories to tell. Hopefully the sixties
had liberated them as it had me. I wanted to hear that my old girlfriends
had danced on tabletops and performed strip teases and that they had
burned their bras when that time came. I had mined my schoolmates for
fiction material for coming-of-age short stories. I hoped the reality
of their lives was even better than anything I could imagine.
And this was no ordinary reunion because fifty years ago we had a brand
spanking new school building with an entire cast of fresh-faced teachers,
classrooms with virgin desks (the carved hearts would come later), unsullied
restrooms, un-dented lockers, a bright clean cafeteria that smelled
of hot vegetable soup and not over-ripe bananas and stale cooking oils.
And then there was a new mix of students all transferred in from other
schools and excited about this one. I pictured the American flag flying
high in the clear blue sky outside and the school's pristine entrance
foyer. I was having a nostalgia moment. So I wrote the reunion date
down on my calendar -- in ink. If the grapes at my winery were in by
mid October, we could make the trip and thanks to global warming the
grapes should be ripening early.
I had never been to any school reunion and didn't know my schoolmates
were celebrating periodic reunions for earlier time markers. But this
one was more than a celebration of fifty years for one class. The first
four classes of a school that opened its door in the fall of 1956 were
invited. These were the matrix makers, the students who set the mold
for the school. We chose a Knight in shinning armor as the school symbol.
We selected the school colors, red and black (power colors) and the
school song. I don't remember the song but a girl I was dating (more
on her later) was appointed to go around to each classroom to perform
the selection of songs we would vote on. I suppose, too, we helped the
faculty and administration discover what rules should be applied and
what behavior would be expected and tolerated.
Unlike other high schools in Virginia, my school was not named after
a famous historical figure or influential politician or a town or city
but after a hole in the ground, actually a gurgling spring inside a
cave. The cave wasn't much of a cave just a dark deep hollow in the
side of a mound of earth that looked the right size for a bear's den.
But a spring suggests a Source, an origin from which life-giving water
flows, a fountainhead. A spring in a cave has symbolic clout and real
rural credibility. No city school would be named after a spring. I pictured
native Americans lapping from the spring after a busy day chipping arrowheads,
and many years later, travelers in horse drawn carriages stopping to
slake their thirst and water the horses, then still later open top vehicles
stopping at the spring with men in goggles, dusters, bow ties and women
in frilly white dresses enjoying a few refreshing gulps before continuing
on their motoring journey.
But by the time my school was constructed, the spring was too contaminated
for human use and had been closed to the public. A tall steel fence
was erected around the entire area and nobody thought much about the
cave or the spring. Few newcomers to the area knew it was there. I passed
by it everyday on the way to school and always wanted to taste the water
and get a closer look at the spring but all I could see through the
fencing was that dark hole in the side of the hump of earth.
The school was built near the foot of a mountain among many mountains
toward the south end of the Shenandoah Valley a few miles southwest
of Roanoke, Virginia, a city that seemed to have been discovered in
the 1950's and grew so fast that for a while it was called the "Magic
City." That was before the city fathers decided to call even more
attention to the area and erected a huge star on a small mountain near
downtown so that Roanoke was redubbed -- the "Star City of the
South." In those days sprawl was in; sprawl was huge. Building
new houses and paving over the rich valley farmland was considered to
be positively progressive.
Four other older high schools already served the Roanoke area (all named
after famous Virginians) and they were becoming overcrowded. Consequently,
a new school was needed for the fastest growing part of the Roanoke
Valley, the southwestern area where developers (my step-father included)
were putting up houses as fast as the banks would release the construction
loans.
This fifty-year reunion was, as I said, for the first four graduating
classes of the school: '57, '58 (my class) '59 and '60. These were the
years leading up to the Great Flux. The late fifties saw the passing
of the Ozzie & Harriet evenings, Norman Rockwell scenes. Your Hit
Parade was (thankfully) on its last song. Changes were in the wind and
rocking was on the airwaves. In 1958 the US army was opening its big
arms to Elvis, Coco Puffs were hitting the grocery store shelves, Khrushchev
was elbowing his way up to become premier of Russia, the first Pizza
Hut started cooking, the Dodgers were packing up to leave Brooklyn for
Los Angeles, the US sent up its first satellite - Explorer I, Wham-O
introduced the hula hoop, Castro's army was attacking Havana, Visa and
American Express cards were introduced, the first trans-Atlantic jet
service was flying (BOAC London-New York), the first Toyotas appeared
in the US market while Ford brought out the Edsel (a Ford cost $1,967
to $3,929 and gas for it was 24¢ a gallon), and the Supreme Court
ruled that Little Rock's schools must integrate. In 1958 the Kingston
Trio's first album appears and "Tom Dooley" becomes a top
hit popularizing folk music and setting the stage for a folk music awakening,
the Peace Symbol design comes out and I graduate from high school and
head for Colorado.
