October 5, 2000
Dear Everyone:
How in heaven’s name did it get to be October
already? Seems to me it was
just last week that I was looking forward to visiting
Canby and
Ashland.
That was two months ago.
(Time flies when you don’t keep a gun to its head.)
Speaking of Ashland, everyone who has anything to
do with the
Oregon Shakespeare Festival knows that They’re Building a New
Theater. This is because the
Black Swan Theater, which is really an old auto dealership (the actual
stage used to be the showroom floor) is just Too Difficult to Deal With
Anymore. The People in
Charge decided last year that they just couldn’t stand this
jury-rigged setup
any longer.
So they proposed moving Carpenter Hall so they
could build A New Theater in its place.
Carpenter Hall is a building that seems to consist of one really
big room where they put benches and get people to come and listen to
lectures. I thinks it’s
called Carpenter Hall because either the people who donated it to the
Festival were named Carpenter, or the Carpenter family put up the most
money for the Festival to buy the building.
That’s how buildings get named in Ashland.
However, enormous uproar over the prospect of
moving Carpenter Hall. It’s
an
historic landmark. Or,
if it’s not, a committee was formed in a hurry to try and get it
designated historic right quick.
Much howling and gnashing of teeth until the Festival folk backed
down.
Now they’ve decided to build The New Theater where
a parking lot exists today.
The New Theater Complex will include some kind of underground parking to
accommodate the people who still need some place to park.
The New Theater will be state-of-the-art.
It’s going to be really, really cool.
It’s going to cost $20,000,000.00
Actually, they can build The New Theater for a
piddling $10,000,000.00. But
as long as they’re digging into everyone’s pockets, why not get an
additional $10 million for the Endowment Fund.
After all, it’s only money.
And they’re hot on my trail.
First, I got a letter from
Libby Appel, the
Artistic
Director. This letter
was to inform me that someone would be calling me on the phone.
This phone call would be to arrange for an appointment for
Someone Very Special to talk to me in another phone call.
Someone did call once or twice and left a message
on the phone machine (they always call during the day when I’m at work),
but never a return number.
So last week, I got a new letter, this time from Marty Lemke.
I had no idea who Marty was, but the return address had Ashland
on it, so I kind of knew what it would be about.
Marty is the President of the Festival Board of
Directors. Marty wrote for
three pages about how wonderful the Festival is, about how important
Shakespeare
and other playwrights are, how much she loves the Black Swan (but also
how cramped and inconvenient it can be), how beautiful The New Theater
will be if only People Like Me will pony up some big bucks.
Marty also spent an entire paragraph writing about
how (before retiring to Ashland) she and her husband would leave
Portland
after work on Fridays. They
would drive to Ashland (a 6-hour drive) in time for the evening
performance. After seeing
two plays on Saturday and two on Sunday, they would drive back to
Portland Sunday night (also a 6-hour drive) and show up for work
bleary-eyed on Monday morning.
This prompted me to wonder:
Why do we have Crazy People on the Festival Board of Directors?
But, since we weren’t able to have that personal
phone call (see paragraph 10), Marty is going to have a Special
Representative call me in the next few days to ask for my support.
Here we go again.
After a few attempted phone calls, they will probably get around to
sending me the form to fill out.
Marty finally got around to mentioning how much
they would like me to “pledge” on page 3.
It looks like something I can probably swing without too much
trouble. And, if I can use
my Visa card, it
will earn me points towards free stuff at
Macy’s.
In other news…
No movies because “Jeannie” and I spent last
Saturday visiting with "Liz and Jack Hudson", a family that has been
friends with ours since the early ‘50’s.
They were even stationed in Naples, Italy, at the same time as
“Frankie” was, which gave her a surrogate family to spend time with on
holidays and such. Not that
this was a major consideration to the US Navy; just a nice coincidence.
"Liz and Jack" had been up to visit Mother a few
weeks ago and volunteered to bring the sterling silver flatware (two
boxes) with them, rather than trust it to movers.
No one had “bid” on the silver when we were in Canby this summer,
possibly because none of us thought of it.
Mother decided that I should have it.
The "Hudsons" had retired to
Benecia,
in a lovely home overlooking the
Carquinez Strait,
where the
Sacramento River enters
San Francisco
Bay. We had a delightful
lunch, reminiscing about this and that.
The silver is currently at “Jeannie’s” place (she has more room
and a bigger dining table), but Mother thinks we should each take half.
Since there are two distinctly different patterns, this shouldn’t
be a problem.
Actually, I consider us “custodians” of the Family
Silver and if anyone else wants to borrow it, just let us know.
We’ll ship it to you, postage due.
Love, as always,
Pete
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