How can I keep from singing?

 

What is it about choral music? It lifts your mood, gives you new friends and probably makes you live longer.

 

I’m not sure why. Choirs are really dictatorships—even if benevolent. A stern figure in front waves his or her arms up and down, issues commands and you are supposed to shut up!

 

I didn’t really discover choral music until I was in my mid-60s and joined the Dumbarton United Methodist Church choir and a gospel choir, Mosaic Harmony.  I was inspired by my daughter’s wonderful high school chorus. Over 12 years, I took part in a bunch of classy Washington, D.C., choruses, first the NoVA Lights Chorale but most notably City Choir and the Washington Men’s Camerata.

 

A big moment came at the Kennedy Center, when a Camerata tenor spontaneously proposed on stage to his girl friend in the audience. She came forward, said yes, and we sang at their wedding in New Jersey.

 

Or the time, with Berkshire Choir International in Austria,  when the director of the famous Vienna Boys’ Choir stepped in during an emergency. The scheduled director fell off the stage in rehearsal and broke her arm as we watched in horror.

 

Then there was the audition at the Capitol Hill Chorale, which went quite badly until I pointed out that the director had given me the wrong song!

 

Or the leaky roof at a Choralis concert, when six inches of water covered the floor during a storm.

 

And the colorful directors. One told us, “This is serious music. If you are just here to have fun, go to a campfire!”

 

I am proud of my high-pitched pipes, but I confess that my sight reading isn’t that good.  I frequently sneaked through because scarce tenors rarely fail auditions. I leaned on other tenors for help. Thank you, Sarah, Ben, Tim, Jim and Mickey.

 

I thought one of my biggest losses in moving to South Boston, VA, would be leaving those high-falutin’ choruses. But then I found the First Baptist Church choir, the same church that recently took in all of those nursing home patients after a fire.  In summers, I had sung at the church’s Community Chorus. We don’t even attend that church regularly, but I sing with them now when I can.

 

“We’re glad you are here,” Dwight and Coleman keep telling me. I love Billy’s jokes. Mickey and Floyd are quite cordial. Karen, Jean, Pam and others are so friendly. In a choir of 15 or 20 people, you feel like you are making a difference. The director, Susan Davis, gives us a lot of encouragement. She’ll say: “Let’s go over that section again” when she could have said “You really blew it!”

 

I often hid my church-going in D.C., especially among journalists, who consider it way un-cool. But in South Boston, the whole community is built around churches.

 

So have I really lost something by singing in a small town? Just before Christmas, we are going to perform in a big city, Raleigh, with the famous Pepper Choprlin’s chorale. And next Memorial Day, we are talking about going with him to Carnegie Hall! I have arrived!

Jet lag will be the new football injury

 

What on earth is happening to college sports? Teams in Los Angeles and New Jersey are in the Big Ten? There is even talk of the Atlantic Coast Conference adding Stanford and my beloved California Golden Bears. Let me look at the map. California is on the Atlantic Coast? If so, Halifax County is in Sweden!

 

And all of those long flights. Will UCLA’s  archery and water polo teams scrunch in the middle seats on commercial airlines to play at the University of Maryland? What about the marching bands and the cheerleaders? Planes are a good place to study, I guess. Professors who don’t forgive hangovers might give a break to a jet-lagged athlete.

 

So much change. When I started watching football, players on offense also had to play defense. Substitutions were limited. Most teams just ran the ball in T formation. Some were so conservative, they punted on third down.

 

Now players can receive cash gifts and get paid for endorsements. After a year or two, they can easily slip off to a bigger football power or the pros.

 

In the early 1950s there were only eight bowl games. Now you have 32, including the Duke’s Mayo Bowl, the Pop Tart Bowl, the Guaranteed Rate Bowl, the Cheez-It Bowl, the Lending Tree Bowl, the Gasparilla Bowl and the Jimmy Kimmel Bowl. Hey, let’s hold the Cantaloupe Bowl with a big parade down Main Street on New Year’s Day!

