Well, THAT Chapter is Closed

In the mid '70s, a woman named Alison put out a call for folks to help her put together a book celebrating the 25 year anniversary of The Lamplighters.  Two of us answered her call and a year later "The Lamplighters: 25 years of Gilbert and Sullivan in San Francisco" was released.

In 1987, following Gilbert's 1986 death, I got a bee in my bonnet that I wanted there to be a 10 year update to the original history so that there would somewhere be a record of Gilbert's accomplishments in the last ten years of his life.

By the time we started that project, it was just Alison and me and "The Lamplighters Story, 1977-1987" was my proudest piece of work.  Gilbert is in the Library of Congress.

As we started working on Book 3, a book which was to cover from 1987 up to the 60th anniversary (a project that because of family conflicts and other reasons [we discovered we didn't have the stamina we had in 1976, for one!] had to be scrapped), Alison was also cleaning out her house, like I'm doing now, and at one of our infrequent meetings, she handed me a big bag.  In it was all of our correspondence during the writing of Book 2  Well, it was all of MY correspondence, since she obviously didn't have copies of the letters she wrote to me.

I understood her passing it along to me.  It was one of those things that you really don't want any more, but it's special enough that you don't just want to throw it away.  And so it has been sitting in my office, unopened, ever since she gave it to me.  I have now emptied enough boxes and uncovered enough buried stuff in the living room that I came across it today.

What to do? what to do?  I started looking at some of my old letters.  My god was I verbose!  In all honesty, I do like my writing style, but it goes on endlessly.  Even I was bored.

And so, after I read through about five letters (each at least four typed pages long), I took the entire contents of the bag and threw it into the paper recycling container.  I am sure there are archivists out there who would cringe at such a thing, but I can't, in all honesty, think of anybody who would want to wade through this vast (and I do mean vast) collection of my ramblings.

I have to admit that it felt good to toss it all away.  To everything there is a season ... a time to bare your soul, and a time to throw it all away and move forward.  The Lamplighters History portion of my life is now a closed chapter.  I will never write with such fervor again and that's probably not such a bad thing.

Walt and I had planned to go to a Gilbert & Sullivan outdoor concert in Golden Gate Park with some Lamplighter friends today (if nothing else, it would be a chance to escape the heat!) but yesterday had been a very bad day for my mother.  One of those days where I sit in tears and watch her agonize over trying to figure out what she should be doing and what is wrong with her head, knowing there is nothing I can do to help her--and knowing that by the time I could get her to a doctor, she'd be just fine and I'd look like an hysterical daughter again.

I stayed at Atria for about 2-1/2 hours and got her calmed down to where I felt comfortable leaving her.  I also stopped by the front desk and asked them to check on her around dinner time to ,make sure that she was still doing all right.

I came home and was just hit with lots of shit.  The frustration of my mother, the fear and frustration of a Trump presidency, the daily shooting/killing reports world-wide, and then in cleaning coming across some particularly memorable pictures of Paul at Ned and Marta's wedding.  I just had myself a little cry.

I also knew there was no way I could leave Davis today.  I suggested that Walt go without me, but that always presents a problem because we have only one car and I needed it to go to Atria.  We finally decided that he would take the train to SF and I drove him to the station around 9 a.m.  That train is always such a fun ride anyway and he loves it.  I was almost jealous of him.

I waited until after noon before I went to Atria and, as I suspected I would find, she was perfectly normal....or what passes for normal with her these days.  None of the anxiety of yesterday.  She knew who I was.  We had our usual scripted conversation and we laughed and enjoyed each other's company.  I could have gone to SF anyway, but I would have worried all day.  (And having the car allowed me to get errands run in Davis that I would not otherwise have been able to do).

I also had to do a last minute interview for a woman named Katie Rubin (who happens to be one of Marta's good friends), an actress/comedienne who is in the middle of preparing for FOUR shows in the next two weeks.  Katie's interview would take the place of the one I had planned to do, which was now bumped to next weekend.

Katie is such a delight.  I first met her when she was getting her MFA in theater at UC Davis.  She was part of the cast of The Laramie Project and the actor the director suggested I interview.  I found her intelligent, articulate, and funny.  And when I saw her in the show I realized what a good actress she was.

She popped up a few years later doing a one woman show called "Insides OUT."  I had the task of reviewing it and wrote this, in part...

Insides OUT! is a no-holds barred, emotional, funny, gut-wrenching look at the 29 year old Rubin’s journey through alcoholism, drug addiction, sex addiction, food addiction, and self-loathing throughout her high school and college years and ultimately, to the path of recovery. While this sounds like a heavy evening – and, in spots it is – Rubin makes the one hour piece a mesmerizing experience. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll cheer. Not bad for an hour’s work.

Since then she has begun to make a name for herself around the country and has played the show she will perform next week, "My Spiritual Death....a comedy" very successfully at three different venues in the Los Angeles area.

But it was good to chat with her again and having the afternoon free, I was able to get the article wrtten, photos collected and all mailed off to the newspaper in time to meet the deadline...and even be a little ahead of the game.

Walt got home around 7 and said that the concert had been fun, that there hadn't been that many of the old Lamplighter group there, and that he even got cold sitting outside listening to the music.

I did not get cold here.

A "Different" Day at Logos

When I arrived at the store, Peter apologized that he had no time to chat because Susan was waiting outside in the car for him.  He said he hoped that my afternoon went better than his morning, which was pretty slow.

My shift started out with a woman who bought a Civil War history and one of C.S Lewis' religious-themed books.  She was followed by a guy wearing headphones who browsed in Science Fiction and foreign languages, but left without buying.

My next customers were a delightful older couple from upstate New York, in the Finger Lakes district, who came in, really, to ask directions to the Varsity Theater (in the next block) because she had left her camera there and she was hoping they'd found it.  But, like me, they are suckers for a book shop and had to browse.  She and I got to talking and I told her that Walt and I had been in their area several years ago and what a nice place we thought it was.  They said they had come to California before the blizzard and their daughter told them to stay here until things calmed down because it was "awful" there.

The woman was British and her husband American.  He was an interesting looking man, short, walking with a fancy cane, and wearing a bright emerald green sweater and sporting a royal blue cap on his head.  He looked like a slightly too tall leprechaun.

She told me that coming to California from upstate New York was like coming to a different country and she was surprised they didn't need passports to get in.

Before they left, she bought two children's books for her 7 year old granddaughter, one about a little girl's adventures in snow, which she thought would be appropriate. 

While she was rummaging about in the children's room, a guy and his young son came in and joined her.  They bought two books, one a book on American poems for children, which the son didn't seem nearly as excited about as his story book about pumpkins.

A guy with the first name of "Homayoon" and a longer, more unpronounceable last name, bought 2 books from the bargain table and a thick tome on the Dictionary of Film.

Then Jim came in with his two daughters.  Jim is a guy who went to UC Davis in the 1980s and became a big fan of Lawsuit.  Somehow he found my name and wrote to me that he had moved away from Davis for several years, had married and had two children and that he had now moved back.  He wanted to tell me (a) how important Lawsuit had been in his life and (b) to let me know that he had a recording they made of an interview on KDVS, the campus radio station, in about 1988.  (He also confessed today that he had a "little crush" on Jeri at the time)

We also discovered, in one of those small world events, that he and his wife had lived for three years in San Rafael, next door to my mother's step-son, Ed!

