From stage fright to stage bows

 You have heard of “stage moms,” who drive their kids mercilessly to become theatrical stars. I just realized I am a “stage grandpa.”

“We’ve got to find summer camps for the kids,” my wife told me as two grandchildren and their mom prepared to spend at least two months with us.

All are staying at in our little house next door while the dad is working a new job in Rock Hill, S.C., and the family prepares to sell a house in Christiansburg, VA andbuy another.

So I signed up our 10-year-old granddaughter Aria into a two-week theater camp to perform the musical “Frozen Jr.” run by the Clarksville Community Players.

She agreed to go but she seemed unhappy as she went through 10 recordings of her audition song.

Pickett told friends that Aria had stage fright and would probably be a stage hand. “No!” I shouted. “She will be an actress, a singer and a dancer.”You’ve heard this before: “I’m going to make you a star.” (Maybe from the musical “Gypsy.”)

Aria carpooled with Frankie, a neighbor with his own stage parents, every day for two weeks at the Clarksville Fine Arts Center.

“I’m tired,” I kept hearing after the six and seven-hour rehearsals. If she was having a good time, I sure couldn’t tell.

Word got around in our extended family about our granddaughter’s premiere. Four other grandchildren from California were going to be in town also with their parents, and they planned to come too.

I bought 11 tickets! On opening night there was a full house to see the fabulous sets, costumes and performances by kids who had been practicing just 10 days at the Clarksville Fine Arts Center.

Aria was not the star, I’ll admit. But she smiled as she danced and sang vigorously with the others.

After her dad presented her with flowers, I asked her what she thought. “I like theater! I want to be in their show next year!” 

“I thought you had stage fright,” I said. Brimming with confidence, she answered: “Oh, no. Not anymore.” Aria is hooked!

Meanwhile, Aria’s brother had no interest at all in camps of any kind. Bryce, age 8, rejected all of them and instead listened to funny videos on his mom’s mobile phone. Until….

Lance, his dad, has suddenly taken an interest in golf. His work colleagues play it in South Carolina, and it’s good for business.

Lance learned the same thing I did when I became an avid skier. If you want to go off and do a sport, get your kids interested. Then you can say, “I’mdoing it for the family.”

So Lance showed Bryce “Happy Gilmore,” a movie about a boy who took up golf. “I want to go to a golf camp,” Bryce said.

“Around here?” His grandmother Pickett said. “Not likely.”

But then a miracle happened. I got on the Internet, typed in “Golf camps, South Boston, Virginia” and up popped” Greens Folly golf camp for kids, June 23 through 26.”

I was amazed that he was the only kid of 20 there who didn’t own his own clubs. But Green’s Folly loaned him some, and he thrived at chipping, driving and putting.

“It’s my favorite sport!” He told me later. His sister wants to join him in the next golf camp July 21-24. Inspired, five grandchildren and their parents went to the course’s driving range with me the day before the musical show. Three went the next day.

What could be better? Stage grandpa working with Coach Dad!

What I like

These are a few of my favorite things:

Local site for tourists: Cage sculpture garden.

South Boston dinner restaurants: Molasses Grill, Paco’s.

South Boston lunch restaurants: Wendy’s,

Southern Plenty, Shangrila-la, Applebee’s.

Clarksville restaurants: Los Banditos,  BridgewaterBar & Grill, Cooper’s Landing.

Durham restaurants: Mirachi’s Indian Kitchen and Bar, Bleu Olive.

Danville restaurants: Moon River Thai, Rustic Barn (west of town)

TV News; None. I get too rattled watching it.

Radio stations: WNCU 90.1 (jazz) WHLF 95.3 (local and 80s), VBN (classical 90.1), WCPE  (Classical 89.7.)

Pop band: Steely Dan

Rock song: “Gimmie Shelter,” Rolling Stones.

Jazz standard: “On Green Dolphin Street”

Dessert: Key line pie

Fruit: Bananas.

Steaks: Medium rare.

Cereal: Wheat Chex, All Bran

Vegetable: Beets

Clothier: L.L. Bean

Month: October

Pro teams: Washington Commanders, WashingtonNationals, Golden State Warriors, Carolina Hurricanes.

Participant sport: Cycling. 

College teams: California, Duke, North Carolina

Holiday: Thanksgiving

Beer: Dogfish Head

Wine: Blue Dog wine

TV show: Law & Order

Recent movie: “Wicked”

Old movie: “North by Northwest”

Coffee: Peet’s, Starbucks.

Time of day: 6 a.m. (I write my columns then.)

Thomas Day Houe Now Open Daily

 

One of the area’s finest attractions is finally open for visitors five days a week. What? Did a new Disney park open up here? Six Flags, maybe?

