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The Victoria

GAZETTE

         We took advantage of complimentary media tickets from the Old Log Theater in Excelsior and attended a performance of "On Golden Pond" last weekend.  Thank you, Tim Stolz.  We enjoyed the entire evening.  Allan's Walleye Pike Almandine was perfectly prepared, as was my Breast of Chicken Oscar with Fresh Asparagus, Crab Meat, and a Sauce Bearnaise.

         During the performance I found myself comparing the characters on stage to Henry Fonda, Katherine Hepburn, Jane Fonda, and others in the movie production.  Anybody would.  However, we laughed outloud several times at the funny lines and ways of the Old Log's Mr. Thayer.  In the movie version, Henry Fonda delivered the identical lines in more of a downcast cranky way -- humorous but not laugh outloud humorous.

         In any case, on the way home after the play I asked Allan, "Why would anyone want to be an actor?" 

         I'm often distracted when I attend a live play because I'm usually looking at the actors more than at the characters they are playing.  Acting is an occupation, a work, that I can't identify with, and I can't fathom why anyone would choose to do it.

         Why would someone choose to stand on stage in front of large or small audiences, feign sentiments, and repeat other people's lines over and over again?  Why would someone choose to be somebody else night after night? 

         The people on stage for "On Golden Pond" ranged in age from the teenage boy who liked to suck face up to the old Norman and Ethel Thayer (thounds like thumbody is lithping) which confirms that the acting profession -- or acting sideline, as the case may be -- is chosen by people of all ages.  It's not like a big discovery to me, for goodness sake, but it's all rather confounding.

         There are other jobs and occupations that have had me asking similar questions.  For example, after every single Victoria City Council meeting -- and I attend all of them unless I'm out of town -- I come home and say to Allan, "Why would anyone want to be a city councilmember?"

         First of all, why would someone choose to put their name on a ballot with the possibility of being rejected?  Why would someone want to make decisions about spending other people's money?  Why would someone want to make decisions that affect not just the present but the future of an entire community?  Why would someone want to cast votes month after month knowing those votes can alienate as well as satisfy?

         There are other life choices that confound me.  Over the lifetime of my working years, which are not few in number, I've often wondered why some people choose to be a salesman -- of fuller brushes, of tupperware, of kitchen tools, of specialty candles and such things.

         Why would people want to push products that are not of their own making?  Why would people want to sell items that, although they have value, are often extras in a consumerist society?  Why would people want to sell things door to door, and home to home, when big box and little box stores with practically identical products abound everywhere in the developed world?

         And then I recall what some people have asked me over the years:  "Why would anyone want to be the editor of a newspaper?"

         When I read their thoughts, they seem to be saying,  "I'd rather dig ditches.  I'd rather be unemployed.  I'd rather change dirty diapers.  I'd rather stand in the middle of the highway.  I'd rather eat grass."

         Why would someone choose to live with the constant pressure of deadlines and the responsibility for millions and billions of words in print over three decades of writing and reporting?  Why would someone so often put her personal life on the line with her own thoughts and beliefs, not to mention the absolute truth of things which some people don't like to hear?

         I've mentioned to my kids that we are somebody before we are born, unique among others, and so we come to do our own thing, different from others, but hopefully for others as well as for ourselves, and it's nice when we love what we do.

         I see how Addie and Gunnar and Sophie and Mia have singular likes and dislikes, talents and energies, proclivities and personalities unlike anybody else.   I see that they were indeed somebody before they were born.  As much as they might resemble and act like their parents, I see that their origin is other-worldly.  The same was true of my own babies, of course, but I now see with different eyes.  "God made us" is much more than an easy line from the Catechism.

         It's very much fun to watch our grandchildren be and become who they are.  They might have the makings to be actors, city councilmembers, salesmen, or even editors.  Some things are just in our bones.

March 2011

From the Editor