So Jim had come in to bring me a copy of the CD he made of Lawsuit and we chatted while his daughters were looking for books.  While we chatted, an older guy, who always brings math books in for Peter, came in and they got to talking because the guy also moved away from Davis and then moved back.  They discovered that both of them, at quite long intervals of time, had Peter as a professor.

The guy left and I continued talking to Jim and then, for some reason, I happened to glance at the bookcase facing me and gasped.  There, on display, was Volume 1 of the Lamplighters history!  I couldn't believe it.  Whoda thunk one of my books would be for sale at Logos???  I immediately took a picture and texted it to Walt, Char, and my kids.

Jim left and a wide eyed girl came out from the book stacks to ask if I was an author.  Nobody had ever asked me that before, but I guess I am...or was...so I told her yes.  She was impressed.

I groaned when the obnoxious woman who wanted to fix my eyesight several weeks ago came in.  Last time she came in she stayed and stayed and stayed and was so annoying, I was almost rude to her.  But apparently I was not the only person she had bothered and Susan had talked with her about it (she's also a volunteer at Logos) and so today after starting a conversation that caused me to cringe, thinking it was going to go on and on and on again, she just browsed the bookshelves and then left.  But first she asked me if I had written any reviews lately.  I told her about the review that had appeared a couple of nights ago.  She asked how she could see it.  I told her where in the paper they appeared and she asked if it was on line, I said it was, and she headed off, presumably to look for my review.

A girl brought a Ayn Rand book to the desk, and then discovered she had left her wallet at home, so had to put it back on the shelf.

"My friend" arrived at 4:45.  He had read the Ruth Rendell book I recommended last week and enjoyed it, so he got another one.  I told him about how shocked I was to find the Lamplighters history on the book shelf and showed it to him.  He bought it and asked for an autograph.  I said "Well, then, I'll have to know your name," which he told me was "Willard."  That would definitely not have been my guess.  But now "my friend" has a name, which is nice...and he also owns a Lamplighter history.

A girl said she wanted to "get back into reading" and wondered if I had any suggestions.  I kind of hemmed and hawed and suggested a couple and then pulled out "Outlander," the first of Diana Gabaldon's 8 book series and hesitatingly (because of its length) recommended it to her.  Turns out she had seen the start of the STARZ series on TV so decided she'd give it a try. 

I was really on a roll today!

Susan arrived early and we chatted a bit.  She told me that we are having dinner together on Saturday.  Cindy, my dentist, and Roberta, our mutual friend, have taken a course in Mexican cooking and wanted to cook a dinner.  Turns out Susan doesn't know Cindy, but is also a good friend of Roberta, who invited Susan and Peter to come to dinner.

This was, all things considered, really a "small world" sort of day!

I was having stomach pains all afternoon...not "inside" pains, but more abdominal muscle pain, which I assume is the result of three or four weeks of coughing, but by the time I left Logos, it was so bad I wasn't sure I could walk 3 blocks to the car, so I asked Walt is he could get the car and then drive up to get me.  When I got home and took some aspirin and got into my recliner, I felt better, but only had a small amount of dinner and decided to go to sleep halfway through The Blacklist, at 9:30.  I woke up at 1:30 and now, at a little after 4, I am going back to the couch to see if I can get a couple more hours of sleep.

Notes from the Little Red Hen

Remember the Lamplighters history?  I can't remember exactly how much I've written about it here, but let's pretend I have written very little (because even if I've written the whole story, nobody is going to remember it this far away from when it was written) and let's go back to the beginning and discuss where we are now.

• First I get an e-mail from someone who wants to do an updated history for the 60th anniversary and would I be willing to give the group some advice.
• So I write to my co-author Alison and tell her about my e-mail and admit that I am crazy enough to get involved again.  She tells me that she's been thinking that she is going to be having time on her hands when she retires and actually, she's crazy enough to come with me to the first group meeting and think about getting involved too.
• We go to the "group" meeting, and find out the "group" is us and the woman who wants to make sure there is a book for the 60th anniversary, the the woman who is in charge of the company.  As we talk and realize how completely ill-prepared they are for this project, we begin to feel a responsibility to see that the book gets done well and when we leave we are, to our surprise, in charge.   We did have some conditions, this time, though...we laid out what we will do and what we won't do and are promised that they will find lots of people to take over the jobs we don't want to do, they are so grateful that we are willing to interview, transcribe, and write the book.
• A long time passes because I am waiting for Alison to retire so we can start interviews, because we decide it would be better to do them together and we have, actually, three years before the book is scheduled to be released and it seems like forever...more than enough time.
• We finally start the interviews, but we have time constraints and scheduling times when we are both available to come to an interview gets difficult.   More time passes with almost nothing getting done, though we do a few interviews.
• Life intervenes for Alison and several totally unexpected family problems surface which make it impossible for her to work for a few months, but she expects things to iron out eventually.
• They don't.
• A guy who has been in the chorus forEVer has taken on the task of doing the huge roster in the back of the book...and he is actually doing what he said he would do.  This is a good thing.
• At a show, after a long period of inactivity, Alison get together and talk honestly about what problems we are each having, and what promises have not been fulfilled on the Lamplighters part and we sadly admit that though we have done very little, the combination of frustration and life problems have made us reach the decision that we really don't want to do this project after all.  I write the "thanks, but no thanks" letter and we are out of the history business.
• The woman who is the head of the company, and who has been kind of overseeing this project, but not really very well because of her own life complications, resigns from the Lamplighters.
• In February of this year, someone new took on the task of coordinating the project.  She's a go-getter and is not going to take NO for an answer when it comes to getting this book done. She asked if we could meet so I could give her advice (I've learned that this is never a good idea!) and by the end of the lunch she treated me to, my guilt had resurfaced and I agreed to come back on board again, since she seemed so much more efficient than the previous coordinator.  I told her that one of the things bogging me down was that I had done no transcription, partly due to my numb fingers making it difficult to do the heavy duty typing that transcription would require, and it would help me tremendously if they could get people to help with transcription (something I had asked for and been promised two years before).  She agrees and is sure she can find people willing to help out.
• At the same time, Alison says things are looking up and she thinks she might also be able to help in a month or two, so I put things on hold until we can get back to interviewing again.  I figure I'll work on transcription until helpers are found. 
• I don't.
• Finally Alison admits once and for all that looking ahead with all the new situations popping up, she just can't be involved at all.
• This leaves me the only interviewer and writer...and I still haven't heard about who wants to help transcribe.
• The guy doing the data base reaches a halting point because whoever designed the software didn't think we would reach the space limit.  We have and there is still lots to be done.  (This problem may have been solved by now, I hope.  The best part of all of this is that the roster IS getting done)
• I get a call from the coordinator who, bless her, really wants this to work, but doesn't want to work on it herself because of her own personal situation.   But now she decides maybe she can hire someone to hep with transcription.   (I have to admit that since I am doing all this as a volunteer, including paying for gas every time I drive to the Bay Area to do an interview, that I find this somewhat insulting, but I thank her and tell her to go for it. I know she didn't think the "payment" part through.)
• The latest chapter is that when I saw the coordinator recently, several weeks after she was going to hire someone to help, she asked me how she should go about finding someone to do transcription.  Oh for Pete's sake.  Do I have to do everything?  I feel like the little red hen who keeps asking people to help her bake bread, but everyone is too busy to help her, but is ready to enjoy the bread when it is baked.
• I think about this transcription business for a long time and finally realize that the only way this is going to get done is for me to do it myself.   So now I am the sole interviewer, transcriptionist and writer.  I think we have someone who will design the book and choose photos but obviously if the book is to be done at all, it is up to me and if I quit, it will never get done.

