A Good Time Was Had By All

I left the book club around 5 p.m. with a large bouquet of flowers for my mother.  I was so bone tired that I almost called her from the front door of Atria and asked her to come out and get the flowers.  But there were three parking spaces in the lot and I couldn't rationalize not walking to her apartment, so I did.  She was thrilled with the flowers.  I stayed about 10 minutes and then came home, mumbled to Walt that he was on his own for dinner, collapsed in the recliner and didn't wake up until after 9.

It was a busy day, but it was fun.  I got to the Lions Club at 8:30 and we all started working to get the place set up.  The program committee (in charge of setting up the stage for whatever program was to follow) had already been working and had created a beach scene for the later discussion of Gidget.

Another group got started with arranging the donated flowers for all the tables. There was a playlist of surfing music and other music of the 50s to get us into the mood which played during all the set-up.

The horticulturally challenged people, like me, worked on getting the tables set up with ocean-colored table clothes and beach towels, the beach gear we had collected, sand, sea shells, and the tableware.

Marilyn, who was head of the program committee, and her husband have been sea diving for years and years and had assembled an astonishing array of sea shells, which we were able to put everywhere.  She had everything from teeny tiny ones to this huge shell seen at her feet.

(The basket is filled with "leftovers" after we had used shells everywhere we could possibly use them)

Eventually the room was all set up and looked really cute.

It is a tradition each year at this luncheon that we celebrate Shakespeare's birthday, and the cake is always a large sheet cake, covered with red sugar, and surrounded by pansies.  Karen, who was chair of the hospitality committee, wheeled it out to put on the main table while we were eating lunch.

Then it was time for lunch.

When lunch was finished, Barbara, who has been in the club longer than anyone else, was named as the person to cut the birthday cake.  She started with giving some of her memories of all the years she belonged to the Woodland Shakespeare Club (the current president was 5 when Barbara joined) and she recalled that hats and gloves were required to be worn, and that women were not considered "ladies" if they crossed their legs at the knees.

After the cake was cut, it was taken back to the kitchen where it was cut up into serving pieces and distributed to the members.

Then the program began.  We were all wondering what kind of an intellectual program one could have with a light weight book like "Gidget" but the program committee really put on a good show.

With Malibu as a background, there was a very very short talk about the author and an even shorter talk about the plot of the book ("there isn't one") and then they set the scene for 1950s culture and media, using old TV commercials (mostly cigarette commercials!), and then a mock "What's My Line" broadcast, guessing three different guests hiding behind the curtain (one was Minnie Mouse). They even managed to find a tie-in between Gidget and Shakespeare, pointing out the similarities to "The Tempest."  Now THERE was a brilliant stretch!!

It was all just great fun and then it was all over except for the clean up.

I left a bit before it was all finished, but helped clear the tables, and dry dishes.  I must have looked pretty bad because someone asked if I needed a chair and then suggested that since I had the longest drive, I just go home, which I didn't argue with!  Sometimes it's good to be one of the older ones in the group!

I brought my mother the bouquet from some of the flowers and some of my mints.  I actually had a compliment on the mints from someone who said that she didn't usually have any, but liked mine, and very few were left over to bring home.  Someone told me that many people had trouble making them, so I guess I did a good job.  I'm sad that I forgot to take a picture of the ceremonial mint plates with my mints on them.

All in all it was really a fun day and I'm so glad to have been a part of it.