Memphis - Day 120- 126 of 178 Day Trek

We did not see it coming ... Memphis, I mean.  Well, we did know that we were going to Memphis, but because we had been warned to be very careful about our safety, we had approached the city with some trepidation.  But what I mean when I said "we did not see it coming" was that we really did not see coming such a lovely city with a great amount of diversity, history, and so, so much to see and do.  Memphis quickly became our favorite city on the trip, so far.
     Who'd a thunk it?
   

(Diedre was happy to find another man to add to her kissing collection.)

 Our first two days consisted of travel, rest, and reconnaissance.  The 2nd day, we took a car tour to preview all that we wanted to see, and we topped that off with a wonderful leisure walk along the mighty Mississippi River in downtown Memphis.  After that, we were ready for a week of fun and learning about a city we really knew little about.   

 On Tuesday,  September 3, our week began with a bang ... that means "Graceland," of course.  Now it's not that we're such huge fans of Elvis, although we both do like his music.  In fact, truth be told, we're not really big music people; Diedre is partial to Broadway show tunes, of course, while I really only like the hard acid rock from the late 60's, a remnant of my hippie lifestyle (meaning I tried to grow a goatee in 1966, but it was all white peach-fuzz).  But what do you do if you go to Memphis if you don't do Graceland and the King.  So we went.

     Diedre had gone on line and found that mid-afternoon was the best time to go to Graceland, that all the really serious Elvis devotees were in line first thing in the morning.  And that was true; the lines were immense, even for a school-day Tuesday morning.  But when we got there at 2 PM, we were the first ones in line and our tour group was only about 15 people.  So far, so good.
     The mansion was good sized, but not immense by any means.  The tour included Elvis's house (except for the upstairs) and the buildings out back, which included a racquetball court.  I did not know the King played racquetball, one of my favorite pre-heart-bypass-surgery sports.  Apparently, Elvis had even played racquetball on his court the morning he died.
     The tour also included a small building which held all his gold/platinum records.  

Out back, there was his grave alongside that of his twin brother (who died in infancy) as well as Elvis's mother and father.  I noticed Elvis's dad's middle name was "Elvis," so that's answered for me the origin of where his name came from.  The grave site was very arresting; he was just so damn young, far too early to leave us.  It was easy to get a catch in your throat while gazing upon the peaceful, contemplative area out back.  Everyone there was deadly silent.
     Diedre and I are usually not big on tours; we prefer to self-guide ourselves to special places like these.  But this tour was a lot of self-guiding including those digital recorder/transmitters that you wear around your neck and which gives you whatever information you want for whichever location you're at.  It's all done at your own speed.  It was very nice.
     Across the street from Graceland there were additional Elvis exhibits.  These exhibits were right next to the actual Heartbreak Hotel.  We were staying at the Graceland RV Park which is right behind the hotel, giving us just a short walk across the street to the main house.  The other exhibits included Elvis's spectacular automobile museum, his two personal jets, and several special exhibits about his life: his movies, his time in Hawaii, and his historic 1968 Las Vegas comeback.  

A particular highlight for me was that I got to have a peanut butter-and-banana sandwich (1/2 of course; the food-sheriff is always watching) with Diedre.  I had never had one before.  We ate it at the Elvis Cafe right across the street   That meal was courtesy of Phoenix area actress-friend and new mother (again) Candy Stanton who had encouraged me to go for my dreams (my limited dreams, of course, being to eat a PB&B sandwich at Graceland).  Apparently, I unknowingly spilled melted peanut butter on the-guy-sitting-next-to-me's (me's?) blue-suede shoes.  What a hound dog!
   

 The next day our vacation was interrupted by a visit to the doctor ... a vet, actually.  No, my hoof-and-mouth was not acting up again.  Middle child (kitten) Casey had been scratching his ear forcefully enough that he was now bleeding, so we drove all the way to Mississippi to find a competent vet.  Of course, Mississippi was only about 8 miles away.  The vet was very nice and gave Casey a shot which seemed to clear everything up.  We both breathed a sigh of relief.  That night we caught the movie "The End of the World" which (I thought) was very funny and unusual.  How many movies do you get that start out with a bunch of buddies doing an epic bar crawl ("pub" crawl, actually; this was England, after all) for the first half of the movie only to have them then save the planet from aliens during the second half.  Once again (see first sentence of today's blog), I did not see that coming.
     