The Lamplighters 60th anniversary has now come and gone and I'm now looking toward the 65th or 70th anniversary.  It is clear that this book (if it ever gets written) won't be anything like the original two because it will lack the co-authorship of Alison, who was really the brains of the previous two books.  I will admit to being the heart of at least the second book.  For one thing, when we wrote the last book, everyone involved was in their 30s and 40s.  Now we are in our 50s and 60s (and Alison and me 70).  I should take my mother's attitude and laugh it all off with "I'm too old.  I can't be expected to do that...")

But we I should be able to produce something that people won't hate, which will be quite a coup for someone who was terrified to write anything in the first book!

---

Anybody who wants to waste half an hour to hear me and my colleague Jeff interviewed about theater in the Davis area, the recording will stream here.

Mercury in Retrograde

Is Mercury in retrograde?  Isn't that when everything is supposed to go wrong? Or at least isn't that the excuse everyone uses when a day seems to build disasters on disasters.  Well, not exactly disaster, but just little annoyances.

The project for today was getting a document notarized for my mother and send it off to her financial guys.  She had also called to ask me to get her some toilet paper.  Last week we had gone out together to get her some toothpaste.

I bought the toilet paper, came to the apartment and handed it to her.  She put a new roll in the holder and the rest in the cupboard and then walked out of the bathroom and said "When we go out today, we need to stop at a store.   I have things I need to get.  I need to get toothpaste and toilet paper."   I reminded her I had just given her toilet paper not 2 minutes before and she went back into the bathroom to check and make sure I was telling her the truth.  She also checked for toothpaste and was surprised to find an unopened tube.

Before we went to the notary, I looked over the activities at the facility for the day.  I saw that something called "Keep your brain sharp" was starting in about 3 minutes.  I suggested we go check that out, have lunch, and then go to the notary.  She agreed

We met the woman who runs this particular brain class and found out that it had been rescheduled, but we talked with her about it and it sounds like fun.   Even my mother thought it sounded like fun, and the activities director talked about what improvements in brain function she has seen people have from playing the games in the class.  The next class is on Friday, before the hair appointment she has scheduled, so I will go with her to that (Walt says "don't tell them it's for you too or they might charge you."  Harumph.  Smart aleck)

With no class to attend, we drove down to the notary office.   The first thing he asked for was her ID, but she'd left her purse at home.   That was really my fault for not reminding her, but we had to return to her apartment to get it.  So we drove back (by way of Logos, so she could see the book store) 

When we got to Covell, I dropped her off and was going to wait in the drop-off point in the foyer, but a Covell bus came in, so I had to circle back and park behind it.  There is enough room for the bus to park and a car to pass it, but two women got out and just stood there, watching me trying to back up and maneuver around so I could get out.  They didn't even make an ATTEMPT to move to let me pass the bus.

Then we went back to the Notary, this time with the proper identification (once she found it in her purse, which is THE frustration of all trips.   She can never find the right card.)  She tried her AAA card, her Visa card, and her MediCare card before I reminded her where she keeps her driver's license, and even then she couldn't find it because she didn't know what it looked like.

Turns out we need a super duper notary, not a run of the mill notary.   Something called a Medallion notary for large money accounts (my mother's is NOT a large money account, but her brokerage handles large accounts).  The notary tried to find out where there was a Medallion Notary near here, but he could only find one...in Orangevale, at the other end of the state. But we tried a work around and hope that it will satisfy the folks who need to have the notarization.

She wanted to go to "a nice place" to eat, so we went to Panera for lunch.  Instead of being surrounded by old people pushing walkers she was surrounded by young people on computers.  She pointed out to me several times that there were 7 women around her with black hair down to their waists.

After lunch, I dropped her off at home (did not go in with her, which is nice that I can do that now) and then came here.

My plan was to spend the afternoon catching up on some DVR stuff that had been recorded while we were in Santa Barbara and to finally start working on transcription for the history project again.  This project is becoming the albatross around my neck.  My co-author finally had to admit that she just doesn't have the time to work on it, so it now is all mine, which would be OK except that there is such a stack of work to be done...which should have been done 2 years ago.

For one thing, there is finally someone to work on the huge database, but nobody thought to check and make sure the on-line database had an unlimited storage and they have reached the limit of entries that can be stored, with lots more to go.  Secondly, I had asked for help with transcription and nobody has volunteered, so now they are going to try to hire someone to help (never mind that nobody has offered me anything for doing everything else...not that I want to be paid, but hearing that they will hire someone to transcribe, but not offer me money to interview [which usually involves 160 miles driving each time], transcribe, write the book, and then design it is kind of a slap in the face). In fairness, if I asked for money to do this, they would probably give it to me, but I'm enjoying being a martyr. 

But that may be a moot point anyway because it seems that the sound on my computer is not working.  It was working a couple of days ago, but I get no sound on anything, including especially the interviews to be transcribed.  I've checked all settings and everything seems to be the way it is supposed to be.

Tomorrow we have a fun activity planned, which should go off without a hitch.  I hope.

Just When I Thought I Was Out...

....they pull me back in.

I thought we had taken care of the Lalmplighter History months ago, when Alison and I decided that our personal situations had made it difficult, if not practically impossible to continue.  Sadly, we submitted our resignation, with many apologies.

It's been a peaceful, stress-free few months.

Last week, I had e-mail from someone who has just taken over as the new coordinator of the project, asking if I had received a group mailing from her (I had not) and if I might consider coming to a meeting of the new committee and answering some questions about the project.

Alison and I had both been thinking that we would still like to be part of the project, but in a much smaller capacity, so I said I would be willing to come to a meeting.  The new coordinator and I agreed to meet today to discuss where we stood, and she wanted to get my feelings about what exactly needed to be done to complete the project.

We met at this great deli in Berkeley.

She's a friend, so we got caught up on stuff, but also had a productive meeting about the history project.  I made some suggestions, that Alison and I would be willing to write the book and perhaps to do a few more interviews, but my typing problems are making it difficult for me to do the heavy transcription I thought I would be doing, and Alison's time conflicts make it difficult for her to do the kind of research she thought she would be doing.  Giving up those jobs means that Alison and I have to compromise some things, but we are committed to doing the project and are willing to do that if it will get the project done.

So...we'll see what happens.  A meeting of the committee is to take place in a couple of weeks and we will discuss this with everyone else.   So...who knows...I may have been pulled back in again, just when I thought I was out.

It was a glorious day in Berkeley.  Spring has positively exploded there.

All over the city were these trees in full blossom.  These are, I believe, Japanese cherry trees, which do not bear fruit.

The weather was so beautiful (and I was only 30 minutes from finishing my audio book and wanted to start the next book before getting on the freeway) that I decided to drive around for a little bit, taking pictures.  This is the house we lived in when Jeri and Ned were babies and I was pregnant with Paul.

Looks pretty much the same as it did when we lived there!

