Nw life for old actors

 

My brief acting career began at age 70 with Prizery Summer Theater. I just adored the mostly small roles I had in six musicals and mixing in with serious acting students from out of town.

But by 78, I abruptly stopped. I couldn’t remember the lines anymore. The 20-something kids were coaching me. I couldn’t remember when to get on stage as the baker’s father in “Into the Woods.” The schedule was brutal. Two shows on Saturday? What?

Then, just three months ago, came a life-changing bombshell.

I found out about new one-hour versions of Broadway musicals tailored for performing old people. My friend Monica Walter told me that Musical Theatre International, which owns the rights to the shows, was providing abbreviated scripts, scores and recordings at a low price. Just like the kids’ musicals, “Frozen Jr.” and “Little Mermaid Jr.”

Wow. We could rehearse between afternoon naps! No late-night tech rehearsals.

Monica asked me to be music director. What? I have never done that before. (But I have accompanied numerous singers on the piano.) Sure, why not? If I’m terrible, I’ll just plead old age. My life’s work won’t be measured by this show.

We decided to see if the Clarksville Community Players would give us a date to put on “Guys and Dolls Senior” at the Clarksville Fine Arts Center. As we came to the group’s board meeting, we were advised that the calendar was full for the 2025-26 year.

As we walked in, Charlie Simmons, the long-time chair, said, “You look tired, Mike. Have a seat.”

“That’s what I want to talk about, Charlie,” I smiled.

After Monica described our plans, she said, “Now Mike will explain why he wants to do this sooner rather than later.”

I have never been very persuasive, I thought, but here goes:

“I’m not getting any younger. I am in perfect health, but I’m almost 84. Who knows how I will feel a year from now? I gave up theater five years ago. Now I can do it again!”

I could feel the mood of the room changing.

 The board agreed to give us Saturday Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day, for a 2 p.m. show. Perfect! Then we decided to add a second performance on Sunday, Feb. 15.

Then reality set in: We saw the abbreviated show performed flawlessly at the sold-out Raleigh Little Theatre in early October. How could we match them?

I told myself that the Raleigh-Durham metro area has 2.4 million people to draw on for a cast, volunteers and audience. We have about 60,000.  So, our sights aren’t as high, but it will be a great challenge.

We are holding auditions for 20 actors in “Guys and Dolls Senior” at 2 p.m. on Monday and Tuesday Nov. 17 and 18 with possible callbacks on the 19th. All actors must be at least 55 years old. Rehearsals will be on Mondays and Wednesdays from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. starting Monday Dec. 1, with a week-long break for Christmas.

We need a volunteer crew as well as actors and singers. Come on! You can be young again! To schedule an audition or volunteer, go to https://clarksvilleplayers.org/auditions I can answer questions or you can message the director, Monica Walter at monica.walter58@yahoo.com

Column: Rando thoughts on decisions, coffee and aging

 My big decisions in life have been easy: marriage, jobs, retirement, location. It’s the little ones I have the most trouble with: Where to have dinner, what to watch on TV.

 

I think we underestimate the power that our minds have over our bodies. Why else do they have placebo pills?

 

You can fix half of all technology problems by turning the device off and on again.

 

But when that doesn’t work and you call repair helpers, why does your appliance suddenly work when they show up?

 

In journalism, “experts say” often just means “I think….”

 

Ever notice? What seems obvious to you is not obvious to everyone else. You have to fight for it.

 

I think of the calories I saved over the decades by drinking my coffee black.

 

When you are young and wasting your time, it feels like a wonderful luxury. When you are old, it feels like dying a day early. I have a deadline to meet, and I don’t know when it is!

 

Never look at email before taking a nap. It may keep you awake. And don’t deal with tech support on the phone just before bedtime.

 

I do some of my best work on subjects I know nothing about. It reminds me of a history teacher who substituted in my algebra class. She knew nothing about algebra so crammed all evening for the subject. She gave a terrific lesson that I could understand. She started on the same level we did.

 

Eyewitness to history…without realizing it

When the air traffic controllers’ union announced a walkout on Aug. 3, 1981, I  did not take it seriously. I left their press conference on a Friday afternoon thinking:  “They won’t go on strike. That would be stupid!”