Thursday,  September 5, was another "history" day for the intrepid duo.  It's the kind of day I so love and that my wonderful wife gracefully endures, although I think she was pretty impressed with all that we did that day.
     We started out at the National Civil Rights Museum at the old Lorraine Motel.  Amazingly, we were allowed to stand on the exact spot on the motel balcony where Martin Luther King was shot and killed in 1968.  We both felt knots in our stomach standing there.  We quickly moved on; it just didn't feel right, like we really didn't belong there.  However, we were both grateful for the moment.

     Earlier, we had been in the boarding house across the street in the room from which James Earl Ray fired that fateful shot.  That building and the Lorraine Motel have been turned into The National Civil Right Museum.  We had thought that Elvis dying at 42 was such a shame, but to hear that Dr. King had died at 39, well, both of those events are just so sad.  It was a very moving day.
     

Regrouping, we then made our way to the legendary Sun Studio.  Note that none of the great sites in Memphis are very far away from each other.  For a big city, it's very "small-town."
     For those of you who, like us, weren't aware of the significance of Sun Studio, it's been called "The Birthplace of Rock 'N' Roll."  It was started by a gentleman named Sam Phillips and was where so many legendary talents got their starts.  Beatle Ringo Starr called it "ground zero for R&R."  Bob Dylan even kissed the floor upon his first visit there.
     Best Sun Studio story: When the 18-year old Elvis walked into SS for the first time, he was asked who he sounded like.  His confident response?
     "I don't sound like nobody."
     And then he sang a birthday song for his mother.  He actually had to pay $4 to have the song recorded, but later that year during a jam session, Sam heard Elvis do his own rendition of "That's All Right" and the rest is history.
     

     My shoes were getting a workout that day as I stood on yet another historic spot: the place in the recording studio where Elvis did his first recording.  I even got to hold the giant old microphone he used (see amazing picture-you can hardly tell if it's Elvis or me).  There was also a great, oversized picture in the studio from December 4, 1956.  It was dubbed "The Million Dollar Quartet" photo.  Now while I know that doesn't sound like so much money to you now, remember that this was back in the mid-1950's when gas was something like 9-cents a gallon.  The MDQ consisted of Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins.  It was the musical version of "The Four Horseman of Notre Dame" (football metaphor, this time).
     Our history lesson continued the next day.  We made it to a more rundown part of down to check out "Slavehaven," a house that an abolitionist farmer had built with hidden spaces for helping runaway slaves make their way north before the Civil War.  It was eerie to be in the cold, cramped basement where slaves had hidden 160+ years earlier.  The old house's walls were covered with all sorts of history about slavery and the underground railroad.  A particularly interesting fact brought to our attention was that Aetna Insurance, those same rogues we go to battle with almost daily to get them to cover our scrapes and bruises, was one of the companies who insured slave ships on their trips from Africa to the U.S.  Their willingness to compensate these slave traders for any slaves who died during the long trip across the Atlantic was a big reason the slave-traders cared very little for the hygiene and nutrition of their cargo.  It was a very unsettling, yet enlightening tour.
   

 OK, we were done with the difficult parts of history, at least for Memphis (Watch for Dallas and the School Book Depository next week).   We were off to the elegant and venerable Peabody Hotel to see their legendary "duck walk."  Yes, for the last 80 years, the hotel staff has marched their 4 ducks from their pond on the roof down the elevator and into the giant lobby fountain where the ducks spend their day swimming, posing for pictures, and talking trash about Donald and Daffy.  Then at 5 PM, they get marched out and back up the elevator.  And it draws people ...LOTS of people.  It made the hotel's happy hour "just ducky."
     