On days like this, in the middle of the day before rush hour, with a good audio book playing in the car, the drive home again is really delightful and the whole day was such a nice one.

Miles to Go Before I sleep

I've had longer days, with lots more miles, but this one just seemed very long, starting with getting home from the internment at 5:30 last night and being so exhausted I wanted to go to sleep at 8:30, but staying awake until nearly 11.

This morning I was going to the Bay Area for the second of our two Lamplighters interviews this week. The time was set for 11 a.m. at the home of a lovely woman who lives in Oakland. I kind of got the times mixed up and actually left Davis a full hour before I meant to, but it turned out to be a good idea because I missed a crucial turn on the freeway. Since I last drove that road, they had apparently built a new offramp that was on the left side of the freewayinstead of the right side, which I didn't notice until too late to change 4 lanes of traffic, and I ended up getting hopelessly lost in an area with which I used to be pretty familiar. I eventually resorted to using the GPS to get me back on track. The entire mis-adventure took about 20 minutes but I still arrived half an hour before the appointed time. I drove around for a bit looking for somewhere to get a cup of coffee (unsuccessfully), and finally went back to the home of our subject, all of which meant I arrived only 20 minutes early instead of nearly an hour early.

The interview was delightful. Both of the women we interviewed this week are "new" to the company (which means they joined within the last 15 years!) and were people we did not know, and both were just so interesting.

This particular interview today was so emotional that both our subject and I ended up fighting tears.

When it was over, Alison and I went to have lunch. Now this should have been a simple exercise, but there was no neighborhood coffee shop, so we had to decide where to go (we each had our own car). I made one suggestion of an area I know fairly well, since we lived near there and Alison and I had already had lunch there once, but she preferred to head in the opposite direction, which would take her closer to where she lives. We decided to eat in Alameda, but we didn't know where. We were going to do this all by cell phone. The original plan was to head to Alameda and then call each other to suggest places.

I got my GPS to direct me to Alameda and poor old "Nigel" didn't realize he was guiding me through some of the scuzziest parts of Oakland, which was not particularly comfortable. After two phone calls, we finally decided to head to the mall, which I knew I could find (it's only about 4 blocks long at the dead end of the street we were one, so I figured my chances were good).

We chose a restaurant and had a lovely lunch, where we taked over where we are in the book and what we need to concentrate on next. This book is quite different from our other two. I was struck by the fact at both interviews this week that the "new" people we are interviewing are speaking with awe about current designers and directors whom we remember when they first entered the company as lowly choristers or seamestresses. It makes me feel so old. Today's subject commented on a woman who sings in the chorus now and remarked that she remember when she was just a kid in high school...I admitted that I remembered when her parents met!

When lunch was over, I had to get to my mother's, on the other side of San Francisco bay. My route for the day looked something like this:

It's not nearly as long as driving to Santa Barbara, but it sure seemed long. I was going to my mother's to show her pictures of Lacie and to meet Walt and his sister. Walt had spent the night at his brother's, along with his sister and her husband, and she was bringing him to meet me so I could drive him home. She also wanted to visit with my mother.

It was fascinating watching my mother in action today. She couldn't remember why I was there, didn't know why Alice Nan was coming to see her, didn't remember that I was going to Santa Barbara this week, thought I was going there for some other reason than to see the new baby, asked me the same thing several times, couldn't seem to remember anything, but when Walt and Alice Nan arrived, she was sharp as a tack and didn't seem to lose her memory once. I guess she just needs constant stimulation....or to be the hostess at all times, working hard to make everyone comfortable!

It was aboaut 7:30 when Walt and I got home and the dogs were happy to have dinner. I had left dinner in the crock pot, so it was all cooked by the time we got here, which was nice. Then we settled in to watch the opening of Desperate Housewives and asked ourselves, not for the first time, why we are continuing to watch this show!

I am feeling better as the day closes, but there were times today when it just seemed very long indeed and I'm glad that it's over.

The Perks

The reason you do something like writing a Lamplighters history is because you get to see all sorts of fun people. Sometimes the interviews are good, sometimes not as good as anticipated, and sometimes they are little gems that you want to remember forever.

Today was the "little gem" kind of interview.

I didn't have Bonnie Halford on my initial list of people who should be interviewed, because I hadn't realized what an integral role she played in the Lamplighters triumphant trip to Buxton, England.

Unfortunately, after I made the appointment to interview her on a Friday, I learned that was never a good day for Alison, but since that was the best day of the week for Bonnie, I went ahead and kept the appointment myself.

We were to meet at the Dipsea Cafe in Mill Valley, across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. It was a good place for me because that put me in Marin County and I could stop and visit my mother after our lunch.

I actually brought my camera with me, and didn't think to take a picture of the restaurant, but this is the general layout. As you might be able to tell, there is a parking lot attached to the restaurant, which is the low building with lights in front of the large grey building. In this photo, there are places to park. Not so when I got there. For one thing, it is a one-way parking lot and when you get to the end, there is a chain fence and no place to turn around, if the slots are filled. You have to back up, which is even more difficult when there are three cars lined up behind you, giving you no space to move.

But I did finally manage to get out onto the street, and after driving around for about 10 minutes, I came upon a car that was just leaving a spot directly across from the cafe. (Thank you, Gilbert)

But "directly across from the cafe" meant that you had to cross Highway 1 which had cars whizzing by very fast coming in a solid stream in both directions. I thought surely there must be an underpass walkway or something, but I didn't see one (Bonnie told me later that there actually is one). I finally found a guy who was also trying to cross and we decided we'd cross together and, miracle of miracles managed to hit a split second when it was clear in both directions and sprinted across the highway. I nearly lost a Birkinstock but managed to get to the restaurant alive, and with both shoes.

To get back to my car, I had Bonnie (who arrived after I did and managed to get a spot in the parking lot) drive me across the street! It was easier to nudge a car into the stream of traffic than a human body.

It was a great little cafe and I had read that the service was terrible, which it was, but that was exactly what we needed, since it gave us plenty of uninterrupted time to chat. Never mind that they never refilled my coffee cup or that we sat there for 20 minutes waiting for the check. The food was great and the interview was better.

We talked for about an hour and 45 minutes, partly official interview and part reminiscing, since Bonnie is someone from "my" era and we experienced many of the same things. We both talked about things that will never make it to print, but that's why it's fun to be the interviewers and writers of this book because you get to hear all the behind the scenes dirt once you've promised your subject that it will never see the light of day and nobody will ever hear it except yourself.

The nice thing about Bonnie was she was so incredibly quotable with wonderful observations and comments about other people and I know we will use a lot of her comments in the book. Not only were they quotable but they were articulate and in at least one, and I think more than one instance, downright poetic in their beauty. I love people who can express themselves well!

It was 3 p.m. before I left the restaurant and then I got caught in such bad traffic that I decided I'd better pull off and find a gas station, since my gauge was on empty. The warning light hadn't come on yet, and you have some time after it does, but the traffic looked pretty solid and I didn't want to risk running out before I could get to my mother's. Of course I drove around so much after I got off the freeway before I found a gas station that I probably could have made it to my mother's anyway, but I would have been a nervous wreck, so better that I stopped.

We had a nice visit and I stayed for dinner before finally heading home. It's been a busy week, but I have nowhere to go tomorrow and am looking forward to spending the day at home! (I'll probably stay home and watch the hurricane inch up the east coast, wondering how strong it will be by the time it hits Boston.)