No, I am talking about the Thomas Day House, the restored home and workshop an African-American man who was North Carolina’s largest furniture manufacturer before the Civil War.

Southside Virginia is filled with his works, including some at my house in Cluster Springs. He made tables, cradles, coffins, mantel pieces, stair brackets, newel posts and door frames using curves around elongated scroll shapes.

Just across the border in Milton, N.C., the museum used to be open only by appointment.  Since mid-May, there has been a staff of five to maintain the house and  show people around from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Tours are held at 10 a.m., 11 a.m., noon, 2 p.m. and 3 p.m.  $2 for adults, $1 for children, seniors, and military, no reservation required.

So you can just walk in now and look at Day’s work in the middle of town. The site is already receiving lots of visitors, including seniors' groups on buses and many from Virginia International Raceway, less than 2 miles away. The town is 28 miles southwest of South Boston and 12 miles southeast of Danville.

But you should visit the museum now, because the place will be closed for most of 2026 for renovations. They will include a parking lot, elevators and converting the old bank across the street into a visitors’ center.

All of this work became possible after ownership of the site transferred to the state of North Carolina for creation of a historic site after years of efforts by a local citizens’ group.

While the museum is closed, the staff will continue researching Day’s history and promoting his legacy at various historical events, both locally and throughout the country.

Leading the group is DeAsia Noble, who grew up in the nearby town of Pelham.. “Thomas Day was a name I always knew, but I knew little about the context,” she says. When she was in graduate school at North Carolina State University, a speaker persuaded her to become more involved in African-American history. Then she jumped into the Thomas Day House restoration effort, much to the delight of the local the local restoration group.

How did Day accomplish so much at a time when slavery was rampant? The prosperous clientele that liked his work bent the rules somewhat to let him create his masterpieces. The state waived a rule barring new free blacks into the state when he wanted to bring his wife from Halifax County, VA, to live with him. 

Day grew quite prosperous, but the Panic of 1857 forced him into bankruptcy, even before the Civil War. His achievements were appreciated more in the past 25 years, and many of his works are on display at the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh.

For details, see: https://historicsites.nc.gov/all-sites/thomas-day-state-historic-site

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wait! Don’t throw away those valuables!

 Are you a hoarder? A pack rat? Thiiscolumn should make you feel better.

I tend to throw things out, often before I should. I have maybe 10 books and no vinyl records. Why do I need them? I live in “the cloud,” oblivious to the material world.

I can get my music online and never read a book the second time. If I do save souvenirs, I tend to lose them. But here are some of the things I should have saved:

—A fax from 49ers quarterback Joe Montana complaining about a story I edited about his home satellite dish. His signature at the bottom would be worth a lot today.

—Souvenirs of presidential inaugurations and concerts, including Elvis Presley’s Las Vegas opening.

—A record album signed by baseball’s last 30-game winner, Denny McLain, after he played the organ in a Las Vegas show in 1969.

—A newspaper signed by General William Tecumseh Sherman (I think) featuring California being admitted to the union. I still have the newspaper but when I had it framed, the framer talked me into cutting off the signature.

—Clippings from most articles I have written, including a prison riot, a showgirls’ strike and interviews with celebrities.

—Music scores that I have to buy all over again on MusicNotes, the online store.

—My entire baseball card collection, including the super-valuable Hank Aaron rookie card. My dentist will tell you I didn’t throw away the gum that came with it.

I did save some things, such as newspapers about the Kennedy assassination. I never look at them, but they are probably worth more to me than to someone who would buy them. I kept my mother’s china, which is useful at our bed & breakfast. And I’ll never give up the foul ball my dad caught at a San Francisco Seals game that would have hit me in the head.

So don’t listen to people trying to get you to throw stuff out. Unless it’s your heirs, who don’t want your precious collections themselves.

 

Get rich with this column!

Come one, come all. I have the financial opportunity of a lifetime.

Yes, you. You! You can invest in this column and get rich.

That will be my pitch to the world once I wake up from this dream and get moving. I just read about fractional investments in art works, like Picassos and Goyas. A company buys the painting and sells a portion of it to investors. So, you could spend $10,000, let’s say, and have a part of a $20 million painting. Shares rise and fall with the value of the painting. (But you can’t have Mona Lisa’s nose.)

Well, why not do that with another piece of art: My fabulous writings in this newspaper?

I don’t get paid, so you may wonder what the revenue stream is. Would anyone actually buy this column? The New York Times, for example?

Well, friends. The good news is: It doesn’t matter. If you can get others to put their money in it and then sell, you make a profit. Economists call this “the greater fool theory,” though you are not fools, don’t get me wrong.