From there, we went across the street to one of the world's few (at least outside of Canada) Canadian diners.  It was called "The Kooky Canuck."  In order to fit in, I referred to everyone I met there as "hoser."    They had a 4-lb. hamburger there with lettuce, onions, tomato, pickles, and cheese together with bun, giving it all a weight of 7.5 pounds; if you eat it all in under 60 minutes, it's free ... otherwise, it's $33.  I figured Diedre could do it easily, but she opted instead for just a dinner salad.
     Chicken!
     After dinner, we made our way down the block to the Orpheum Theatre, a magnificent and absolutely huge edifice built in 1928 and gloriously restored in the last decade or so.  On this evening they were running one of my favorite old movies, the 1933 original "King Kong."  And wonders-upon-wonders, they were only charging the 1933-price of 50-cents.  We had to go.
     At the ticket counter after having just purchased our tickets, the woman behind us stepped up to the ticket-seller and asked, "What's showing tonight?"
     "'King Kong.'"
     The woman thought a second and then said, "The musical?"
     That cracked Diedre and me up.  I mean, what do you say to that?  Of course, a second later, we looked at each other and a common thought crossed our 1.7 minds.  So, now we ARE working on "King Kong: The Musical"; Diedre likes Scarlett Johansson for the Fay Wray part while I'm looking at David Hyde Pierce to play Kong.
    

We finished the incredible day off with a walk down the legendary and raucous Beale St.  It was apparent during that walk that the neon-light business is alive and well in Memphis.  Those two blocks were a riot, a combination Las Vegas-New Orleans-street carnival-Bacchus liquor swilling orgy.  The police had all entrances to the area sealed off; you actually had to go through metal detectors outdoors to get in.  Probably because of that, everyone was very well behaved.  We enjoyed our beers in a very loud peace.
     
After that exhausting Saturday, you'd think we'd take our last day in Memphis off.  And you'd be wrong.      

We had heard about the fabulous Mud Island River Park just off the downtown area.  There was a monorail you could take to the island, but we opted to walk the bridge above the monorail ($10 for a 1/3 mile ride ... I mean, REALLY?  You do the math).

  The highlight of the island is a bit tricky to explain, but I'll give it as shot.  They built what is called "The River Walk."  It is an amazingly detailed, 5-block long model of the lower Mississippi, all the way from where it joins the Ohio River on down to New Orleans.  What, Lake Itasca, MN, the origin of the Mississippi, wasn't good enough for you people?


     The Mississippi River model walk had 65 stops, each telling interesting historical facts about cities along the way.  Many of the larger cities had models and bridges built in along the way, and all the land was built to scale with water flowing everywhere.  Walking this boardwalk, I at times felt like a giant ready to crush cities in a single stomp, a la Godzilla.  Come to think of it, my morning breath was probably a lot like his.
   

 This walk gave Diedre a wonderful idea.  Since our RV trips for 2014 (south and east) and 2015 (west and Canada) are already planned, she put dibs on driving the entire Mississippi trail from New Orleans to Lake Itasca in 2016.  Get your tickets early.
     

The last night of this wonderful Memphian sojourn ended with us being picked up at the RV park by a pink Cadillac (now there's class for you) and being whisked away to that Elvis-centric barbecue restaurant, Marlowe's.  Dinner was leisurely and wonderful.  And Dallas was just one day away.

     See you there.
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In famous Columbo fashion, here's Diedre with "one more thing"...

The Peanut Shoppe at 24 S. Main Street

Alexx and I love to find fun little food shops on our travels.  Usually I seek out the coffee places that roast their own beans and Alexx is in constant search of sugar-free or very dark chocolate that he can stash away for savoring when ever his blood sugar is low or his carb count will allow it.  Likewise, when he found out he can handle up to 3 cups of popcorn, he will jump through hoops to find a fresh popcorn shop.  And he did just that in Memphis.  This was a charming little shop that was actually an alley at one time and someone put a roof on it and opened a peanut and popcorn galley.  I agree the popcorn was great, but the real find was the huge counter of fresh roasted nuts.  We brought home a few bags of pitashios and pecans which I love, but the real find were the HUGE red skin peanuts.  OMG - I am not a very big fan of peanuts, but these were unbelievable.  My only regret of our lovely week in Memphis was that we didn't make a return trip to that popcorn place to get about 5 pounds of those peanuts!  

St. Louis - Day 114 - 119 of 178 Day Trek

Legendary announcer for St. Louis Cardinals

Our trek from Chicago to St. Louis wasn't a particularly long one, only about 245 miles.  But time on the road causes the mind to wander, to notice the strangest things.  And on this trip, what I did notice along the way was the sheer numbers of road kill on the shoulders of the highways.  There were an especially large amount of armadillos.  I must have seen at least 20 of the poor little guys in the dead cockroach position on the side of the road.  What's up with that?  Are they so accustomed to their armor-like skin fending off all would-be predators that they figure they're invincible, but then when they meet the business end of a 1968 Bonneville, they're all like, "I guess I was wrong"?