The Yin and the Yang of Life

This morning we received the sad news that we are not on "a" death watch, but on two death watches. Walt's mother's cousin Nora, in Ireland, of whom we have grown so fond over these years was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago, but she is now in hospital and not expected to live, so you'll understand if I cringe a bit whenever the phone rings, wondering if this is "the call" for one of the two of them.

This is such a shitty time for too many people I know. A good friend just lost her job and is out of work for the first time in her life, and unable to apply for the type of job for which she has been working all these years because she was too busy working and raising kids and never had time to get a Masters degree. And, pushing 60, she's probably too old anyway!

Others are caught in the whole housing boom/bust thing and now having to give up their wonderful home because they owe more than it's worth and they need to find a place to rent.

My mother's hip is bothering her and the doctors can offer her no pain relief and say that even acupuncture won't help.

I feel so incredibly helpless in the face of all the pain for so many people I love.

But life does go on and today I was interviewing the Lamplighters tech crew. We met at a home in the hills above San Jose. Waaay above San Jose. In fact, Walt said that no wonder it was called Sierra Rd. because by the time you got there you felt like you had driven over one of the passes in the Sierras.

Our trusty GPS, Nigel, got us unerringly to the mail box for the house, but it's another 1/2 mile or so down what might almost be called a road to the house itself.

But when you get there...oh. my. goodness. Wouldn't you know I would leave my camera at home! There is a deck that I swear is so big you could stage a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta there. And it overlooks downtown San Jose. Miles in every direction. I swear if you stood on tiptoe, you could probably see Alaska from there on a clear day. What an amazing view.

It's a 4 (I think) bedroom house on 2-1/2 levels and each bedroom is worthy of a 4-star hotel, with the master suite (including a sauna) worthy of a 5-star hotel. The master bedroom also overlooks that sweeping vista. There are 3 living rooms and 2 pools and I don't know what else outside, since I mostly oohed and ahhed over the furnishings inside. I told them if I had that view from my kitchen sink, I might actually wash dishes.

The house had been acquired in a foreclosure and the former residents had apparently trashed the place, so it has been under re-construction for the past year, but they are having an open house on Sunday, so I will return...this time with camera in hand. (I have to get a photo of that God-Man Sistine Chapel ceiling in the dining room!)

The interview was fun. I love that group. We reminisced about the Lamplighters trip to the 2nd International Gilbert & Sullivan festival in Buxton, England, where we ran away with all the major awards. The tech crew came prepared to build the set there and didn't realize they would (a) be building it in the street, (b) have the use of no power tools, and (c) be unable to buy the right color paint! Ahhh...but these are the things of which good stories are made, if not perfect sets.

We also remembered the time the tech crew got on an old reconditioned train car, which one of them owned, and rode on the back of an Amtrak train to Reno for the day, and we talked about the ones who either died too soon or who just disappeared out of our lives.

And was that one guy REALLY a pedophile? Or did he just have the same name as someone arrested in a pedophile scandal? Nobody has seen him since. 'Tis a puzzlement.

Photos were passed around and that is always fun. I'm sorry more of the old crew weren't able to join us, but there were 5 and that made for a nice number for an interview.

This is My LIfe

Alison and I met in Berkeley today to do another Lamplighters interview. We got there early and went out to lunch, then still had half an hour to kill, so we sat in the car while she presented me with a gift, of sorts.

Let me give you a piece of advice right now. If you ever are so foolish as to embark on a project like writing the 25 year history of a theater company, by all means partner with someone as anal retentive as Alison -- and I mean that in the most laudatory, affectionate way.

I'm not a big believer in astrology, but almost every Virgo I've known has been neat and organized (even if he wasn't that way when he was living at home, Ned). And I personify the stereotypical Aquarian traits for messiness and disorganization.

Alison is a Saggitarius and I don't know what their organizational strengths and weaknesses are supposed to be but organization is Alison's middle name. I cannot believe the stuff she has unearthed from our previous books as we have been working our way through this new project. She got a big plastic bag out of the back seat and pulled out of it a huge accordion folder inside of which were smaller subfolders, all neatly labeled...the entire correspondence between the two of us during the writing of the first book. My letters, and copies of her letters to me.

The first letter in this voluminous collection, dated June 1975, is from me and it starts:

Dear Mrs. Lewis:

I would very much like to be a part of the preparation of the History of the Lamplighters. Though I live some distance from the Bay Area, we are there quite often and if it is possible for me to help out either here in Davis or there, I offer my services...

Her answer begins:

Dear Ms. Sykes:

I was delighted to get your letter of last month, and I welcome you aboard with enthusiasm.

And thus began a friendship and a collaboration which has lasted (so far) 36 years.

The letters are a treasure trove and detail not only our gradual collaboration, working out the knotty problems we encountered in trying to decide how we were going to approach this project, but also the lives of our families as well. We both had forgotten how much work Charlotte put in on the project in the initial stages, and that Alison and I discovered that we were both friends with Jeri's godmother, Jeri.

I've only just begun to wade through all of this, but I loved this, from me:

Since "Patience," our house has become a "hotbed of aestheticism." All the boys (8, 6, 5, 3) are enamored of muscle men (thanks to my father) and Walt has taught them all "you hold yourself like this" and they prance around the living room singing and striking muscular poses. While this goes on, Jeri (our daughter) is in the family room playing "we sail the ocean blue" on the piano. No wonder our neighbors all think we are a bit odd.

Then there was this exchange between Alison and myself which should have struck an ominous chord for us:

Alison: I'm impressed that no one seems to know we are doing a History -- not one of the principals and chorus I've been introduced to has said, "Oh you're the one doing the history." And I thought we were important.

Me: Don't worry about nobody knowing you -- WE really know our worth... [that's a quote from The Mikado]

Over the writing of two books, we would come to understand that you don't get praise for a project like this in The Lamplighters. You do it because you want to do it, not because anybody is going to pat you on the back and say "job well done."

This letter to Alison also contained a report on Tom's first days in kindergarten, since her son Sherman was also starting kindergarten. Tom is so unenthusiastic it's ridiculous--I've spent more time in kindergarten this past week than I did when I was 5. However, he seems to be adjusting...a little...perhaps next week. My next letter said, Tom is improving. Still left him crying at school this a.m., but he managed to let me go without any teacher holding him back. Maybe in another couple of months we'll have it all worked out.

This was perhaps my favorite so far...with miles to go before I finish. We were still talking about how to organize all the material (which was presented to us in 2 giant garbage bags, containing 25 years worth of stuff!):

There is absolutely no reason to have 20 copies of a 2-line mention in some obscure paper--but who is going to throw it away? Likewise, some sort of order to photos could really be valuable to whoever is going to be doing the 50 year book!

In 1975 we certainly had no idea that there would be no 50 year history but that 36 years later we would be working on the 60th!

I can't wait to read the rest of this history.

Water for Elephant Seals

Fortunately, I had agreed to do an interview on the way home from Santa Barbara, because it got us out of the house early, without any much dawdling.

Anita had worked for the Lamplighters for about 9 years, arriving shortly before I left, so our terms there overlapped, briefly. She now lives near Hearst Castle, which is about a 4-5 hour drive from here, but when she volunteered to be interviewed, it was right before we were leaving for Santa Barbara and I told her that if, by chance, she was going to be available on Monday, we could stop by and interview her on the way home.

