I made contact with. . .

one of my favorite students from the past yesterday.  Dave Fischer and I communicated through FACEBOOK.  I had no idea he had been the keyboard man in Roosevelt Dean's blues band for quite awhile, and that he had been very active musically over the past few years.

Dave is a writer, too, and has published several books.  He is a naturalist, and I have one of his volumes which deals with edible mushrooms.

Dave was big into drama while in high school, too, and was a really good actor.  He played Linus in YOU'RE  A GOOD MAN CHARLIE BROWN, the barber in MAN OF LA MANCHA, the doctor in THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, and the rabbi in FIDDLER ON THE ROOF.  Dave may be best remembered for a misstep.  In one of the FIDDLER production numbers, probably TRADITION, he fell from the stage into the orchestra pit.  Worry not, he got back up and never missed a beat.

I am getting nearer to the end of ARTHUR REDUX.  Soon I'll be sending a PDF of the play to people on the SUMMERPLAY mailing list.  Anyone wanting to read a copy and currently reading this blog, feel free to request one.  Definitely feel free to audition, too.  

Postscript:  When Dave fell into the pit, it was revealed that he was wearing red soxes underneath his rabbi garb.

I am addicted. . .

to Panera coffee.  The dark roast blend.  Two percent milk.  Heaven!  Sugar, you ask?  I would no more put sugar in my coffee than I would heat up a bottle of Coke before drinking it.

       I often meet friends and acquaintances at Panera's, too.  Two days ago it was Kathy Vogel. Today I met two former students.  Terry Perrone, who I often see at the Fayetteville Panera's, was there this morning.  I taught Terry way back somewhere in the distant 70's.  Terry is a great guy who runs his own dance studio and drives one of the hottest cars you'd ever want to see.  He and his dance partner Carrie Lazarus of Channel 9 just won the Syracuse version of "Dancing With the Stars." Terry showed me an amazing photo on his computer of the two of them tangoing or something equally exotic.

I also saw Jill Tirabassi.  Jill was in my sophomore honors class in 2001-2002, the year I retired.  She's now a first year med student at University Hospital, and she comes to Panera's on weeks when she has tests.   Other med students come there on test weeks, too, and they study together.  Jill was a great high school English student and a really terrific person, but my most vivid memory of Jill is from September 11, 2001.  It was between 2nd and 3rd period, and the kids began coming in, buzzing about a terrorist attack that had supposedly just happened, and that they were hearing about in the halls.  I guess I was probably a little skeptical; it sounded like one of those wild, baseless rumors.  Then, Jill came into class.  "It's true," she said.  "A plane crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center."  Jill had been out of school for an appointment and had heard it on the radio.  So it was official, and that moment and Jill's words are burned into my consciousness forever.  For people of 55 or older, the news of the terroristic attack is like the assassination of John F. Kennedy.  Unforgettable.  Ironically, I was in English class then, too.  I was a junior in Mrs. Hassett's room when the announcement of that world-bending tragedy was made.

     I think that Chittenango Central School is a terrific school system with a history of fine administrators, but I remain, 7 and 1/2 years after the fact, terribly bothered by the lack ofreaction by the administration that day.  To begin with, it was criminal that the high school wasn't equipped with televisions.  Every U.S. teenager should have been a witness to the events of that morning, if only because a lot of them have served or are serving in the middle eastern wars, in part because of those actions.  Also, throughout the morning, the loud speaker in each classroom remained silent.  If ever there was a time for a calming comment from a person in authority, it was then. Enough on my soapbox.

  In writing it seems to be the era of the "memoir."  People are pronouncing it affectedly as "mem-wah," now.  Give me a break!  It's like how "homage," properly anglicized for decades, has become "oh-modge."  Using mem-wahs or memories is great in writing, though.  I got an e-mail from Highlights Foundation announcing that they are offering a workshop on using memories in writing.   Another of my vivid memories is the 13 days in 1962 called the Cuban Missile Crisis.  I was in 10th grade and for almost 2 weeks, my friends and I thought we were about to get nuked.  I have a partially written, partially fictional mem-wah about those days which I titled THE SOCKHOP AT THE END OF THE WORLD.  Interestingly enough, it was Rich Wallace, who does workshops for Highlights, who told me I should write about that memory.  

Well, it is official. . .

that I did NOT buy a new car.  I am simply allergic to car payments.  Enough said about that.

     Regarding writing, I am thinking of using the expression "No, Duh!?" as a title.  Is this still a common enough slang statement to be recognizable to most people under the age of 35 or so, and the parents of people under the age of 20 or so?  Let me know, please.  Your help is needed.

     Huge happening today, and it wasn't not buying a car.  I applied for Social Security.  To you young'uns, that means I am within 3 months of my 62nd birthday.  I simply have no further comment on that.