So, I left Washington, D.C., for the weekend confident that nothing would happen. I didn’t listen to the radio, read a newspaper or watch TV news.

 I returned for the Monday morning staff meeting at U.S. News & World Report. I was ambushed.

After others talked about the Middle East and the economy, the managing editor turned to me, the transportation writer.  “Tell us, about the air traffic controllers, Mike.”

“Huh,” I thought. But somehow, I bluffed my way through with a non-answer. Maybe the labor beat reporter bailed me out. I learned that not only had the controllers walked out, but the Reagan administration had fired them and permanently replaced with new workers.

When the unthinkable strike happened, I was assigned to go to the control tower at Dulles International Airport to see how replacement workers were handling the air traffic.

I was gladly allowed in as the administration wanted to demonstrate that things were going on just fine. And they were, apparently, though I did get a little uncomfortable when one of the novices took his eyes off the screen and turned to chat with me. “Get back on the screen!” I wanted to yell.

I have read recent commentaries that the strike was a turning point in American history. Private employers took a cue from the government’s tough stance and took a hard line against labor. Union membership declined, and businesses had the upper hand.

In fact, they were still talking about this disaster in 1995 when I covered the labor beat for the Kiplinger Letter and attended AFL-CIO conventions in New York.

Guess I was right: they made a mistake!

 

I have come across two Halifax County men who were air traffic controllers at the time of the strike. One was Boyd Archer, a supervisor of the controllers  who walked out. Boyd recalls having to work long hours when it happened. He says that the air traffic system never fully recovered from the event.

 

Another is Wayne Stanfield, who was chief air controller of the military radar facility in Fairfield, California. Wayne says a lot of the controllers he supervised were transferred to replace the striking workers.

 

 

 

 

Tracking a reclusive billionaire

 

As a reporter, how do you cover one of the world’s richest men if he lives just down the street but never comes out of his hotel?

That was my dilemma as the Associated Press correspondent in Las Vegas in 1968, while Howard Hughes lived there.

The once-dashing billionaire sneaked into town in 1966 and bought the Desert Inn hotel, where he ensconced himself in the top-floor penthouse.

After I took that job in 1968, I would often get a visit from a security guard delivering a one-sentence statement: “The Hughes Tool Co. today announced the purchase of the Frontier Hotel.” Period. I would write a 400-word story with background on the billionaire and the famous hotel. Easy! I loved it!

This famous man inherited wealth from his father, who owned a lucrative oil drilling business and later got richer himself in the airline industry. Before he became a recluse, Hughes made movies, hung out with attractive movie actresses and flew small airplanes himself.

Now in Las Vegas, somehow he had a screw loose. We learned later than he was terrified of germs and the people that carried them. Yet he lived a very unhealthy life, eating poorly and neglecting his own body. His personal staff consisted mostly of loyal Mormons sworn to secrecy.

His top aide, Robert Maheu, was a former FBI and  CIA agent who was once involved in plans to assassinate Fidel Castro. I’m not sure if Maheu ever saw Hughes in person.

As a hypochondriac, Hughes especially hated the underground nuclear testing that went on only 70 miles from Las Vegas. He brought in leading scientists to tell us that the explosions might destroy Hoover Dam. One of them was Barry Commoner, a leading environmentalist, who I remember interviewing. But Hughes’ efforts failed, and the tests continued.

I was never able to get Maheu or anyone else on Hughes’ staff to talk about anything substantive, even off the record, Neither could any other news media, as far a I could tell.

As a curious reporter, I would love to get a look at this guy. You couldn’t possibly get into his penthouse, whose floor was blocked off on the elevator.

A writer at the Las Vegas Review-Journal convinced me that Hughes must come out of that penthouse secretly some time. How could anyone stay sequestered for two years? Let’s take turns waiting for him in the parking lot.

They reality set in: That wold seem awfully boring for us and time-consuming to our employers, who wanted news copy.

Did he ever come out? After Hughes’ death in 1976, several wills were found, including one that left much of his money to the Mormon church and a young man who supposedly picked him up in a car and saved his life while he was wandering around in the desert.

This man never got any money, but years later a pilot claimed that he picked Hughes up from Las Vegas and took him to some location in the desert, where he had disappeared.

