August 10, 1989
Dear Everyone:
This will have to be a short Letter as I am between meetings today. (This is also the only day this week that I can take the time to write.) This morning was the Thursday-Morning-Meeting-That-Will-Not-Die (which I gratefully missed, thanks to the Crisis du Jour) and this afternoon, “Holtz” is supposed to give us a presentation on “IDHS”, the computer-indexing system which is about to go “public”.
For those of you who missed it, Ashland was wonderful, as expected. Everyone had a great time, even “Alice’s” husband, “Kelly”, once he got past Henry IV, 2 (a play that can give anyone fits.) The truth is, Shakespeare didn’t need to write Henry IV, 2; everything was covered in the first play. But then, Falstaff was such a hit with the audience that old Will seemed to feel compelled to give them another taste with a sequel. At least he didn’t try to do it in 3-D.
In the Museum, we found some more people that we didn’t realize we’d seen before. For example, we saw William Hurt in Romeo and Juliet a few years ago, but only found out about it after he became a star. I never notice George Peppard at the Festival, but that’s probably because he was here from 1952-54, a little before my time. In 1976, in what is still my favorite production of Much Ado About Nothing, Beatrice was played by Jean Smart, who now stars in Designing Women on TV. The only performer that I’ve ever recognized both before and after was Christine Healy, best known for her Juliet in which she 1) towered over Romeo (played by John Warren Tyson) and 2) broke the record for costume change (11 seconds from the balcony in night clothes to the ground floor in the next scene in street clothes). I saw her a few years ago in a TV series. Her nose is as big as ever.
The Crisis du Jour, which allowed me to escape from this morning’s meeting, is the Leahy (pronounced LAY-hee) Boxes. Nearest I can figure, Leahy was a small records center in “Hobby”, separate from the regular “Hobby” Records Center, although I don’t know why these boxes were kept in a different place. All of this goes back to “That Other Company”, BM (Before the Merger). In 1986, someone ran a report of Leahy boxes to be reviewed for destruction. Someone else reviewed all of the boxes and released thousands of them. “Tiddly” put holds on only hundreds of them (remarkably good for “Tiddly”!).
All of this paperwork has been sitting around since 1986. Now, all of a sudden, someone wants the paperwork processed. (Apparently, after 3 years, someone realized that they were still being charged storage costs on boxes that they OK’d for disposal. They want it fixed NOW!) But a lot of things have changed in the past 3 years. Such as numbers on boxes. What used to be Box Number 614 is now Box Number H085123. This is because of all the Leahy boxes, including the ones to be destroyed, were transferred to the “Hobby” Records Center and the guys in “Hobby” gave the boxes new numbers to fit their system. Add the conversion from the “That Other Company” system to the new “Company” system and you have a lot of detective work involved in matching the destruction OK with the correct box number. Otherwise you could destroy the wrong box (big no-no).
It goes something like this: you look at the box number on the 1986 report. Check the Series Number. Now check a list of Series Numbers to find which “Company” organization now owns this box. Go to the new report of boxes by organization – the boxes are listed in Prior Box Number order which may, or may not, help. Look for the same Box Number. If you find it, double check the series numbers, description of box contents and first and last dates. IF you find a match, check to see if “Tiddly” put a hold on the box and mark the new report accordingly. This is the easy part.
Of course, there’s always the chance that the guys in “Hobby” already destroyed the box and removed the number from the database. In which case, you’re looking in the coal bin at midnight for a black cat that was never there. Needless to say, this Crisis has popped up more than once in the past 3 years. Each time it was a matter of drop-everything-and-fix-this-now – until a more immediate Crisis takes over. In this case, I intend to hold firm. Every time something like this comes up, like this morning’s meeting, I go to “Alma” and ask: “Shouldn’t the Leahy boxes have a higher priority than (fill in the blank)?” So far, she has been saying yes. If my luck holds out, I might actually get this mess cleaned up once and for all.
But I don’t expect to get out of “Holtz’s” “IDHS” thing this afternoon. I guess you can’t have everything.
Love, as always,
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