 

There used to be nine or ten games a season, ending in mid-November. Now there are 12 or more, stretching into December. And of course with an eight-team playoff, they figure a warming planet will let them play well into January.

 

 

I guess I would prefer the system used in the Ivy League, which provides no sports scholarships. You are a student first, an athlete second. Most of their low-key games are within 360 miles of each other. These schools don’t need a football team to build a name for themselves.

 

Of course I might be more rah-rah if my alma mater had a winning team. The last time Cal went to the Rose Bowl was in 1959, after I  hawked ice cream at regular season games as a high school senior. But the Golden Bears can’t scale back—they owe a lot of money on their  stad

Facebook: Friend and enemy

 Column: Yes, I am a social media addict. No apologies. I think it is great. On Facebook, I can exchange thoughts with people I would not see in person.

There is the childhood friend I hadn’t contacted in 70 years. We exchange childhood pictures. He told me, “You have known me longer than any other person alive.” Wow! Same here, except for one cousin. My friend and I started a newspaper and singing group at age 10. Same interests I have now.

Then there is the high school classmate I didn’t know about.  Somehow we met on a school alumni page. He moved from El Cerrito, Calif. to Placerville, Calif., where my mom lived. He plays jazz piano! I am dying to meet him in person.

And there is a support page for macular degeneration, an affliction that I share. To prove that you can overcome vision problems, there is a weekly posting with everyone’s hobbies. I don’t post art or quilting or something. I play or sing a song every week! It’s good for me. They love it.

Sure, ads can be annoying. When I shop for a shoe brand online, somehow an ad for it pops up in my Facebook feed. Eerie. But I would rather see that than an ad for a car I would never consider buying.

And then there are the drawbacks, like a friend who once was angry about a politician’s actions. “I hate men” she said. I took exception. “I didn’t mean you,” she said, but she wouldn’t back down. We unfriended each other. We  finally hugged in real life and made up, but it was unnerving.

Sometimes I will see a person I barely know who comments on something I thought was secret. “Where did they hear about get that?“ I would think, feeling violated. And then I remember that I wrote about it on Facebook.

I’m so tempted to jump in when I see a political statement that bothers me. I have to hold back. Don’t push “send!” Too much is lost in written arguments with people—no face to face talk, no smiles or frowns that might convey more than the words.

People tend to avoid those with different political views. So they are surrounded only by people who agree with them. More polarization! A lot of lies are spread on Facebook, but I am not sure how that can be stopped. I am uncomfortable with censorship.

I have a Twitter account but hardly ever use it. Political discussions raise my blood pressure. Too much of Twitter is people pushing for a cause. I don’t know a lot of people on Twitter.

Facebook members don’t usually give away their true selves. Their constant smiling posts with friends and pets makes others feel bad. 

People who read my page see boasts about my musical, writing and family accomplishments, but not the bad stuff. Such as: my recent pneumonia and slow recovery, my bicycle accident on that e-bike I had raved about, my gall bladder operation, my cancerous tumor that was removed or my stent to fix a blocked artery. Or my bad moods.  

I may not always be the vibrant, super-healthy 81-year-old you may see on my page.

But this is going on Facebook. OK: All is great and I am Superman!

Did my teacher throw Oppenheimer under the bus?

was quite surprised to see my college physics professor be such an important character in the Oppenheimer movie.

 

I had known that Edward Teller was the creator of the hydrogen bomb, considerably bigger than Robert J.Oppenheimer’s teensy  atomic bomb. He was even supposed to have been the inspiration for the mad scientist in the movie, Dr. Strangelove. I didn’t realize that he contributed to Oppenheimer’s downfall after World War II as Oppenheimer’s loyalty was questioned.

 

When I enrolled in physics 10 in 1961 I had heard that the scientist was on a mission to impart his knowledge to non-science majors at the University of California at Berkeley.

