An Epiphany...Or Two

My little MoneySense rant has got me thinking.  Hmmm...maybe that's the point of those ranking lists they put out, to get us focused on the positives in our communities.  And thinking about the positives got me thinking about the things that are important in life.  And that got me thinking about my Camino. It's a trip I've been planning for two years now and it's still five months away. And that got me thinking about the late, great John Lennon who once said, "Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans."

Which got me thinking that not all Green Jar Adventures have to be of the epic variety.  It's all the little GJA's that make up the fabric of our life.  Like the play I went to a couple of weeks ago in nearby Chemainus.  See, that's another perk of where I live -- it's close to so many other great places. Chemainus is a quaint little town about an hour and a half away and it has a fantastic theatre that hosts many world class productions.  One of the first plays I ever attended, maybe even the first, was a production of Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. Definitely not one of the Bard's widely performed plays and I can't remember a single thing about it -- except for the opening scene.  It started in a steam bath and the actors were milling about wearing nothing but towels wrapped around their waists.  I'm liking it so far.  The next thing I know, they dropped the towels and set about lounging on the steam bath bleachers while Shakespearian dialogue went in one ear and out the other.  Naked Shakespeare -- did it get any better than that?!  I can remember thinking to myself, "Damn, I love live theatre!"  

But I really love musical theatre.  I've seen Cats on Broadway and The Phantom of the Opera at the Pantages in Toronto.  But the musicals I've seen in Chemainus are second to none -- Hello, Dolly!, The Pirates of Penzance, Fiddler on the Roof, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dream Coat.  So I was pretty stoked to take my 85 year old mom to see The Buddy Holly Story.  We attended a sold out weekday matinee and as I suspected would be the case, I was probably the youngest one in the theatre.  When the performance ended, I stood to lead the standing ovation. Buddy (aka Zachary Stevenson) asked if we wanted one more song, then broke into Oh, Boy, definitely my favourite Buddy Holly tune.  I was all set to stay on my feet and bop along but the geriatric set slowly reseated themselves and I felt obliged to follow suit.  I was a little disappointed until I looked around the room and had, yes, an epiphany.  Buddy Holly died in 1959 when he was 22 years old.  If the people listening to him at the time were about the same age, then they'd all be in their mid to later seventies today.  Here I was in what was in all likelihood a room full of original fans. Few pretenders like me. 

I don't think my mom was ever a Buddy Holly fan, she was always more of a Glen Miller, Frank Sinatra type.  But she declared The Buddy Holly Story the best play we've ever seen.  We bought the CD's and listened to them all the way home.

Now that's a GJA to remember.


Book Review:  If it hadn't been the March selection for my book club, I never would have slogged through the first 200 pages of The Tiger:  A True Story of Vengeance and Survival to arrive at the payoff in the last 100 pages. Set in 1997 in Far East Russia, it is the story of the hunt for a man-eating tiger.  At least it is in the final third of the book.  The first two thirds are a dry initiation into Russian politics and animal behaviour.  Reading just shouldn't feel like homework.