     As you all know, St. Louis means "statues," especially statues of the big three: Stan Musial (baseball),

Chuck Berry (music),

and Tennessee Williams (theatre).  During our scavenger-hunt-six-days in town, we managed to find them all.  And you thought we were just wasting our time.

     On "travel" days, we like to get to the campground before sunset, establish base camps both inside AB1 and outside, and then go out to dinner and maybe a movie.  So on this Monday , August 26, we did just that.  After dinner, we caught the Woody Allen movie, "Blue Jasmine," starring Cate Blanchett.  When I was younger, I never missed a Woody Allen movie, but that was back when he did comedies with jokes every 10 seconds.  Now, while I still like what Woody does, his movies now never seem as funny to me as when I was younger, so seeing his current efforts is now a much "iffier" proposition.  So having said all that, I'll give you my review in just two words:  "SEE IT!!"  Cate Blanchett is remarkable.  Both Diedre and I would not be surprised if she gets an Oscar nomination.

    

After a laundry, grocery, and regrouping respite, we took off for downtown St. Louis and a full day of seeing the sites. Our first stop in the heart of downtown St. Louis was their 170+ year-old court house proudly standing dwarfed in the midst of all the skyscrapers.  We stood on the same steps of this venerable structure that, back in the 1840's and 1850's, they held slave auctions.  We even stood in the court room whereDred Scott sued for his freedom in ~1848. 

    

We then walked across the street to check out the city-identifying landmark, the St. Louis Arch.  And just to assure you all: It's still there.  We opted not to take the claustrophobic special ride to the top since we had both done so back in the 80's.

     Our night was topped off by a visit to our 15th major league baseball stadium to see a battle for first place between 2 division rivals, the Cincinnati Reds and the St. Louis Cardinals.  Once inside the stadium, we were now half-way to our goal of attending games in all 30 major league ball parks.  94-degrees at game time could not diminish our spirits, although a Cincinnati romp made the game a bit less exciting (Note that we always cheer for the home team in these foreign stadiums.) The Reds won 10-0 with Cincy outfielder Jay Bruce knocking in 5 runs by the 2nd inning. 

     By the time we made it back to our campground just after the stroke of midnight, our trip was officially 2/3 over.   Where has the time gone?  We're still have fun and enjoying every day.

     Friday, August 30, the sun decided it had been shirking its duties so far this summer with some really wimpy weather, so Old Sol unleashed all the fury he could muster from 93-million miles away (give or take a kilometer or two).  For his efforts, he was rewarded with the honor of recording a record temperature for St. Louis on this date in history: 102-degrees.  Lucky us.

My St. Louis cousin Mona was still at one of her many houses up north, so we made the best of our St. Louis visit with a lunch with her husband, Scott Jenkins, at the place where Fats Domino lost his thrill; yes, you guessed it, "Blueberry Hill."  BH sits on a stretch of urban roadway called "The Loop," variously called one of the 10 greatest streets in America.  The sidewalks are embedded with a St. Louis "Walk of Fame"; it was in this area that we found our statues of Chuck Berry and Tennessee Williams.  Being from Arizona, of course, we walked everywhere.  A little 102-degree weather was just a walk in the park for us.

  

OK, on our last day in St. Louis, we were up for a little more history.  Sorry, Diedre.  It started with a morning walk through the famous Soulard Farmers Market which began in ... now get this ... 1779!  This place is so old, it had already been going on for over 60 years when future Union Army general and president of the United States Ulysses S. Grant would sell firewood there from his family's farm.  We bought a fair amount of vegetables there, then more than made up for it gastronomically by grabbing a cup of frozen custard at the supposedly famous "Ted Drewe's Custard." 

   

Now it was shrine time.  Ever since I was a little boy reading sports biographies borrowed from the Cedar Manor grade school library, I had heard about the St. Louis Italian area called "The Hill" and its future athletic stars. 