 

Maybe he knew too much. His first lecture to 1,000 celebrity-struck students was about Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. With this convoluted subject and his thick Hungarian accent, he completely lost us. As the course progressed, we were allowed to get our grades mostly from book reports rather than from his lectures.

 

But there were also pop quizzes! Because the classroom became increasingly empty, Teller decided to give short tests at the end of some sessions. Since the lectures were televised, students were able to race back to campus after the quiz was announced early in class. (No complaints, I got a B in physics 10!)

 

What about the movie? Well, here is my  (tongue-in-cheek) recollection:

—A young Oppenheimer tries to  kill his teacher with a poison apple, I guess inspired by the story of Snow White. 

—His brother is a Communist, his lover is a Communist and his wife is an ex-Communist. But that’s OK—they’re not Nazis.

— Albert Einstein tells Oppenheimer an atomic  bomb could possibly wipe out the entire planet. Well, that’s a risk worth taking to win the war.

—Hundreds of workers are brought to the New Mexico desert for two years to build the bomb. I hope they were well paid!

—Once he bomb is dropped on Japan, one character tells Oppenheimer  he is “the most important person who ever lived.” If it was me, I would respond, “You’re hired!”

—Lewis Strauss thinks he was slighted by Einstein and Oppenheimer so turns the entire federal government on Robert.  Talk about holding a grudge!

—John F. Kennedy destroys Strauss’ attempt to join the cabinet. Hope I’m not being a name-dropper!

—Edward Teller is triumphant, now able to put impressionable college sophomores to sleep with the theory of relativity.

 

Well, maybe I got some of this mixed up. But this is really the best movie I have seen in a long time. You really should see it in Roxboro or Danville, even if it is three hours long.

 

 

Snead returns for Little Mermaid

Little Mermaid, coming Aug.4-13, marks a homecoming for an actor who was with The Prizery almost from its beginning.

 

Evan Snead, who appeared in the Sound of Music at age 12, will have a major role as Prince Eric at age 24.

 

What a ride it has been since Snead left town in 2017!  First he spent two semesters in the Elon University theater program before switching to film and going to Hollywood. “I worked at casting agencies, Being in the film industry reinforced my love for the arts,” he says.

 

Attracted next to Disney World, he was a concierge at the resort’s hotel and at Wilderness Lodge in Orlando. “It was fun. I had a lot of friends in the entertainment field, and I went backstage to look at how they did things,” he says.

 

Next he switched to Universal Studios, where he put his theater experience to work as the Grinch, greeting people at the park between Halloween and Christmas. It took two hours to put on his makeup. He did some side theater work in Orlando, appearing in Secret Garden with Central Florida Arts.

 

Finding “too much hustle and bustle” in Florida, Snead came back this summer to South Boston, where he is intent on helping invigorate the theater he loves so dearly.

 

“I am so passionate about The Prizery and everything ramping up again,” he says. “I wanted to help get it back on full cylinders. I am so happy with the current team because I know they have a lot of dreams that can work as long as the community helps them proceed. ”

 

It was watching A Christmas Carol in The Prizery’s first season that got Snead excited about acting. Sandy Slayton welcomed him to Halifax County Little Theater to appear in Winnie the Pooh. 

 

From Sound of Music in 2011 there was a seven-year run of shows also including A Christmas Story, A Christmas Carol, Elf Jr the Musical, Aladdin Jr, Seussical, Cinderella, Oliver, Legally Blonde, Hairspray, Les Miserables, Wizard of Oz, Anything Goes, Carousel, West Side Story, Into the Woods, Addams Family, Oklahoma, Gypsy, Holiday Memories, Tom Sawyer, The Man Who Saved Christmas, Chicago and To Kill a Mockingbird

 

His favorite was Les Miserables in 2014. “The cast was phenomenal as were the stage crew, director Chris Jones and the community support,” he says. “I felt that theater was what I wanted to do the rest of my life.”