Serendipity.

We got to her house around 11, had an interview, and then went down to a fish 'n' chips place for lunch. Cayucas is a town of about 6,000 people, we learned, and there isn't much to the town but a few shops (antique dealers and surf shops seem to be popular!) and from the dock you can see the big rock that juts out at Morro Bay.

We also discovered that people don't pay much attention to the rules around town.

But we had a nice visit and then Walt and I started our way back. We decided to take a detour and drove past Hearst Castle...

You can tell when youre getting close to Hearst Castle because you see cows and zebras grazing together on the hillside, the zebras no doubt distant relatives of some of the exotic species Wm. Randolph Hearst had installed on the grounds around his famous castle.

But our destination was about 5 miles farther up the road. We were going to look at the elephant seals lying on the beach sunning themselves. There is a sign guiding you to the spot, a parking lot and a walkway that goes along the beach where you can stand and watch these huge creatures snoring away.

However, the first time I saw these behemoths was about 25 years ago and we were driving with our friend David and his son and all of a sudden David yelled "pull over here." We had no clue why we were pulling over, but we did and when we came over the crest of the sand, there were all these sea lions just lying there. You could walk right up to them. Obviously there must have been "incidents" over the years that caused the Parks Department to install a safety walkway, which acts as a barrier between the humans and the animals. I know it's much better for both humans and sea lions, but I will never forget standing close enough to a huge bull to feel its breath on my foot as it snored!

The drive home was uneventful, the dogs were thrilled to see us, and I have a busy week ahead of me, so it's good to be back and ready to go to sleep again! Really, a very, very nice weekend!

You CAN Go Home Again

I love days like today.

Now that our trip to China is over and Alison's two children have had their first babies (though technically speaking it was Sherm Jr.'s WIFE who actually had the baby), we are knuckling down and cranking out the interviews. I did one last week, I have two telephone interviews set up for next week, I am doing an interview on Monday, we have an interview on the 20th, and I have a tentative group interview later this month.

But today we were interviewing John Alecca.

John took over leadership of the Lamplighters in 1991. He was one of a field of 60 interviewing for the job, and during his tenure at the Lamplighters, the company went through some of its major changes.

It lost the theater where it had performed for more than 20 years and literally had to find a new home overnight (police came into the theatre in the middle of a rehearsal and told the actors that they had to leave the theatre now because it was being remodeled and there was going to be asbestos in the building...the new owners had forgotten to let them know ahead of time!)

Under Alecca's term, the company took a huge leap forward from performing in school auditoriums on the outskirts of San Francisco, to performing in professional union houses downtown.

The repertoir expanded experimentally, starting with My Fair Lady. Until that time, the mainstay was Gilbert & Sullivan, with the occasional other show, mostly written during the same time period as the G&S operettas. My Fair Lady was different because though it was set in the same period, it was actually a contemporary piece. And it was wildly successful.

John organized the Lamplighters trip to compete in the 2nd Annual International Gilbert & Sullivan festival in Buxton, England, a monumental undertaking, bringing an entire theater company (actors, set builders, and a group of devoted audience members) to England. Nobody knew what was going to happen at the festival -- we definitely didn't expect to win all the big prizes and go home with the prize for the best production of the festival...but we did.

Walt and I went to Buxton, and took my mother, who had never seen Gilbert & Sullivan before. Walt went as part of the tech crew (that discovered it had to build a set in the middle of the street for the performance!). It was such a fabulous experience, meeting other G&S companies from The United States and from England (there might have been another country involved--I don't remember). My best memory of the experience was getting a kiss from John Reed, the famous d'Oyly Carte patterman (retired by that time) who had been my favorite for a long time. I gave him a copy of each of our two histories and he kissed me. One of the high points of my life to that point!

It was under Alecca's leadership that The Lamplighters made its so-far only CD. They rented space at Skywalker Ranch (yes that Skywalker Ranch) to record it and he told us today that at that time it was the only compilation of G&S songs recorded in the United States, that they could discover. Not only that, but it immortalized some iconic Lamplighters performances from people who are no longer with us, or who no longer perform.

I was still active with The Lamplighters during the early years of John's 7-8 year leadership and so we had a lot of the same memories, things that I had forgotten all about. It was like taking a giant step back in time talking and laughing with him.

That's the best thing about this new history project--remembering. I love it.

"Family"

Lemme tell you, if you want to be treated royally while you are doing an interview, you gotta go to Kathy's house. (hi, Kathy)

We have conducted more than 100 interviews for the 3 Lamplighters books and we have been offered everything from...nothing (try doing a 2+ interview without so much as the offer of a glass of water!) to lunch at a local restaurant. Well, lunch was pretty good, but for an in-home interview, specialty gourmet teas (roasted almond and pomegranate, to name two) and a choice of not one but three gourmet desserts from a local bakery and offer to host other interviews there...well, that ranks right up there!

Today was my chance to sit down and talk about the orchestra. Alison and I have done all of the interviews so far together, but she's cavorting on the east coast at the moment, so I took this one on myself.

I figure surely this is our last chance at writing part of the Lamplighters history and there are some specific omissions in the previous two books that I want to rectify in this book. They aren't so much omissions so much as recognizing groups within the company who came into prominence as cohesive groups since we wrote Book 2 and I want to make sure that they are given their due on this book.

The Lamplighters began in 1952 and for the first nearly 20 years of its existence, the actors on stage were accompanied by two pianos. In our first book, we wrote one chapter which quoted something a reviewer said once, "someone should buy the Lamplighters an orchestra." Well, in 1971, thanks to an agreement with the musicians' union, someone essentially did buy the Lamplighters an orchestra, or at least make it financially possible to include a small orchestra.

Over the years, there has been more money to pay the musicians, to hire additional musicians (I am told that the addition of a 3rd violinist made all the difference in the world) and began to turn the Lamplighters from a very good community theatre to a "technically not professional, but professional quality" theater.

The unique thing about the Lamplighters orchestra is that so many members have been with the group for more than twenty years. Their loyalty is amazing, which I suspect may be unique among theatre groups like the Lamplighters (if there are any theatre groups like the Lamplighters). Not only do they play for all the shows, but they have volunteered to play for sing-alongs and have worked fund-raising events when invited to do so. That's so NOT like a typical band!

I asked both Cathy and Diane, and later Lucy, who called in on the phone) why they have stayed around for so long and all three of them said the same thing -- it's their family. In many ways it reminds me of the Pinata group. They socialize together, go to each other's concerts, take interest in each other's children (those who have children), attend funerals of each other's families, and all the things that have made the Pinata group a family as well.

It's the same with the old tech crew, whom I will interview next month. When the company had to start playing in union houses, it meant that the tech crew which had worked together for so many years could no longer work on shows, since San Francisco is a very strong union town and if you are in a union house you can only use union technicians.

But the technicians had developed a very close relationship and strong friendships and they still get together socially at least two or three times a year. I look forward to gathering a handful of them to interview them about what kept them around so long, and what keeps them coming back year after year when there is no show to work on any more. I suspect they, too, stick around because they became "family" long ago.

I always love getting together with people from "my" era with the Lamplighters and looking back, reminiscing about the people and the events that I remember well. Diana and Cathy are two of my favorite Lamplighters people and it was just fun hanging out with them this afternoon...the bread pudding and red velvet cupcakes didn't hurt either.