I was starting to believe this story, until a later AP correspondent who covered the “Mormon will” trial, assured me that the will was a fake and the story untrue.

So he must not have ever come out. I’m glad we never staked out the hotel parking lot!

 

The inside scoop on a B&B

I wasn’t keen on Pickett’s idea to open a bed & breakfast. Strangers would invade our house. I would have to stop leaving my shoes and socks in the living room. When I travel, I prefer hotels, where I don’t have to interact with people.

But what was I going to do? Forbid it? Then it would be, “So long, Mike!”

So our summer home in Cluster Springs opened to guests in 1988 as Oak Grove Plantation but later changed to Oak Grove Bed & Breakfast.  The visitors stayed in two rooms on the second floor but had to come downstairs to use the bathroom that we shared with them.

That isn’t what guests want these days, so she had a second bathroom built on the second floor. I remember helping Pickett clean the newly built sink just as the new guests arrived. That’s OK—I’m good on deadline.

In those days, people found out about us through guidebooks, a much simpler forum than today’s online reservation systems. We tried lots of gimmicks: a cooking class weekend, a wellness camp, family friendly activities.  Not much worked when we were trying to get people to come to a farm in the heat of July and August.

But she was bent on expansion: the former office was converted to the Library, lined with books and my grandfather’s 1880s typewriter. When a falling tree destroyed the little rental house next door, she remodeled it as a cottage for the B&B.

I can’t fix anything myself, but Pickett was great at recruiting repair and construction help, including Joe, a 52-year-old who was a preschool student of hers in Washington, D.C., 50 years ago.

Then we made the best of a bad situation. We were terrified spending most of the year on the 14th floor of an Arlington apartment building in 2000 when covid hit. We moved to Oak Grove temporarily but decided to stay.

Open year  around, we could get steady business especially in spring and fall, when the weather is better. A major source was VirginiaIinternational Raceway.

I’m not much of a host, but I’m an experienced professional busboy. I was good at helping out at breakfast and chatting with the guests. Some of the fascinating people we met were good sources for news stories. I was especially interested in a guy who rode a bike across the state. He wrote back that his visit was the highlight of his trip.

Best is coming across musical people who asked to hear me play the piano. I have accompanied several singers and made videos with one of them. She is coming back again this fall.

We often say, “We don’t travel a lot. People just come to us.”

 

From setback to comeback

 So many people have taken massive failures in life and turned them into successes. Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey and Walt Disney are among people who were fired once, only to turn their lives around.

“Ya gotta suffer first to sing the blues” is a famous saying.

In retrospect, sometimes my biggest failures have been the best things that could have happened.

I had been running the afternoon news desk at the Associated Press Washington bureau for four years when I went to the bureau chief to complain about my pay.

He told me I was about to lose my position as part of a shakeup. I was devastated—it was a powerful job, editing and approving most of the news articles out of Washington for morning newspapers during the Watergate era. But I didn’t realize I had burned out. And maybe I wasn’t that good at telling people what to do.

Two months later I was sitting in the front row of the inauguration of a U.S. president (Jimmy Carter), helping to report on it for the same news organization. Soon I covered the economics beat, launching myself into a 30-year career as a business news specialist.

Decades later, in retirement, I was crushed when I was ousted by failing a choral re-audition at Choralis, a northern Virginia choir. I wasn’t sure I wanted to return anyway, and I was distracted by a speeding ticket on the way there.

A week later, I saw that City Choir of Washington was holding auditions.  I showed up in a thunderstorm and sang while the prestigious director, Robert Shafer, played piano and listened. 

The song he gave me was the same one we had sung at a church choir the week before. I nailed it. And then lightning struck and the lights went out. When they came back on, Shafer looked confused. “I guess you know what you are doing” he said. I knew then that I belonged there. He was the best director I had ever sung with.

In my personal life, I was dumped by my girl friend in 1977 for a guy who took her with him to work at the North Slope of Alaska in the winter. She chose freezing cold over me? I was shattered. It took me years to get over it.

And then I came across Pickett, the love of my life, who had no ambitions to go to the Arctic Circle. We have been married 40 years. A long time after our breakup, the ex-girl friend called to see if I was still available. Her marriage with her Alaska-fixated friend had fallen apart.