 

Snead, who was home schooled in Scottsburg, found The Prizery was a great place to meet other young people. He still keeps up with some of the actors he worked with.

 

In this musical, a mermaid, Ariel, falls in love with the prince, but he lives on land. To join him on land, she must find a way to get him to love her within three days or lose her voice to a wicked witch.

 

Based on the Hans Christian Andersen story and a Disney film, the show includes such songs as “Under the Sea,” “Kiss the Girl” and “Part of Your World.”

 

Snead describes the cast as “phenomenal. Everyone meshes so well.” There are a large number of children, who are getting their first stage experience in South Boston the way Snead says. “I definitely can’t stress enough how important the Prizery and Chris Jones have been/will continue to be for me,” he says.

 

Little Mermaid can be seen Friday Aug. 4, Saturday Aug. 5, Friday Aug. 11 and Saturday Aug. 12, all at 7:30 p.m., and on Sunday Aug. 6 and 13 at 3:30 p.m. Tickets are $22 for all ages if purchased in advance or $25 on the day of the show.

All hands on deck: but not me!

  

 

         If you are inviting people to sail on your boat, leave me out. I don’t get seasick—just claustrophobic.

 

Despite the photo, I’m not talking about cruise ships. I love those cruise ships! I’m talking about your skiff, rowboat, sailboat, even your yacht.

 

         People speak some sort of a foreign language on those things.

What is a spinnaker? A jib? What are fore and aft? What is starboard? What’s the matter with left and right, like you would say on land?

 

         You can’t go anywhere. You are confined to a small space and have to listen to your host rail on about their sea adventures. Well, I have some sea adventures too:

 

         My sister and I rented a rowboat when I was a teenager at Lake Tahoe. I wasn’t much of a rower, and my little sister cried as the wind picked up and blew us toward the middle of the huge, deep lake. Fortunately, I was able to maneuver the boat to the edge of the small bay and we got out on the rocks. I don’t think we ever told our parents about it.

 

         And the time a friend took me on his sailboat in the unpredictable San Francisco Bay. The voyage from San Francisco to Oakland went just fine, but again the winds came up, and I thought we would never make it back without crashing into the Bay Bridge.

 

         Most humiliating was a voyage in Chesapeake Bay with my uncle and aunt when I was about 30. My 17-year-old cousin and her boyfriend got out a sunfish—a teensy boat—and they let me hold the rudder for awhile. Soon we saw a Coast Guard boat making a B-line toward us. Did they think we were smuggling drugs or something?

 

         When they got close, an officer looked at me and wanted to know why we had no life preservers. I drew a blank and looked at my friends. “What’s the matter? Can’t he talk?” the officer asked the two of them. Because I was holding the rudder, apparently that made me the captain of the ship. What, I was Captain Ahab? Captain Hook? Captain Queeg? Captain Bligh?

 

         We got off with a warning. I don’t remember if I gave them my name. Perhaps I was banned from the seas for life. Good!

Confessions of a tech writer

 Confessions of a tech writer

 

“You may be a writer, but you don’t know jack about technology,” said the owner of the satellite TV magazine where I was editor. Maybe he was right—I never even learned to operate a satellite dish.

 

Moving on,  I found a job at the Kiplinger Letter, where I was considered a technical guru. If I worked for a satellite magazine, I must be, right?

 

So I wrote about the latest in computers, mobile phones and social media from 1992 until I retired in 2009, a heady time in the tech industry. I didn’t necessarily understand how these things worked, but I interviewed people who did. If some expert called me to complain “you got that all wrong,” I would listen carefully and ask the person to be a contact. They were my best sources! 

 

I went to tech conferences and heard the likes of Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs describe their latest breakthroughs. We were all amused at one meeting when Gates’ power point display went dark and his staff couldn’t fix it. No one is immune! At one convention, I saw young  women at a Japanese company’s booth taking pictures with their cell phones. What? Who would want to do that? But I wrote about it anyway. 

