Sometime last year, in the middle of the year, my friend Alison Lewis and I did the first interview for Volume 3 of The Lamplighters history. I kind of thought we would then start doing regular interviews until we had compiled enough material, but that didn't happen. There were work conflicts and time conflicts and communication mix-ups.
So several months passed with nothing happening on the book. I was getting frustrated and a month or so ago threatened to back out of the project entirely. But of course I wouldn't do that and today we had our second interview.
It was kind of an interesting morning. I knew that I had a dental appointment tomorrow but didn't realize that I had another dental appointment today. Today's was cleaning, tomorrow's was prep for a crown to fix the tooth that I broke on a piece of popcorn sometime before Thanksgiving.
My plan had been to leave for the interview at 9 a.m., and fortunately the dental appointment was at 8, so I figured I could do both without problem. I packed up so I could leave right from Cindy's office and head to San Francisco.
It was a good appointment. The results of my work on the newly purchased Sonicare toothbrush have made a noticeable improvement and the hygienist seemed pleased. But midway through the cleaning she was surprised when I suddenly jerked and let out a sound of surprise. She apologized for hurting me and I told her that wasn't it at all. I had been lying there thinking about the upcoming interview and suddenly realized that I'd left my tape recorder at home. Whew. Thank goodness for the dental appointment, or I might have been halfway to San Francisco before I remembered, if that.
I stopped back at the house, loaded the recorder with new batteries, and continued my voyage to San Francisco. We were meeting at Lamplighters World Headquarters.
The only problem is that parking is always a problem. There is no free parking in the area, and paid parking is ridiculously expensive. I parked in a lot where I got 3 hours for $10. The parking meters in front of the office would have cost about the same amount and involved keeping an eye on the clock.
But the interview was such fun, and brought back a lot of happy memories, as well as learning about stuff I didn't know. Like I didn't know that they learned about losing the theatre they'd performed in for decades while in the middle of a rehearsal for a show that we to open in two weeks. Some authority person interrupted rehearsal to ask what they were doing there. When assured that they were supposed to be there, he told them that NOBODY was supposed to be in the building and that they were tearing out walls and would be flooding the air with asbestos particles.
Within two weeks they had to find another theatre and notify all the people who had tickets to opening night at Presentation Theatre that they needed to find the new place. Another saga in the continuing story of how this theatre company has lasted for sixty years despite all sorts of really bizarre set-backs!
The interview renewed my enthusiasm for the project and I've already begun setting up new interviews for the next few months. It would be nice to get a lot done before Walt and I leave for China and Alison becomes a grandmother. Twice.
After the interview, Alison and I went to our usual spot, Denny's in Emeryville, for lunch and to talk over our plans for the coming weeks/months. We were seated by the waitress, who, with a flourish, proudly gave us a card with all of the specials, about four of them. One was a turkey and stuffing sandwich, which sounded very good. Another was a turkey dinner with all the trimmings.
Alison and I both decided on the sandwich and ordered it. The waitress aid "Oh--we don't have any turkey." I asked her why she had given us the special menu without saying anything. "But we have the other things on the menu," she replied, not seeming to get my point, even though I brought it up twice.
We ended up with a steak burrito and lots of ideas for where we go from here with the book project.
Tomorrow it's back to the dentist again. But no interview afterwards.
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