She wondered if she had made a mistake. “Hell yes,” is what I should have told her. But instead, I said, “It just wasn’t meant to be.”

I’m still grateful for past failures like that.

 

 

Column: The bumpy ride to old age

—I really don’t like this classic song about relationships and growing old: “Have I Stayed Too Long at the Fair?” No, I haven’t stayed too long! I’m still on the roller coaster!

—I really liked the movie “Thursday Murder Club,” now on TV. But most of the people in the retirement home were younger than me!

— “What did you do before there was technology?” My9-year-old grandson asked me. I said, “We did have three channels of television, primitive cars and airplanes. But I should have just told him, “We played outside.”

—More than half of the people born in the same year as I was are now dead. Makes you stop and think.

— When I knock down a spider web, I don’t know if I feel bad for ruining a spider’s dinner or glad that I just saved a butterfly’s life.

— On the advice of ChatGPT, I just learned how to get through to a real person at my cable TV company. “When they give you a list of options over the phone, just use the word “cancel,” it said. I got through!

—A B&B guests who owns a lot of houses told us one way he he approves tenants in a tight housing market: He looks inside their cars to see how messy they are..

— We keep hearing about how peaceful it is in nature. But have you noticed how vines keep trying to strangle trees? I tell you, it’s a “plant-eat-plant” world out there!

—A hang-gliding relative once told me, “The only sports worth doing are the ones that could kill you.” Hm. I have loved biking and skiing, which can be dangerous. Billiards, bowling and bridge? No, thank you.

— In gardening, my wife is the creator, and I am the destroyer! She may plant bulbs for pretty flowers to bloom, but my role is to hack away at the bamboo and tree branches that threaten. Got to defend the family!

—When we started out, my wife wanted a Victorian house, and I wanted a California-modern style home. We couldn’t agree. Until the realtor found us a house with a Victorian style front, with a built-on modern rear featuring large glass windows. Sold!

 

 

 

 

 

Who am I really? Make a guess

“Cellophane, Mister Cellophane shoulda been my name. Mister Cellophane. ‘Cause you can look right through

me, walk right by me and never know I’m here.”

That song from the musical “Chicago” fits me nicely. People didn’t tend to notice or remember me (at least until I started this column). 

Being invisible benefits: I was not bullied as a child. As a reporter, I went unnoticed (until I went in for the kill!). I don’t get into many arguments. I haven’t offended many people with these nonpartisan writings.

But onceit got me into trouble with my boss. “You never have any opinions,” he told me. That is a problem when you are editor of a magazine (Satellite Orbit) with a staff of seven and a circulation of 300,000 readers. (If I had expressed my opinion about him, I’m sure I would have been fired.)

In college, a very drunken senior went into a rant about each classmate there. When he got to me, he said, “Doan, you are a nonentity. We don’t know anything about you!” I looked it up: It means non-existent. Good. I liked it that way.

You could look back on my college career and not know what to think. I started off on the college newspaper with a bunch of student radicals. And this was at UC Berkeleyin the 1960s, the national capital of rebellion, just like Rome is the headquarters of the Catholic Church.

The staff sang revolutionary songs by Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger at parties. They demonstrated at the House Committee on Un-American Activities hearings in San Francisco. We went on strike when the student government didn’t like us endorsing a leftist candidate. My name even showed up with the others in a state government report on subversive activities.

So as a junior, what did I do for a second act? I went to the dark side. I joined a fraternity.

The radicals considered me a traitor as I cut my hair shorter and began wearing button-down shirts and white socks, the uniform of these reactionary, elitist Patrician snobs.

No more singing “We Shall Overcome” at Saturday night parties. Now, it was sorority dances, paddling at initiations and crooning to guys’ girlfriends…though that was past the era of panty raids.

I even became the fraternity president, a leader in the overlords of oppression, and met regularly with the ultra-establishment fraternity council.

Had I finally seen the light? We’ll, no. I had been lonely.

So, what did all this make me? Well, you’ll never know. Not here anyway, Signed: Mr. Cellophane.

(The song in the video is actually “Waving Through a Window” from the musical “Dear Evan Hansen,” with the same theme.)