 

My proudest moment came after I wrote a two-page special section on the future of the Internet in 1995 (ancient days in that field.)  Years later, it was a featured article posted in the company’s  first-floor museum in an exhibit called: “From Gutenberg to the Internet.”

 

I admit I didn’t get everything right. I was confronted in the late 1990s by the Y2K issue: the prospect of computers failing when the new century began, with machines misinterpreting “00” as the year 1900. A doomsayer bought our mailing list and put out his own newsletter forecasting disaster on Jan. 1. I got dozens of calls from panicky readers.. One man asked me to talk his father out of selling his house and moving to a cabin in the mountains.

 

I must admit that I absorbed some of this fear and may have written some worrisome stories about it. Fortunately, my editor toned them down. When the century began, there was no calamity even in countries like Italy, which had taken no precautions. I was roasted about this mercilessly at a retirement event. I deserved it.

Old-Fashioned Manners at Granny Camp

 

I was in love with Mrs. Brianchi, my preschool teacher. I asked my mother once why Mrs. Brianchi sat over a back wheel of the bus. “I think she likes the bumpy ride,” my mother said.

 

So of course I married a preschool teacher. I knew I would be surrounded by children through our married life. First, there was her son Chris. Besides a daughter of our own and a bunch of foster children, we had summer camps at Oak Grove.

 

There were three soccer camps for Sara and her friends from Arlington. Pickett hired the Halifax County Middle School soccer coach to teach them. They even got to play the middle school team. The next year we had to keep the 10-year-old girls from flirting with a good looking male coach from Washington.

 

Then there were bike camps, where I helped the kids to ride. A horse camp. There were even adult camps—couples workshops, college reunions, meditation weekends and a journaling retreat this July 28-30.

 

Nowadays the big staple is Granny Camps. Just about every year, Pickett has had four grandchildren from her previous marriage or two from this one to come and frolic on the farm. This year, they are all gathering for her 80^th birthday in August.

 

At a Granny Camp in July, Bryce and Aria found there is no free lunch. Everybody cooks. Pickett is a lot more patient than I am at teaching them to mix up waffle batter. Table manners are required, or you leave the table. If you raise your inside voice too much, you have to run once around the house outside (a big house.). 

 

No electronic tablets allowed. Children are required to read books, and so most have gotten better at it. At this year’s Granny Camp we  acted out the Harry Potter story. We had brooms for Quidditch matches, tons of envelopes for Harry’s invitation to Hogwarts, and lots of wizard capes and Harry Potter glasses. I am not sure how to act out an invisibility cloak. Our three dogs played the three-headed dog masterfully but were shocked when the children screamed.

 

There are times when the kids drive us nuts. I had to cancel one board game when one child knocked over the pieces. They can be endlessly loud and silly. One squirted me with the hose when playing in the yard. They complain that I am grumpy. So be it!

 

 I had to cajole and argue with Bryce to get him to read me a book. 

All of a sudden, he read me five! I was ecstatic.

 

I was kind of dejected one night, recovering from a long illness. Aria asked me to sing to them at bedtime.  I told them I sang “What a  Wonderful World”  at their parents’ wedding at Oak Grove.   I really got into the song with them. “I hear babies cry and watch them grow. They’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know.”

 

 “That’s your best song,” Bryce said as they applauded and then went to sleep.

 

Yes, I think to myself, what a wonderful world!

 

 

 

 

 

News to Make You Happy!

 

Take a break now from all of the bad news you hear on TV. Here is some good news:

 

—This morning the sun came up! The moon stayed on course. 330 million Americans were not murdered or hit by a car. No atomic bomb was detonated anywhere on the planet. Life is good!

 

—A wonderful park is developing nicely in South Boston’s Riverdale section, which is prone to flooding. It includes a new boat ramp.