     Funny story: major leaguer Joe Garagiola is from the Hill.  Now, pretty much every major leaguer was at one time the best player in his state, or at least in his high school.  Joe Garagiola wasn't even the best player in his own neighborhood.  In the house right across the street from where Joe grew up lived none other than baseball legend and Hall of Famer Yogi Berra.      

     Of course, I had to find Joe and Yogi's boyhood homes on The Hill.  The Hill is easy to find; all its fire hydrants are painted in the colors of the Italian flag. 

     I know Diedre's really coming along with her knowledge of baseball.  I mean, living with me, she'd have to.  But there are still some gaps in her learning curve.  When we did finally get to Yogi Berra's boyhood home, she kept asking me, "Where's Boo-Boo?"

     As you can tell, I really like the idea of history.  So many places that we've seen have history 130, 150 years old.  When at these sites, I always like to try to imagine what it would have been like to be there at that important time in history.  Part of that mind set is probably because I'm now 62.  I'm just accumulating so much more history myself.

     On to Memphis, Tennessee, and probably the most surprising city we've seen so far on this odyssey of a vacation.  Tune in next week to find out why.

     See you there.

Chicago, Chicago - that Toddling Town! - 108-113 of 178 Adventure

1st Goal of Chicago visit accomplished with buddy Dave

Our trip to Chicago this week had a three-fold purpose:
1) see a Cubs game in the same stadium where I saw my first major league baseball game 56 years ago;
2) attend the National Dramatists' Guild Conference; and
3) recall from my childhood memories by finding landmark locations with significance of my mother and grandparents.
     Sounds simple enough.
     On Tuesday, August 20, we made it to Joliet, Illinois, the site of our latest campground.  It was a long day; the 363 miles driven were the most we had traveled in Air Barty One in a day since we bought her.  Our original vow was to drive no more than 300  miles or 5 hours in any one day, so this was a bit on the high side of what we wanted to accomplish.
     We met up with the wonderful Dave Benoit for a cup of coffee in nearby Naperville.  Dave and Diedre had often worked together over the years in educational technology; it seems Dave was always running new companies and often hired Diedre for her expertise.  He has become a wonderful friend over the years.  An interesting guy, Dave played football in high school and was good enough to be offered several full-ride scholarships.  I especially admire that he  had the nerve to turn down Harvard and, instead, took a full-ride at Northwestern, no slouch of a school itself.  Dave and I have shared a mutual interest in sports ever since we met.  And he even flew out to Phoenix to see my first play, "Buzzard Ball."  What a guy!
     Our campground was nice enough, lakeside and all, but the manager there was a total jerk, yelling at us for showing up 5 minutes late after the check-in time.  What, are we back in 5th grade now?!  If you're a fan of the English TV comedy "Fawlty Towers," you'll understand when I describe this guy as the spitting image (and demeanor) of Basil Fawlty, except for Basil's good hygiene.
   

 Wednesday was our big day to go to the Cubs game, the 7th of the 9 games we would be seeing on "Road Trip '13."  Good guy Dave joined us for the game and provided transportation to the tricky area at Clark and Addison.  As usual, we had dinner at the spectacular Murphy's Pub right across the street from the center field bleachers at Wrigley.  That's a tradition with Diedre and me, something we've done for every Cubs game we've seen (about 20) since we met in 1988.
     Before you knew it, the Cubs were down 5-3, but then they rallied, scoring 5 runs in the 5th.  Of course, that was too good to last.  The Washington Nationals tied it in the 7th, then won the game in the 8th on a 2-run home run by a former Minnesota Twin player named "Spam" ... All right, his name is actually "SpaN", but being a guy born in Austin, MN, home of the Hormel Company, I take my spam where I can find it.  Final was 10-8 Nationals.  Funny comment: a home run hit earlier by the nationals player Hairston was hit so high and far into the night sky that Dave remarked, "That ball is going to need flight attendants."
   