To protect their investment, my fans will go out and sell the column and promote its sterling writing to others, hoping they will hop on board before the first buyers sell out. This is the gift of capitalism, my friends!

If you don’t think much of the column, you can “short it”—bet against it. But few would want to do that, of course.

Now, you may ask why people would put their cash in something written by an old man who could croak at any minute? Well, that’s where futures trading comes in. You could bet on how long I or the column—or the newspaper—survives. If someone picks tomorrow, I had better beef up the security system in my home!

One last thought: If you were gullible enough to want to place a bet, please don’t

I coulda’ been a rock star!

 It was a cool day on bay in 1959 when preschool alumni and parents met for a day of recreation at the Standard Oil Rod & Gun Club in Richmond, Calif.

I got into a rowboat with three other teen-agers, only one of whom I knew. I chatted with a couple of them as we roamed around an inlet, but one kid, about 14 years old, was silent the whole time.

I guess he was anxious to get to the gym, where there was a piano. Later, I walked in and heard the kind of music I had never heard before, except maybe on a black radio station. It sounded like it was from Louisiana or some place. Puzzled, though kind of enjoying it, I left and went back to talk to the others.

I have looked back on that moment and thought about what might have been. I could have walked up to John Fogerty and expressed my admiration. Or better yet, I could have said, “I can play piano a little myself. Did you bring your guitar? Let’s try a few licks.” But I’m just not like that.

John’s brother, Tom, one of his band mates in Creedence Clearwater Revival, was a classmate of mine at the El Cerrito Preschool in about 1945 (such a long time ago!). His mom and mine became good friends, often talking on the phone. Years later, my mom said his mother complained of all the noise in their garage when the kids practiced music. Well, who’s to say that wasn’t a good investment?

So, imagine my shock when I went into a record store in 1968 and found that Creedence Clearwater Revival’s first album was a smash hit. John went on to be one of the great song writers and singers of his era, with such hits as “Proud Mary” and “Fortunate Son.” You could say that El Cerrito, population 25,000, is more famous for the group than anything else. John is still performing, though he split with his brother Tom (since deceased) and other band members long ago.

Now, what went wrong? Why aren’t I a rock ‘n’ roll star,too? I was too much of an introvert to be part of the rock scene. Would I be deaf and drugged out by now? “You’re already deaf and drugged out on pharmaceuticals anyway,” my wife said, in as wild an exaggeration as I have ever heard.

Instead, I pursued journalism and belatedly music, focusing more on jazz and choral music. After a church solo a few years ago, a friend came up to me and said, “Mike, you are a rock star!”

See? I really did make it!

 

Vision is worse, but I’m still here!

 With these weekly columns, I may come across as a vibrant, active senior with perfect health.

Well, I think I am quite healthy for an 83-year-old, though my wife thinks I complain too much. I don’t have diabetes, heart trouble, disabling cancer or severe mobility problems. I do have one issue: macular degeneration. I thought I would write about it for others who may face the same problem.

In 2018, I took a train for four hours back to Washington to complain to my ophthalmologist about worsening vision. “Just wash your face,” was his response. Huh? He meant to clean the crusting around the eyes caused by blepharitis, which I already knew about. He didn’t examine my retinas because the retina machine was broken.

Several months later, back in Arlington, I went to see him again and this time the machine was fixed. There was a long pause after the exam. “Go right now to the retina doctor two blocks away,” he said. It was 4 p.m. and the retina doctor’s staff had gone home but he sent me anyway.

Wet macular degeneration in my left eye had worsened the vision. There was a 50-50 chance it would also affect my right eye. A few months later, it did.

I got used to the eye injections every month or two. They aren’t as bad as they sound. They don’t hurt after numbing drops. It’s like being at the dentist: I can stand a few minutes of discomfort.

Macular degeneration affects your central vision, the small part that focuses on objects. In the unlikely event my central vision disappeared completely, I would still have decent peripheral vision. Many people’s experiences are different, though.

The condition makes reading difficult for me. I no longer look over print books or magazines or newspapers. I get everything enlarged on an iPad. Or I listen to an audiobook. TV is not a problem.

Technology to get around this is amazing. I use a magnifier app on my phone to look at tiny directions. With the camera on my iPad, I can photograph recipes and read them while cooking. The GPS and self-driving feature on my car find the freeway exit before I can read the sign. (I did pass a recent DMV driving test.)

The worst thing is reading piano music or choral scores. Prism glasses can magnify but are of little help. I have been scanning scores onto my iPad for enlargement On the piano, I play mostly chords anyway and write them in with a magic marker on top of enlarged lyrics that I print out. When I write on my iPad keyboard, I have trouble catching typos when I read an article again. For this column, I have three friends look for them.