 

—About 96% of all of the world’s children make it to adulthood now, according to the New York Times. For centuries, only half of survived. And the share of the world’s people living in extreme poverty has plunged from 38% in 1990 to about 8% now.

 

—Ernie’s restaurant, which closed during the pandemic, is going to come back in the form of a food trailer. And, could a Spanish tapas restaurant be in the future for downtown?

 

—A 12-year-old boy in Michigan took the wheel of his school bus after the driver became unconscious. As he drove the bus to the shoulder, the seventh grader was credited with keeping the 60 children safe from injury.

 

—Evan Snead, who grew up as a child of the Prizery, is coming back from Orlando to be the prince in the August show, The Little Mermaid. Welcome home, Evan!

 

—The Diamond Hill Cemetery, dedicated last year, has been added to the African-American HeritageTrail. Teenage members of Young Life recently planted flowers and fixed up the trails going to Berry Hill resort.

 

—A class has been added and attendance doubled since Rona Collins began teaching the YMCA Silver Sneakers fitness class in September. Good going, Rona!

 

—The  Healthy Harvest Community Garden in Halifax grows and distribute produce for those who otherwise may not have access to affordable, nutritious food. No pesticides are used on the plants. Says Carol Nelson: “We teach our interns and volunteers about good bugs and bad bugs.  They learn to spot pests and pick them off to squish, stomp on or drop into a bucket of soapy water.”

 

—The new Caesars Virginia temporary casino in Danville took in $12 million in revenue in its first 15 days. Other businesses are benefiting. Two sets of guests at our bed & breakfast came to gamble and  ate at South Boston restaurants.

 

—Halifax County’s own Andrew Abbott is tearing up the National League with his first few games as a pitcher for  Cincinnati. Yesterday he struck out 10 batters. Go Andrew!

 

—I am taking a brief summer break from this column. See you soon!

 

Editor’s Note: In real life, the author is not always as upbeat and cheerful as his article implies!

Hope I don’t put you to sleep

 

Yes, I am a napper. I will admit it. A half-hour snooze in mid-afternoon works wonders. My wife used to complain until she saw how much my mood improved. Now she suggests, “Why don’t you take a nap?”

 

I napped before I retired too. On my last job I inherited a sofa somehow. It was wonderful! I would close the door and drift off after lunch. I considered phone calls a rude intrusion. You have a scoop for me? Call me later! 

 

When a higher-ranking editor retired, my boss wanted me to take his office. It was very nice, but there was no room fore a sofa. No way, I’m not moving there! I didn’t say why.

 

People must have known I was sleeping. After I retired, I asked someone about it. “Oh, yes,” she said, “and when you were on vacation, the secretary would sleep in there.” What? On my sofa? Without my permission? Not OK! Once, when I arrived for work,  I found a retired executive with dementia sleeping on my sofa. He sheepishly left as I cruelly glared at him. Got work to do!

 

Even without a sofa, I had intruders on another job, at U.S. News & World Report. A well-respected writer did not seem to have a home address. When his own office got too cluttered for him he would spend the night on the floor in others. When I found an odd smell and cigarette butts on the floor, I knew it was him. I think I left him a note about it. My office is my castle!

 

Sometimes when I can’t get to sleep, I reflect on some of my favorite naps: After my Sunday morning paper route, I would climb back in bed at 7 a.m. and snooze deeply for another hour or two. Another great place was the backyard lounge chair at my mother’s house in the Sierra Nevada foothills.

 

I also think of the time I was driving in a morning snowstorm in the Black Hills of South Dakota with a U-Haul trailer. When I got stuck on the ice, I got out and I fell on my back and broke a rib. I drove to an old small inn at the town of Custer for two hours of wonderful sleep. When the snow stopped I was still in pain but felt refreshed and drove on.

 

And now, excuse me, I think I’ll…Zzzzzz.