I am now officially a card-carrying member of the Woodland
Shakespeare Club, on whose waiting list I have been for about two years. Membership
is limited to 50 people, so someone has to drop out...or (given the age of a lot of the
members), die, for a new member to get in. My friend Sue's mother, who has been a
long time member but who lives a long way away and whose driver's license was not renewed
recently, decided to drop active membership, to give me a chance to become a regular
member.
Sue, whom I have known casually for many years and who belongs to
that awful club too many of us belong to, who have buried children, invited me to come to
a meeting of this group years ago. Knowing how much I do not like
Shakespeare, it will be no surprise that I was not really interested, but I agreed to come
out of curiosity and enjoyed myself. The group meets once a month, 9 months of the
year (and attendance is mandatory, unless you have written to the president to explain
that you will not be attending). Twice a year, in January and April, members can
bring guests, so I have been to, I think, three meetings. They apparently started
discussing Shakespeare, when the club was founded, though have branched out in all sorts
of other directions since.
There is some prestige in belonging to this club. With the fees
I paid to join, I received a very nice binder which gives the history of the club, which
was started in 1886, making it the second oldest book club in California (the oldest being
a group in Oakland, which was started ten years earlier). I haven't gotten too far
into reading the history of the organization yet, but I notice that everybody is referred
to as "Mrs. Smith" rather than by their first names and in the case of one
woman, who apparently was a physician, she is called "Mrs. Dr. Smith," the
marital status apparently being more important in 1886 than the profession.
The club's constitution states that "The object of this club is
intellectual and spiritual growth," so the approach to the books is scholarly (sort
of) and it's not the sort of place where you flounce around on plush cushions, drink wine
and laugh as you have your discussion! (I've been trying to find a group like that
to join for 40 years!!! They exist. Many friends have mentioned them and how
much bonding goes on and how important those women are to their lives, but I was never
invited to join, even when I hinted that I would love to be a part of that group.
But then, to quote Groucho Marx, would I want to belong to a group that would have me
for a member?)
I arrived at the Lions Club building in Woodland, about 10
miles from here, where meetings take place, yesterday afternoon, checkbook in hand, ready
to pay my dues, my membership fees (which pay for the nice book I received [which takes
the history up to only 2005] and the badge I will wear next meeting).
It's a big, cavernous room with a high ceiling and there are tables
placed in an O configuration, three sides being for members, and the front for the people
doing the month's presentation. I seated myself at the end of one table, remembering
that "those who exalt themselves shall be humbled and those who humble themseslves
shall be exalted." Not sure I was exalted, but I definitely felt humble there,
the newest member of this venerable institution!
Eventually Sue arrived and sat down with me and in due course the
meeting began. The main problem with this meeting is that the acoustics in the place
are abominable, and the microphone they use is nearly as bad. I really don't know if
I'm having hearing problems in my old age. It seems that the criticism I have of
most of the shows we attend lately is that I can't understand what is being said on stage,
which I blame on the sound system in bigger theaters and the failure of the actors to
project in the smaller community theater venues ... but maybe it's me. But
I did have to strain to hear much of what was said yesterday. Two women used
microphones, which made the sound fuzzy and two spoke without mics and were easier to
understand.
The book we were reading was "Ramona,"
by Helen Hunt Jackson, which was published in 1884. I think I read this
book when I was in high school or college, but remembered nothing about it, I discovered
as I began to read it. In fact, I really didn't think I was going to finish it on time,
but woke up at 4 a.m. yesterday (not by alarm, but because I just couldn't sleep) and
ended up finishing the book at 5 a.m. I'm glad I did because it made the discussion
more meaningful, of course!
Before the program started, someone suggested we have a sing along to
the old song "Ramona." Apparently she had made some copies of the music,
but they didn't make it down to our end of the table...still, I remember it from the days
when my father was playing songs like that on the piano. So dramatic and
schlocky!
...I press you, caress you |
For those unfamiliar with the story, Ramona is the
daughter of an Indian woman and a white man, who ends up being adopted by the man's barren
wife. When the wife is dying, she makes her sister, Senora Moreno promise to raise
the girl. Senora Moreno never likes the girl and her #1 priority is her son, Felipe,
who is running the ranch at the time the book opens (when Ramona is around 20).
Ramona falls in love with an Indian working on the ranch, which sends the Senora into
apoplexy at the horror of it, and ends up running away with the Indian, Alessandro, whom
she marries. The last part of the book follows the couple as they settle here and
there and another place, always being displaced by the government, moving the Indians off
of their lands as the American settlers take over. Their first daughter dies when a white
doctor refuses to come to an Indian house to treat her. They have another daughter,
but Alessandro is killed by a guy who thinks he stole a horse. Ramona ends up back
at the ranch, after Senora Moreno's death, and married to Felipe.
After a break for snacks (can't have a women's club meeting with out coffee and goodies!), we went back for a bit more history about the geographical area where the book is set and the effect the book had on American-Native relations (the author hoped this book would have as much of an influence on Indian affairs as "Uncle Tom's Cabin" had on slavery), and on the preservation of Old Town San Diego. Some discussion questions were thrown out to the group at large and a very brief discussion ensued.
The book is a real eye-opener about the deplorable treatment and
demoralization of the Indians and the destruction of the Indian culture. Whether Jackson
achieved her goal of being as influential as "Uncle Tom's Cabin" or not, one
thing is certain--she is responsible for the preservation of Old Town San Diego, which
depicts the way life was around the time Ramona would have lived.
You can even visit the place where Ramona and Alessandro were
married, though they are fictional characters and the description of where their marriage
supposedly took place was miles from here.
I also learned there is a Ramona festival, which has been presenting
a play based on the book every year in the "Ramona Bowl" in Hemet, California
since 1923. It's the longest-running outdoor drama in the United States and was
named the Official Outdoor Play of the State of California in 1993 (bet you didn't know we
had an official outdoor play, didja?). Historian Dydie DeLyser is quoted
as saying that "The most important woman in the history of Southern California never
lived."
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