The retina doctor at Duke Eye Center says the macular degeneration has stabilized, but it feels like my vision is getting worse. Even stable, the retina ages like the rest of me.

Can it be prevented? I wish I had paid attention when I found out that my father had macular degeneration. I suspect that it contributed to his dementia. If you are diagnosed with early macular degeneration, lutein (found in over-the counter Areds2) is supposed to provide a 25% chance of keeping it from getting worse. Good diet and avoiding bright sunlight are supposed to help.

I’m still grateful I don’t have much else wrong. On birthdays, my favorite song is “I’m Still Here!”

 

 

 

Regrets after a high school buddy dies

When one of your best high school  friends dies, what do you think? First of all, you ask: Why was it him and not me?

And then there are regrets: Why didn’t I keep in touch for 67 years? Why didn’t I value his friendship when we were kids?

Barr Rosenberg was no ordinary friend: He was a genius who became one of the country’s leading stock prognosticators but whose success led to a crushing downfall 17 years ago

Known as the “accountant of risk,” Barr invented a method in the 1970s of looking at more than a stock’s value—but how it was balanced by the rest of the market and the rest of the portfolio. He started a company, Barra Inc., which became enormously successful.

But just before the 2008 stock market crash, one of his forecast models was faulty, He waited too long to inform his investors, and they sued over their losses. The Securities and Exchange Commission banned him for life from stock trading. In his final years, he stuck to yoga and meditation with his wife  (since deceased) and  Tibetan culture before dying in February at age 82. He had been teaching these mindful practices since 1979.

 I felt that he made an honest mistake at a time when stocks were terribly shaky. What if the market had gone up?

As a teen, he contributed a lot to me:

—We played touch football and basketball at his nearby home in El Cerrito, Calif.

—He and his father, one of the leading American authorities on Shakespeare, took me with them three times to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

—He exposed me to intellectual friends and ideas I might never have experienced otherwise.

—He persuaded me to become his El Cerrito High School debate partner from 1957 to 1958, getting me versed in such arcane subjects as farm price supports and foreign aid policy. If you know me, I don’t come across as an argumentative debater.

What did I give him? When word got out that he had scarlet fever, our algebra teacher asked me in class how he was doing. “I don’t know,” I said. “He is kind of a pest.”

I guess it was hard to admit I was a close friend with a guy who was not particularly popular in school. He obviously had a very high IQ. I should have been flattered that such a brain wanted to hang out with me.

Thank you, Barr, for your impact on my life. I am pleased with your successes and hope you found comfort in your troubled later years.

Performing with a local legend

I wanted a female singer to join me in a funny song about growing old for the annual “Sunday Funnies” show put on by seniors in Clarksville.

Out of the blue, I got an unexpected volunteer: Nancy Barden, age 91, who retired from the “Double Nickel Players” several years ago.

What a prize! Dare I call Nancy the “grande dame” of Clarksville? With a “lifelong love affair with the stage,”  Nancy helped revive the Halifax County Little Theatre with Dot Crews in 1962 and directed seven plays and performed in 12 in Clarksville. On a smaller scale, it was like pulling Meryl Streep or Elizabeth Taylor out of retirement.

“Here I am again, unable to let it go and once again saying, ‘This is the last time.’ Nancy told me.

 

The song, “No Time at All,” from the 1972 musical “Pippin” is about an older woman advising a young man about the perils of aging. She is supposed to be 66, which was 25 years younger than Nancy!

 

I have to say our practices together were a bit rocky at first. I recorded a piano track for us to sing against, and we both had trouble getting in sync.

 

She didn’t want to sing such lines as  “I won’t date a man who’ll call me Granny,” so we took them out.

 

I couldn’t memorize any piano music by the time I reached 35, so we were quite challenged in recalling the words. Well, so are the actors in the hilarious Sunday Funnies skits, who have to rehearse a lot more than younger performers.

 

Nancy got discouraged despite her pedigreee. “I had about six solos in ‘Anything Goes’ but I think I have reached my level of incompetency now.”

 

But this is show business! By showtime, on May 4, things seemed to come together. In front of 250 people, we sang, “Oh, it’s time to keep living…for spring will turn to fall in just no time at all.“

 

Then it was her turn: “Now, I've known the fears of 91years I've had troubles and tears by the score. But the only thing I'd trade them for is 92 years more!”

 

She spoke rather than sang some of the lines, but she looked like she meant every word. The crowd loved it.  Flowers were presented. A former high school student of hers came up and congratulated her.

 

I got to perform with a local legend. What a thrill!

 

Here’s to 92 years more!