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In honor of Throw-Back Thursday, we’re going to go all the way back to March 13th, 1950. That’s the date on a letter my late mother wrote to her sister Betty. A bit of background: I never knew my aunt Betty. She died young from MS. I know that she spent some time in Havana. According to this letter, she was working there, but I really don’t know ( Read more... )

We made it up to Kenosha, Wisconsin on Sunday for the penultimate day of this year’s Bristol Renaissance Faire. It was a scorcher and we had to work at staying hydrated, but as always, a good time was had by all. The one bit of bad news was finding out that one of our favorite shops - the bookstore - is gone, as the long-time proprietor has decided ( Read more... )

On Friday last, we thought we were going to US Cellular Field in Chicago to cheer on the visiting Detroit Tigers as they took on the White Sox. As it turned out, the baseball game was a mere backdrop to the main point of the evening: It was Star Wars Night! Hundreds of Imperial subjects, as well as an undisclosed number of rebel sympathizers, ( Read more... )

Many years ago, in a land far, far away, I was cast in a show. Even though I’d been in a lot of shows at that point in time, it happened that I knew none of my fellow cast members. While it is fun to do a show with old friends, it can also be really cool to come in as a complete stranger to everyone. It’s a chance to check one’s professionalism and ( Read more... )

I was 18, didn’t have a care. Working for peanuts, not a dime to spare… and we’ll stop right there, because the comparisons with Bob Seger begin to break down pretty quickly after that. It was the summer right after my high school graduation and I was working on my first community theater production. The show was called Impressions. Act I consisted ( Read more... )

That spelling, though a little unusual, comes directly from her neatly pinned nametag. Johanna was a waitress at a Sanders location in Detroit in the 1970s. She may well have waitressed there in the 60s, and even the 50s and 40s for that matter. I can only tell you about my interaction with her, as we never had a proper conversation outside of our ( Read more... )

A lot of people I know have posted recently about the concept of “Lombardi time”. It isn’t a new idea but it seems to be in vogue lately. It is usually posted in the form of a quote reportedly uttered by the late football coach Vince Lombardi, and it usually goes something like this:

“If you’re early, you’re on time ( Read more... )

No, CC and I never entered Nebraska on our recently concluded week-and-a-half trip. We decided before leaving Chicago that there was nothing we wanted to see in the Cornhusker state (no offense to the fine upstanding huskers of corn who populate the place), so we decided to broadly circumnavigate the state’s borders. We took a southerly route on ( Read more... )

I’m not going to list the names of the people shown here. I figure that after 35 years, they deserve the option of anonymity if they so desire. But that’s me with the glasses and the wristwatch, in the company of a bunch of awfully talented people.

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