Some people mentioned that they enjoyed the polar bear story I included in my blog a couple of weeks ago.  Here's a poem I wrote to be used in one of my YA manuscripts.  It's written in blank verse which is unrhymed iambic pentameter.  That's the verse style Shakespeare used in all his plays, and Robert Frost often used in his poetry.  If you've forgotten, "iambic pentameter" means each line of a poem contains 10 syllables or 5 iambic feet.  Each iambic foot contains an unaccented syllable followed by an accented one.  So a line of iambic pentameter reads to this  beat:  stress-unstressed/s-u/s-u/s-u/s-u.  I love iambic pentameter.  It's both fun and hard to write.

For Jenny Who Taught Me to Believe in Ghosts

Although she left me seven years ago,

I often come back home and think I'll find

her waiting for me on the path or by

our picket fence with hat and garden gloves

and scissors.  In her hand a blossom snipped

just now, its scent still fresh, to float atop

bright water in the crystal bowl she kept

upon our hutch, a doily underneath

to keep a ring from forming.  Still , one did.

I know this for a fact because the ring

is all that's left.  The blossom wilted soon.

The bowl that from my fingers fell and smashed.

The doily torn or lost I cannot say,

All gone, all gone away, except the ring. . .

And Jenny, who when I'm sleepy or at 

my desk will touch a finger to my neck

or make the wind chimes chime without a wind,

again to let me know that she is there,

And so am I, and therefore we.  Then go

I to the hutch and touch the ring and smell 

that blossom in that bowl and then I know,

That there are surely ghosts, they must be so.

      Comments are welcome.  Even better write a verse in blank verse.  It's hard and fun.

I saw Kathy Vogel. . .

. . .this afternoon at the Panera's in DeWitt.  She was with a group of friends from a ceramics class.  I was on my own, having dropped Linda at the eye doctor for an examination and Lucy at PetSmart for a bath.  We talked for 10 or 15 minutes, and I was thrilled to learn that Kathy is a reader of "The Blue Moon Grille" blog.  It's great to know that people are reading and enjoying my words.

     Now to another thing dealing with writing.  While driving to Centerville on Cape Cod last week, I kept Linda from leaping from the car (she's not a happy rider when there are large trucks rolling by), listened to some CD's, looked at the scenery, and cursed out a couple of the aforementioned trucks, although most of them were being perfectly harmless, in their loud, diesel-fumy way.  And though preoccupied with those other things, the corner of mind in charge of play ideas labored on.  By the time we were at my brother's house, I was able to sit down and make a brief outline of what I believe is a satisfactory way to end the tale.

     This afternoon before Panera's I went to Barnes and Noble and bought JEFF HERMAN'S GUIDE TO BOOK PUBLISHERS, EDITORS, & LITERARY AGENTS.  It's a great source, chocked full of info, names, addresses on where to send what you would like to publish.  And because I do SUMMERPLAY and attend writer's conferences and such, I can declare it's audacious $32.27 cost on my income tax.

     I think I'm going to buy a new car tomorrow.  I think I may buy the front wheel drive version of the Mercury Mariner.  Linda has the four wheel drive version.  Mine would get 28 mph on the highway.  Is it weird if a husband and wife own basically the same car?  Is it like wearing matching sweaters?  Comments are welcome.

We just came back. . .

from a week on Cape Cod.  Every so often we need to go back to the ocean.  The sea is my earthly vision of God.  It is so vast as to appear unending.  I look at it and may be moved by its life and beauty, or frightened by its starkness and depth.  Its freshness and scent renew me.  As I watch the gentle waves break across the sand, I feel that I have returned to where life began.

". . .the miracle of creation is the same miracle--whether it took six days or many centuries."--from Rodgers and Hammerstein's THE KING AND I

So I lied. . .

about not blogging until next Saturday.  I just wanted to plug the Easter Musical that will be held in the CHS auditorium tonight at 6:00 p.m. and tomorrow at 10:45 a.m..  It's a moving, spiritual, and uplifting combination of choral music, dramatic action, and dance, skillfully combined by director Betsy Keville and the amazing talent of the congregation at CrossRoads Community Church.  The musical is a great way to have the meaning of Easter be reviewed or revealed.

Just a brief posting. . .

. . .today.  This will probably be my last blog until Saturday, the 18th.  It's really fun talking to people on my blog, even if no one is listening.  Because, after all, a blog is a "web-log" or journal, and I 've never kept any kind of journal before.  I'm enjoying it, and if anyone else does, that's frosting.

      This afternoon I will mail out THE LAUGHING MAN to Dramatic Publishing.  Then we shall see what happens.

      I think I've decided to buy a Mercury Milan.  Great discounts, 0% interest rate, really beautiful car, so I think I'll go for it.  Does it reflect my personality?  That is the question.  Happy Easter to all.  I'm looking forward to working on the CrossRoads' Easter Musical this weekend.