I tried to leave before 4 p.m. and did...but just barely. I was too late to miss rush hour traffic.

Ahead of me and behind me was bumper to bumper, stop and go traffic as far as the eye could see. It turned an hour and a half trip home into more than 2 hours, but that was OK because it gave me time to finish listening to my latest audio book!

Tomorrow I head for San Diego for a long-anticipated weekend with my friend Lynn. This time it's Walt's turn to stay home and keep the dogs from bugging Mr. McCoy!

Communication gap

I'm really going to have to learn how to communicate better. I'm obviously doing something wrong.

If you were to get this message from me, setting up the time for an interview, what would you think?

"Shall we say 6 p.m.?"

We showed up at the interviewee's house at 6 p.m. on the dot and they had expected us at 8. Not only that but the spouse seemed somewhat disgruntled because there were other things that they had planned to take care of between 6 and 8, when they expected us.

I apologized profusely, sure that the mistake was mine, but still thinking that I would not have made an interview appointment for 8 p.m., knowing that I would have to drive 80 miles home after it was over.

But, no matter. We got that settled and had a great interview.

The exchange with today's interview subject included this: "I'll be on the road by 10, but I'm meeting Alison at the Grand Lake and we'll find a restaurant somewhere around there. I'll call you when I get to Oakland." The interviewee then suggested a Japanese restaurant near where I was meeting Alison.

When we arrived at the appointed place of the interview, there was surprise because the interviewee had no idea there would be two of us coming and thought that the interview was going to be conducted at the Japanese restaurant.

Sigh. Did I not say "Alison and I" and did I not specifically say that "we" were going to have lunch, "not YOU and I of course, but Alison and I" ??

As I said, I need to learn how to communicate better. Tomorrow we are doing an interview at 11 a.m. at the home of the subject. I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to screw that one up.

However, despite the mix-up, the lunch was FABULOUS. We had been recommended a Japanese restaurant in Oakland called Mijori. One of those little neighborhood hole-in-the-wall places that looks like a hundred other places, but this was so good. Alison had a rice bowl, which looked wonderful.

I had a bento box with my choice of ingredients. I chose beef gyoza and tempura and it was amazing.

Everything was flavorful and the fried stuff was very light, not greasy-heavy at all. Best of all, neither lunch cost more than $10. Definitely the high point of the day.

The Threatened Cloud Has Passed Away

Last week, I had to pospone an interview because of all the fog on the freeway which terrified me. We rescheduled it to today and the weather cooperated.

It was a weird ride down to San Francisco, though. We had clear, blue skies here in Davis but about 20 miles down the road, I ran into heavy fog--not ground-hugging fog like last time, but high fog which didn't really impede traffic, though I noticed that the highway patrol was out in force, perhaps because of the fog.

There was one spot where you go up into the hills, then down a steep hill and back up another one. I could see, starting up the hill, that it was sunny at the very top and when I got there and looked out, down into the valley, it was filled with billows of fog, interspersed with parts of the landscape that were higher and stood above the fog. I had, unfortunately, already passed the point where I could get out and take a photo, so was not able to capture it.

The only really heavy spot was crossing the Carquinez bridge, which practically disappeared in the fog, but once on the other side, it all began to turn from thick fog to just grey and I had no trouble whatsoever.

I met Alison at the BART station without a single screw up and we drove on over to San Francisco, which was sunny and lovely. We were half an hour early for our interview, so stopped at Starbucks to get some coffee and stragetize about the interview.

Baker and Ellen met in the Lamplighters, married, and now have two grown kids, one of whom plays the violin in the Lamplighters orchestra. Their daughter recently appeared as Katisha in a production of The Mikado in Sacramento.

I remember when both Baker and Ellen joined the company, and when Ellen moved out of the chorus and into principal roles. I also remembered when she substituted for Montserrat Caballé at the San Francisco Opera when the diva was unable to appear in a scheduled performance of Roberto Devereux.

As reported by Critic Robert Commanday, The work was so infrequently performed, there could hardly have been more than a few sopranos worldwide who knew the role of Elisabetta.

Ellen Kerrigan, a young Affiliate Artist who had sung an aria and duet from Devereux for a James Schwabacher lecture-demonstration, had been asked by the Devereux director, Jacques Karpo to stand in for Caballé during rehearsals, as a physical presence. That way she became familiar with the rest of the score. A week before the performance, when the conductor and/or Adler sensed something might happen, Kerrigan was asked to learn it (at no additional fee, of course). So in stepped the lovely slip of a company debutante in place of the large diva, and she did a very commendable job in the five remaining performances.

It was our one chance to go backstage at the SF opera. I remember rushing to the theatre to buy tickets, standing in line behind all the opera faithful who were returning their tickets because Caballé would not be singing.

Ellen was not an overnight sensation, but she did a damn good job and we were so proud of her and all crowded into the star dressing room after the performance to congratulate her.

So I have a long history with these people and the interview was fun, reminiscing about a lot of things.

When it was over, Alison and I found a nice outdoor cafe where we sat and had lunch and talked over the interview and the book.

I dropped Alison off at a BART station and continued on my way home, stopping at the Jelly Belly factory to buy socks, of all things. I can't eat Jelly Bellies any more (though I love them) because one of them made me lose a crown off my tooth a few years ago and Cindy suggested I give them up. But the company makes GREAT socks, which are the most comfortable I've ever worn, and seem to last forever, unless puppies get to them.

The weather all the way home was sunny and clear without a trace of the morning fog.

All in all a good day.

Pulling a Double Header

Not one but two interviews today! And lots of getting lost. I swear, by the time this book is written, I will know every BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station in the Bay Area.

Our first interview was at 1 p.m., with Kathryn, who was the woman who roped Alison and me into doing Book 3 of the Lamplighter History. We swore we were finished with writing about The Lamplighters way back in 1988 when our second book was published. But no, here we are doing it all over again...and even enjoying ourselves again, as we begin to get serious about working on it.

To do these interviews, I drive down from Davis (about 80 miles, give or take a few, depending on where the interviews are being held). Alison comes up from Hayward on BART. I pick her up at a BART station and we have our mini-meeting in the car before our interview or meeting or whatever we are going to.

Today since our first interview was in Daly City (slightly south of San Francisco--the town Melvina Reynolds' "Little Boxes" was written about), I suggested that I pick her up at the Daly City BART station and we could go together the last few miles to Kathryn's house.

She pointed out that we could meet at any BART station, but I don't know where all the San Francisco stations are and I knew exactly where the Daly City station was because I passed by it all the time drive through on the freeway. Daly City would be perfect.

Only it is one thing to know where a place is, and quite another to know how to get there. Anybody remember my entry about "losing" Ikea, though I could see it from the freeway. I just couldn't get to it.

This was like that. I have driven by the Daly City BART station for years. I knew it was right off John Daly Blvd. So I got off and tried to get to it but there were no signs. I drove and drove and drove until I finally saw one sign for a BART station. I called Alison to tell her I was almost there. Then I kept driving and driving until I finally stopped to ask where BART was. I was only 2 blocks away. From the COLMA BART station...Colma (the "city of the dead") was the next town down.