There were about twenty students in the senior class of the school that
first year. I was in the junior class. If I remember correctly we only
had fourteen students. (I've never owned a yearbook to refer to.) Nearly
all the students in the junior and senior classes transferred in from
a small school (Bent Mountain High) that was located near an entrance
to the Blue Ridge Parkway. I had the feeling they were all closely related.
I transferred to my school from a high school in Salem Virginia, Andrew
Lewis High School and, yes, it is named after a famous historical figure,
the Indian fighter of that name who had married into a well-to-do Salem
family and is buried not far from the school. Lewis was also a Brigadier
General in the Revolutionary Army and member of the Virginia House of
Burgesses, so clearly a school should be named after him even though
most students couldn't tell you who he was or what he did.
I wasn't supposed to go to Cave Spring. (Okay, I went ahead and named
the school. Wasn't going to do that but I've given too many clues.)
They were only transferring sophomore and freshman classes from Andrew
Lewis and other county schools, and I was a junior. But since I lived
on the county dividing line between two school districts, I learned
in late summer I could chose between the old school and the new school.
Because of construction delays, Cave Spring was to open two or three
weeks later than Andrew Lewis. That made for an easy decision for me
- more weeks of summer vacation. And I never really cared much for Andrew
Lewis anyhow. If you didn't live in the town of Salem you would always
feel like an outsider there. At Cave Spring we'd all be outsiders becoming
insiders.
At about the time Cave Spring opened, the General Electric Company had
just completed construction on a huge facility in the Roanoke Valley
and was transferring many of their engineering staff from their plant
in Schenectady, New York. Most of those upstate New York people found
homes in the newly developed area around Cave Spring. This influx of
kids from smart Yankee families made for a good mix with us provincials.
In the fifties fathers worked and mothers were still homemakers. Cars
had wide white wall tires and television offered shows for people who
could afford TV sets - shows that today would be considered highbrow.
Naughty four letter words were rarely used in mixed company and marijuana
was only a word and weed associated with big cities and bad kids. And
public schools in Virginia were still segregated! Blacks had "separate
but equal" schools. So we were told. Thus was Cave Spring a mix
of bright white suburban kids mixed with kids from farm families and
all of them living in blessed simplicity; it was truly a time and place
of innocence. The sky was blue.
And some of the teachers were not much older or wiser than their students.
Most of them were taking on their first teaching jobs, so we had the
task of teaching teachers how to teach though we might not have thought
of it that way. A few teachers were seasoned pros. One of the best was
a geometry teacher who was also the assistant principal. She actually
ran the school while letting the principal be the pleasant face of administration.
This teacher had an uncanny knack of knowing when my mind drifted from
her presentation of geometric principles and problems to horses or girls,
calling on me to provide an important piece of information regarding
the equation on the blackboard. Even if I were staring at the piece
of chalk in her hand, my face composed, attentive and acting as though
fascinated by "x," she knew when my mind shifted. Other than
her the rest of the teachers earned a C- to a B in my book. But what
the school lacked academically it made up for it in sports and human
drama.
On the first day of school, I met a very pretty girl with a syrup-dripping
southern accent and with a look in her big brown eyes that made me feel
like I was the greatest hunk of masculinity south of the Mason-Dixon
Line. Within a few weeks she became my steady girlfriend, my first ever.
I was deliriously smitten and my life at Cave Spring was better than
I even imagined school could be. But this girl was so pretty and such
a talented singer that she also gained the devotion of the school's
music teacher, marching bandleader and choir director. Later in the
school year, this music teacher began escorting my girlfriend to various
events where she performed songs under his guidance. After a few of
their road trips, I started getting hints the music teacher was making
time with my girlfriend. And I was right, for one weekend the two of
them took a long road trip south for a quickie marriage. South Carolina
was the usual matrimonial destination in those days. She was pushing
fifteen and he was must have been near thirty or maybe more. Today he
would probably go to jail under the Mann Act, but since they married
before her parents could get a grip and she transferred to another school
district, he was even allowed to keep his job at Cave Spring. (At least
they weren't cousins!) So for the rest of that year and all my senior
year encounters in the school hallway with the guy who stole my girlfriend
produced moments of living theater with him hugging the far wall while
I snarled and bristled like a Doberman. The guy had age on me but he
didn't look like he even knew how to make a fist. Assaulting the director
of the glee club was just a passing notion. He was, after all, a teacher
and you're not supposed to slug teachers even if they do run off with
your girlfriend.
