Sunday, August 3, 2008

Commentary on memories


Somebody recently suggested I spend more time at my blog on "commentary." I gave it some thought. I asked myself, "Commentary on what? What other people are doing or writing about or blogging about?" I am just not interested. I leave that to Gawker or forums with message boards designed for that relentless on-going activity. This is not an advice column or a timely blog about my political world views. It is not a pundit's or philosopher's blog. In my blog, I am self-involved. I have strong blog-worthy feelings about my own memories. So, I am always emotionally brought back to... the memories.

And I have strong memories of a hot summer day in 1961, when the girls of my summer camp on Martha's Vineyard went to a magical rehearsal of "A Streetcar Named Desire" at The Hilltop Summer Theater.

On one rainy winter Sunday about two years ago, I tried to locate some of those actors from so long ago. After a bit of research, I found Julia Curry and rang her up. She was most receptive and gracious and she enthralled me with her own memories of her experience playing "Stella." She had quite an interesting tale to tell of opening night.

Long ago, on one afternoon in time two people were in The Hilltop Summer Theater. One was a gorgeous and mesmerizing actress and the other was on that day a teenage camper in the rehearsal audience. And they came together 50 years later... and shared their memories.

After that phone call and with the information Miss Curry provided, I wrote and sent a fan letter to the actor who played Stanley Kowalski in that production.

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