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.