I got back on the freeway and drove back to John Daly Blvd. Getting off going in this direction was better because I could SEE The BART station. Right there in front of me. Signage and all. I even drove up to it, turned toward it, and couldn't find out how to get INTO it. I decided I must have to drive around it, so I drove past it, turned right and found myself back on the freeway. The next offramp was about 2 miles away so I had to drive 2 more miles. I got off the freeway again, turned around, drove back to John Daly Blvd. and finally got to the station, but still had a hell of a time getting TO the station. But I did find Alison, finally, and we headed to Kathryn's house. And we were only two minutes late!

We had a lovely lunch at Kathryn's, who must have thought we were bringing an army of minions with us because she fixed so much food, but everything was delicious. And we had a good interview. Kathryn is someone who is new to us and new to the Lamplighters in the last 25 years but she joined the company when her daughter joined the young people's program and then when her daughter went off to college, Kathryn just stayed around as a sort of piratical maid of all work and obviously has a great love for the company and desire to help out as much as she can.

I guess we were with her nearly 2 hours. Then we got on the freeway at 3:30 p.m., expecting to find lots of rush hour traffic, but it was clear sailing in to Alameda, where our next interview was scheduled for 6 p.m. I took a wrong turn off the freeway and had to kind of grope my way around the docks for a bit, but I knew where I was headed and was able to find it without too much trouble.

Alison's son and his wife (who are expecting their first baby) live in Alameda and so to kill time we stopped by their house and ended up eating dinner with them at the restaurant across the street. Then on to Jonathan's house.

We arrived at Jonathan's about 2 minutes late too (after a very minor "getting lost" period...though at least I am pretty familiar with this part of Alameda, so it was mainly a result of not being able to read street signs in the dark). There was apparently a mix-up about the time. I thought we were scheduled for 6 p.m., he thought we were scheduled for 8 p.m., but it all worked out anyway.

I dearly love Jonathan. He's talented, intelligent, and tells a good story. We chatted and reminisced about mutual experiences (such as our travel with The Lamplighters to Buxton, England, back in 1995--he even has pictures of my mother, who accompanied us on that trip). At the end of the interview, I also got Jonathan to share what it's like to be a contestant on Jeopardy (we watched him win his first game and lose the second), when I spied a photo of Jonathan and Alex Trebeck on display.

Leaving Jonathan's house, I was going to drop Alison off at the Fruitridge BART station. I knew exactly where it was because I used to take my friend Olivia there when she lived in Alameda. Only I took the wrong first turn and ended up wandering around the not very nice section of Oakland for a long time until we finally found it.

Tomorrow we are doing yet another interview in San Francisco. I will have to leave here at 8 a.m. to pick Alison up at the Richmond BART station. Should be no problem tomorrow. I know exactly where that BART station is.

I think.

Trip Down Memory Lane

Alison and I did our third interview today, interviewing Jim and Judy, who have been with The Lamplighters almost as long as we have been around, so they are people we have known for many years. Not only have we known them for many years, but they live in my old neighborhood, just about 3 blocks from where the first home Walt and I owned is, where we were living when Paul, David and Tom were born.

Jim and Judy actually live next door to the house our friends Pat and Rich owned back in the 60s-70s, so I was very familiar with their block.

The ride down from Davis was horrible. It was very, very, very foggy. I stopped in Pleasant Hill to take this photo. (The crosses represent the losses of our military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan.)

In some places it was more foggy, in some places less, but foggy, foggy, foggy all the way down to the Caldecot Tunnel, which separates Contra Costa County from Oakland. I drove through the tunnel and couldn't believe what happened when I got to the other end of it. It was like Dorothy opening the door to Oz. There wasn't a whisp of fog, the sky was clear blue and it was sunny. You'd never know that there was a whole valley full of fog on the other side of that tunnel!

I was half an hour early for the interview, so I went on a trip down memory lane. First I drove by our old house, which looks pretty much exactly as it was when we left it in 1973, except it's a different color now. I loved that house. I still do.

Then I drove past the store, over the bridge, past the trees, and by the stairs that Tom thinks are ladders. It was by sheer instinct that I remembered where to turn (because nothing really looked familiar) and found Grande Vista Ave., the location of our old nursery school, Tiny Tots. What a disappointment to discover that while the building is still there, it is no longer the playland of little kids.

(It's now the offices of the Oakland Family Services Center

Our interview with Judy and Jim was delightful and brought back lots of memories, as well as helped Alison and myself with some decisions regarding future interviews and layout of the book. I also loved the two dogs, Athena and Lily, who were so much better behaved than our dogs would have been (even if Athena did lick one of the scones)!

The ride back through the tunnel plopped me right back into the fog (though less thick by mid-afternoon). I stopped at BevMo on the way home to buy some vanilla liqueur so I can make something called an apple pie martini tomorrow at Cousins Day (the liqueur mixed with vodka, apple cider, and a twist of lime).

And yes, the next entry will be posted late because of Cousins Day.

But what a great day it was. Such fun being back to the place that was such a fun part of our lives.

Look Like a Pirate Day

I snuck out of the house this morning at the crack of dawn and, surrounded by thick fog, headed over to Cindy's office to get the temporary crown for my tooth. I considered bringing the headphones for my iPod, but decided not to take it. I regretted that decision as soon as I got in the dental chair and learned that this procedure was scheduled for 2 hours. Gleep. I had NO electronic gizmos with me...not even my cell phone.

But as it turned out that was a good thing. The procedure involved a lot of "do this, then sit and wait for 5 minutes..." moves, so Cindy and I got a lot of time to visit and get caught up on family, friends, health, and gossip. I just love going to Cindy's office when she is going to do a procedure because there's never a bit of pain (not even the injection of novocaine) and it's the only chance we have to get caught up on each other's lives. (Of course all that getting caught up on friendship comes with a hefty dental price!)

When all the prep work had been done, she imbedded my mouth in that cementy stuff and when it had time to harden she said "ok--open your mouth," when I discovered that I couldn't! I did eventually manage to open my mouth, but it was a really weird sensation to find my mouth cemented shut!

One of her dental assistants made the temporary crown, which is a nice shiny silver color and makes me look like a pirate if I smile broadly.

Arrrgh, mateys!

I woke up around 6 this morning, coughing. I tend to cough all the time anyway, but this was feeling different. There is an ominous feeling of "that darn cold" churning up in my lungs and I'm hoping that I'm not getting my annual cold. Fortunately we still have about half of the crate of oranges we bought last month, and I have been consuming lots of vitamin C. Everybody hold the good thought, though I do feel those nasty little mucus guys trying to set up camp.

Hey...I have a question to toss out to all of you knowledgeable folks here. I came up with what I thought was a brilliant idea yesterday. The 2 existing Lamplighters histories have lengthy indexes in them, in which you can find out which shows every single person who ever performed with the Lamplighters for the 35 years the two books cover was involved with. We will now add 25 more years worth of people and the index could take up 40% of the allotted space in the book.

I got the brilliant idea to put the entire index on a CD, add extra photos that won't fit in the book, and give people the option to buy it as a stand-alone or with the new book.

I thought mass producing some 500 (a number I pulled off the top of my head--it could be more) data CDs would be dirt cheap, but someone has suggested it would be very expensive. Does anyone have experience with this sort of thing and have a very rough ballpark estimate for whether it would be dirt cheap or "oh my god I can't believe it costs that much" expensive.