SEVENTY-FIRST SUMMER

Seventy summers have passed and number seventy-one is on the horizon. I have seen and heard many things in those passed summers, but this may be one like no other. I almost feel like the summer of 1967 when I knew at the end of summer I would leave home and enter a strange new world called college. There was a bit of dread mixed with anticipation of what was to come. As this summer comes into focus some things are already lost. This year there is no summer theater to enjoy in a most wonderful theater. For the first time in 10 summers the stage will be dark and no future Tony winners descending on the area. They would only be 2 or 3 nights at most, unless of course I chose to see more than one performance of the same show. Which I often did. But oh what glorious nights they were. Young people from all over the eastern part of the US and sometimes further were invited by a master to come and be part of his magic for the months of June and July. For 10 summers this master staged West Side Story, Into the Woods, Oklahoma, Carousel, Seussical, The Thirty-Nine Steps, Les Miserables, and more using talented college students he saw audition in late winter. Some 10 to 20 of them came and joined with local talent and you couldn’t ask for better shows anywhere. I literally saw local kids grow up on that stage and go on to be college theater majors and more. I saw college kids who became leading players in touring companies, in regional theaters across the county, and yes even go on to Broadway. But this summer the theater is dark. But not really. It shines in my memory. The light of the memory of these shows and the shows I know are to come burns bright. Once experienced, nothing ever really fades. I survived that summer of 67 with all of its mixed feeling, and know I will survive this one as well. College was a wonderful time, a scary time, the best of times, the worst of times, forgive me Mr. Dickens. Let’s not mourn what we have lost and what changes we have had to make in our lives, but embrace them and hold fast to the wonderful memories we have. They help to make the dark times brighter and help us to realize that life really is good. I don’t guess I really have changed much since that summer of 67. I still believe in the basic goodness of people, I still believe that darkness gives way to light, that it couldn’t snow and stay cold forever. This went nowhere I thought it would go, but then neither does life.

Maundy Thursday

Tonight is known as Maundy Thursday in the Christian frame of reference, but I am willing to bet not all christians know its meaning or maybe even care. My first thought tonight is that supper could not be replicated tonight without leaving out three of the figures. In our time of limited gathering and size restrictions on gathering, it may be a good time to know what maundy means. According to Google, it is derived from the Latin word for command. That certainly seems appropriate especially Maundy Thursday 2020. But my feeling is that if a lot of people had taken to heart the command that is being referred to here, we would have less use for all the other commands. The command I refer to is very simply “love one another as I have loved you”. Simple straight to the point and all inclusive. YES, inclusive not exclusive. No matter who you are, who you love, who you worship simply love one another. It is not difficult and it is really not an arguable point. I don’t think anyone would disagree that the world is a circle and there is not anyone who is in this world that is outside of the circle except the people on the space station. And even with them, there is a force keeping them in orbit of the circle earth. When I was 17, I wondered why it was so hard for people to love one another. Now with those two digits reversed I wonder why people find it so hard to love one another. And in all those years between 17 and 71, I haven’t heard one good reason.

THEM

While eating lunch today, I turned on the TV to find yet another news story of surviving the pandemic. This time it was financial survival tips, so I quickly flipped over to a movie channel. There I encountered THEM. For you who are too young to remember in the late 50’s and early 60’s Hollywood tried to educate us about the effects of radiation from atomic weaponry and such. THEM was one of those efforts regarding the effects of radiation on ants. It turned them into super giant killers. I remember every Saturday morning getting up early to watch Sunrise Theater on WRAL which often featured these movies. It carried me back to fears I had when I was in the very impressible ages of 10 to 17. When I turned 18 there were a whole new set of fears. My fears centered around the bomb, threats from Russia, and many other things including segregation and such I just couldn’t understand. So deep seated were my fears that I never thought of living beyond 21. As I reached that milestone and more I never got over feeling how temporary life might be and developed a somewhat nihilistic attitude about any kind of planning for a future. Today I wonder if 10 year olds feel the same as I did in 1959. I wonder if the bombardment of media stories and news about our current situation is creating a sense of nihilism in them. I was lucky. Somehow I found a way to turn most of fears into glimmers of hope. That served me well through the assassinations, the riots, Vietnam, and all the other wars to come. It served me when I begin to watch friends die of another disease which many people called a just punishment. And know that many friends of mine now still harbor a sickness that may have been prevented and cured. “These are the times that try men’s souls…” were words written during another time about a different set of circumstances, yet they are strangely appropriate today. They remind us we have a soul to be tried and somehow find a glimmer of light in all that is dark. If you know a 10 year old who may be scared right now, tell them that a 71 year old man knows that fear and that it will be ok for them as it has been for him.