I didn't expect my former girlfriend to show up at the reunion (and
she didn't) but I wanted to hear about her and I did. To my delight,
I learned that she has enjoyed a long and successful marriage with her
music man husband. Her teen female intuition had set her on the right
track. Dump the kid and go for the man, the music man. On our last few
dates she kept singing lines from that song Teresa Brewer made popular,
"Got Along Without You Before I Met You Gonna Get Along Without
You Now" but I didn't, at the time, pay much attention to the lyrics.
I was just enjoying her voice, thinking she sounded better than Teresa
Brewer. And was even cuter.
After that experience, I didn't have another steady girlfriend at Cave
Spring and my senior year seemed like a social comedown. I never even
bought a Yearbook. I was working part-time at a horse-training stable
and gave more of my attention to girls who rode at the stable than the
girls from my school. A girl on horseback does a lot more for me than
a strutting majorette or bouncing cheerleader.
During my senior year I got into a fist fight with some kid during English
class. When we were escorted to the office, our principal took me aside
for a private chat. Nobody brought guns or knives to school in those
days and no blood had been shed, so he was very decent about the incident
and didn't expel me. In fact, we reached a man-to-man understanding
on the necessity for the fight. He was so accommodating I had a feeling
that in the big mix of things he didn't consider a classroom brawl nearly
as serious as a faculty member running off with a student. Keeping the
band leader/choir director/music teacher on the faculty must have been
awkward for him for he always went out of his way to be considerate
towards me. I realized then I could (and did) get away with just about
anything. Even when I accidently elbowed the principal in the head during
a senior vs. faculty basketball game he said, with a big smile on his
face, "That's okay Bill. It's just a sport."
So with my DVD of Grease readied for my laptop, we headed for the airport
with me anticipating my next song, "Stranded On The Tarmac."
Surprisingly, the flights weren't so bad and I joined the reunion with
my former classmates in a reasonably good mood. The event was held at
a place called Hidden Valley Country Club. I drove over to the club
while it was still daylight just to just to make sure I could still
find it after all these years. I remembered the country club golf course
rolling thru idyllic countryside. It was horse country. A stable and
riding ring had been constructed many years before there was even a
clubhouse. Sadly, today that Virginia horse country is now Virginia
house country. Enormous red brick houses hulked over tidy green lawns.
But that's progress. Golfers had always complained about the stable
smells, so it had to go. I always thought it odd that the smells of
chemical fertilizer and herbicides on the golf course didn't bother
the golfers. Guess it depends upon what you're used to.
On the first night of the reunion there were (later reported) 116 people
in attendance - graduates along with their significant guests. When
we entered the big hall, a lovely woman greeted us, taking both my hands
in hers and saying my name so sweetly while giving me a smile that took
me back fifty years to hallways of my Alma Mater. I realized at that
moment that fifty years had washed away all my sins. A tone of forgiveness
was in the air. We were there to be friends. Here I could powwow with
fellow tribal elders and see if they were getting the respect we seniors
deserve. All that would come as soon as I hit the bar for a few glasses
of wine.
Looking over the room, I felt as though I had walked in on grandparent's
day at the club. There was a lot of white hair and some bulky men but
everyone had good teeth. Women seemed to have aged better than men and
their smiles were broader. Maybe that's why they've aged better. I could
see the girl still residing within them.
We didn't set off firecrackers or feast from an enormous cake with fifty
candles; we sipped wine, picked at over-cooked food and talked about
our children and grandchildren (even great-grandchildren) or our careers
or creations. No one I spoke with had danced on a table. No one but
me had been arrested for protesting some injustice. Most of the men
I greeted had taken over a family business and had kept it on an even
keel.
People showed one another photos pulled up from cell phones. One former
classmate who didn't have children dialed up some pictures of her pet
rooster for me to see -- an admirable bird, indeed. Technology was the
chief subject we discussed beyond our personal lives. Thankfully, I
heard nothing about surgeries. And no politics! I'm sure the years after
high school took us in different political directions. Beyond listing
the branches of the government, civics class in the fifties was about
as relevant to our government as the latest diet fad is to health. The
civics teacher, a retired welterweight boxer was, however, entertaining.
With every class he'd start off thumping the textbook with his fist
and saying, "We're gonna dig into this here Magruder's American
Gov'ment book and get some answers." (I gave him a B.)
Religion didn't come up except for my mentioning, for the sake of conversation,
I had heard that a Virginia preacher hoped to set a new world record
of 120 hours of continuous preaching. The old world record was 96 hours
and 52 minutes. (The rules thankfully allow a five-minute break each
hour.)
