Pardon me but my age is showing!

Richard Harris in the '60's.

I'm home with a hacking cold and have glued myself to my computer. I found myself looking actresses and actors, okay, mostly actors, who were interesting to me when I was younger, in my 20's and 30's. Men like Michael Caine, Richard Burton, and Richard Harris. The first film I saw Harris in was "This Sporting Life" in 1963, he received "Best Actor" at Cannes, and later there was "The Field" in 1990 for which he received an Academy Award Nomination for "Best Actor"; he had quite a career before Harry Potter. My young sons and I saw him in Seattle onstage in "Camelot." He did appear to be a wee bit drunk, but he was marvelous and thrilling to watch.

Add Peter O'Toole and Robert Shaw, who was also an author of some success. Did anyone else see Richard Burton's "Hamlet?" I guess the official title was "Richard Burton's Hamlet." It had a wildly successful theater run, was filmed and was released for one week only in September of 1964. It received poor reviews much to my puzzlement, ahead of its time maybe. Then all copies were destroyed and it was thought to be gone until Burton's widow found a copy in their house. I think its out on DVD so maybe you can check it out yourself if you are inclined. Okay, so Michael Caine is still around as is Peter O'Toole, just barely. And, why am I looking up old, dead, guys anyway? I must be feeling mortal while trying to crack a rib coughing. Or just morbid.

There are some more recent vintages; I really admire Gabriel Byrne, really admire him, yum, and Daniel Day-Lewis, Pierce Brosnan, and Colin Farrell ("In Bruges" is wonderful), and they are Irishmen all, well, Day-Lewis is half-Irish but so am I. But I didn't bother to look them up today. Except for young Colin they are all better behaved than their predecessors and certainly quite talented. Still I miss those other guys. The world I came out of is swiftly disappearing. Maybe I'd better score a version of Burton's "Hamlet" to share with my grandkids. Some are being home schooled, I can run the Film Portion of The Curriculum. I got the 12 year old to watch the 1956 "War and Peace" with Henry Fonda and Audrey Hepburn. When they are older, if I can get a copy of it I will try to lure them into watching the 1967-68 Russian version "Voyna i mir," in segments though, it is 7 hours long but majestic and follows the book very closely; and it is gorgeous.

Audrey Hepburn, if I'm too bleary to read this afternoon, I'll look her up, for starters. Off for a nap.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

We now have a baseball team in our remote city. http://www.wallawallasweets.com/ It's a very big deal here and my baseball starved hubbie is thrilled. So we got season tickets and off we went. I am not a fan in the way he is, I don't watch televised games, and don't know the lingo or the players, but I enjoy local college and high school games in realtime and even though the Sweets lost, it was okay. The people watching is good, the game was fun, and it didn't hurt that we see friends and acquaintences (small town). They serve the usual fare along wine, and Walla Walla Sweet Onion Sausages, from Onion World http://www.onionworld.com/ . Yum, to die for delicious. Yes, those are rain clouds, we made it home before it monsooned.

Here we all are, in line, early, to see the opening game of the new Walla Walla Sweets baseball team of the West Coast League.

Here is our young team leaving the field after being introduced. The pitcher is from UCLA and got three outs in the first inning, almost right away. After that, they tried hard, made mistakes, but did pretty well for a brand spanking new team playing for the first time against the League Champions, the Applesox (no laughing at the names, like I did, my bad.)

Pictures Courtesy of Paul Franzmann

Here is a snapshot of the team mascot. I know the poor chap inside has his head in the green thing but darned if I could see how he sees out. It might not be too bad in there now but by the summer shows up he'll be needing intravenous fluids. It's often in the 100 degree range around here come July and August.

I live with John Colter sort of...

A couple of weeks ago my husband and I celebrated our sixth anniversary by taking a little trip away from home and at the same time he also volunteered to to do a living history presentation at Edy Ridge Elementary in Sherwood, Oregon. He portrays John Colter, mountain man and Discovery Corps member of the Lewis and Clark party. My sister Susan's a 4th grade teacher. Grade 4 is a time they learn about Lewis and Clark. All the 4th grades were included and 100+ of the best behaved kids I've seen came to the party. He's very good, stays in his character throughout the whole visit and tells many interesting stories including Colter's remarkable run in 1809 from the Blackfeet in his birthday suit. Here he is telling one of John's true life tales. Colter packed an amazing amount of living into his brief 39 years, including being the first white man to see the bubbling pools and geysers of Yellowstone.



This is sister Susan taking in the show with her son who got half a day off from his school to join the fun. It's a wonderful, brand new school and the staff was welcoming and helpful.

We had a very good time. Probably one of the best anniversaries we've had. I really enjoyed sharing our celebration with family, eating together and visiting the sights of Portland, OR, especially our extended visit to Powell's book store where we tried to spend all of our spare $$.