The woman who had first called me about the reunion, Juanita, stepped
quickly up to greet me, trailed by a man she identified as her husband.
Juanita looked very good and I wondered why I hadn't paid more attention
to her when I was in school. I did recall her hungry look and her flaming
red hair and thought she looked like a good time but I was smitten with
that girl I mentioned earlier or some other girl at the stable where
I worked. Juanita's husband seemed pleasant and maintained a smile as
though he knew I wanted to get naughty with his wife but it wouldn't
happen. Juanita kept saying to my wife - "He used to be so shy."
"Still am," I protested, slipping my arm around her waist
and giving her a good squeeze.
On the second night, a live band played fifties music. When they played
"The Great Pretender" from the Platter's oeuvre I mentioned
to the people gathered at my table that the Platters manager, Buck Ram,
did a quick write on the song while in a restroom. He had been asked
if the group had anything other than "Only You." Ram excused
himself and dashed off a classic. No one at my table seemed impressed.
They went back to searching their cell phones for more pictures of grandchildren
and pets.
Over and over I heard voices ringing surprise calling out names as they
glanced from nametag to face. Smiles were everywhere. And hugs. Only
one woman's breast job felt uncomfortable when we hugged. She had inspired
a story so I was familiar enough with her to know the truth. During
those two evenings, I wanted to hear about successes and see smiling
faces with their lines of wisdom. And I did.
I left the reunion feeling blessed and privileged even if we are all
relics of the past. Knowing what I know now, would I have lived those
fifty years differently? Yep. I would not have wasted a moment of it.
Was the reunion worth the trip? Absolutely.
Oh yeah, something else that happened in 1958: this is something few
people remember or even knew -- a US B-47 bomber accidently dropped
an atom bomb on Mars Bluff, SC. Fortunately it didn't go off.
UPCOMING EVENTS IN 2010
The Month of Photography LA (MOPLA) will present an exhibition of the works of 50 Southern California photographers entitled An Intimate View of Southern California with each photographer representing a different region. I have been invited to represent this "hood" with 25 photographic images taken in 2009.
Invitation and Details - cllick here
For the show, they wanted some of the images to be photojournalistic
commentary on the economic conditions in 2009 but to me the Santa Ynez
Valley is about beauty. Ill probably have the most idyllic and romanticized
pictures in the exhibit. But this is what I want to see and show. Maybe
its an age thing. Come to think of it, there is a dead tree in one of
the pictures. But even that has a stark beauty.
EVENTS IN 2009
NO MORE WAITING FOR GODOT -- IT'S
BACK!
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"Waiting for Godot" is set for Broadway once again (April
30, 2009). The play originally appeared on Broadway in 1956 with Bert
Lahr and E. G. Marshall and had a 60 performance run. There was an off-Broadway
production in 1988 with Steve Martin and Robin Williams. But over the
years this play has usually been staged in small theaters suited more
for exploring the art of drama.
So why do I make so much over this revival? Because of the profound
effect the play had on theater … and on me. After first reading
the play, back in the early 1960's, I sensed a new world of theatrical
and creative possibilities opening for us. I had majored in philosophy,
a field overgrown with ideas often tangled in the dullest prose. But
Godot presented ideas in dramatic form with brevity, succinctness and
emotional impact.
I had seen good stage productions such as "South Pacific"
(with the Broadway cast) and loved the spectacle of theater, the pageantry,
the colors, a few ideas about racial relationships and then there were
characters creating belief right there before my eyes. But plays like
that gave you everything. They overwhelmed you with emotion. Trouble
was, they left nothing to the imagination.
Godot with its empty stage, excepting a bare tree as the only piece
of scenery, seemed limitless. The symbolism in that tree alone has given
rise to much scholarly conjecture with its resemblance to a cross, a
gallows, and perhaps the tree of knowledge gone bare. The beauty of
the empty stage is that it allows the mind to fill in the blanks. That's
before the actors come on and mark time like adults on a playground.
Watching the play you feel some kind of force or energy and yet the
characters go nowhere. Of course the name and the action suggest our
wait for the return of the Savior (although Beckett claimed that 'Godot'
was only the name of a bicycle racer).
And so, filled with fascination for this new art, I started writing
plays. The two plays listed on another page of this website are the
result of that moment of awakening. I never read another work by Becket
that I thought much of, but he sure nailed it with Godot. Somewhere
I read that "Waiting for Godot" was voted (by whom?) the most
influential play of the 20th century. It gets my vote.
Now we will wait and see how it plays with the audience of today.