 One of the best things about Wrigley is all the hoopla going on that isn't even a part of the game.  First there's the wonderful architecture for this great stadium that was opened in 1914.  Amazingly, the Cubs' ushers are almost as old as the stadium.  The guy in our section had to be 87 and he was one of the young ones.  I noticed that during the 7th inning stretch, he turned his hearing aid down as the crowd bellowed the words to "Take Me Out to the Ball Game."
     The concessionaires were a trip as well.  The Budweiser guy was so excited, bounding up and down the steps near us yelling, "BUDWEISER!!  HEY, I GOT YOU BUDWEISER RIGHT HERE!!"  Of course he was excited: he was selling a can of Bud Light beer for $7.75.  Almost as enthused was the younger guy selling cotton candy and long licorice whips.  He flashed by us in a blur, bounding so high he barely even touched the steps.  He had to have been on a sugar high.  Alas, the poor guy relegated to selling water (at $4.75 a pop) looked quite depressed as he slowly trudged up and down the aisles.  He reminded us of that teacher in the movie "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," although instead of murmuring, "Bueller ... Bueller ... Bueller," he muttered "Water ... water ... water."
     By the 8th inning, a lot of the "fans" had left.  Now, the 99-year old Wrigley Field had been built with a lot of vertical steel beams holding up the second deck.  And they're still there.  So if you're in the last 20 rows of the first deck, these posts obstruct your vision to at least some parts of the field.  With the fans leaving, I noticed that a lot of the unobstructed seats in front of the posts had become available, yet the Cubs fans in the obstructed seats, being Cubs fans, didn't bother to sneak down into the unobstructed seats.
     Really?!
     I mean, how hard can it be to sneak down into the beamless seats, especially when the only security you had to slip by was an 87-year old usher taking his evening nap.  Maybe the fans just didn't want to see more Chicago losing baseball.  Are the Cubs really that bad?  (Answer: Yes.  They're in last place in the National League Central and have the 2nd worst record in all of the N.L.)
     Thursday was the beginning of the 2nd bi-annual Dramatists' Guild National Conference.  I have been a member of this playwrights' guild since "Buzzard Ball" was produced in 2004.  That's one of the requirements for Guild membership: the production of one of your plays on an established stage.  Since then, I have written 10 more plays, and in doing so, have utilized the Guild's services on a few occasions.  But this would be the first time I would be coming face-to-face with my peers in the industry, so to speak, and I was a bit nervous.  I mean, I'm just some goon writing funny things about sports.
     My lovely and supportive wife Diedre joined me on our train trip into the city of big shoulders; while I would be at the conference, she was going to take advantage of some daytime theatre in the loop.
     That afternoon's sessions and meeting were OK, but nothing to knock my socks off.  That would come on the following day.
     Friday, August 23, Diedre again joined me on our 90-minute train ride into the city.  Things got off to a fine start with a Q-and-A by established playwright and TV writer, Theresa Rebeck.  Her C.V. includes writing for the TV show "NYPD Blue" and being the creator of that recent smash hit, the aptly named "Smash."  It was wonderful to hear about the behind-the-scenes goings-on of the industry.
     And then  it got better.
     The next session was with Stephen Schwartz (composer) and Winnie Holzman (librettist), the creators of that fantastic Broadway hit, "Wicked," the pre-story of the witches of Oz  As was my style, I grabbed a seat in the front row, something that I had never done during my days in high school and college.  I don't know ... I must be getting hard of hearing.  Anyway, I was within an arm's reach of those two wonderful people.  Before "Wicked," Schwartz had been doing animation music, and for the most part, was happy with that.  He was on a Hawaiian scuba vacation with friends.  While on the boat back to shore after a dive, he noticed a friend reading a little-known book titled, "Wicked."  After a brief discussion, Stephen knew he had to have that story.  He thought the writer was a genius for making Elpheba (the wicked witch) not so evil.  His quest for the next year, then, was to transform this story into a Broadway musical.  Interestingly enough, he had to get the rights for it from actress Demi Moore.  She had wanted to do it as a non-musical movie.  Lucky for us Stephen convinced the right people of his vision.
     So that was Ty Cobb ... and now here came Babe Ruth.  (I enjoy the baseball metaphors--could you guess?)  Still in the front row, Bobby Lopez, playwright of the two huge hits, "The Book of Mormon" and "Avenue Q" approached the dais.  And wonder of wonders, his wife Kristen took the seat next to me.  An accomplished writer and singer herself, she has worked with Bobby on a lot of his efforts.  The two of us had a nice, if short, conversation.
     "Why, they're just kids!"  thought the 62-year old novice playwright in his best old fogie manner.
     Kristen spoke often to the assembled multitude from her seat in the audience.  She said that Bobby is into comedy all the time, so much so that once in awhile, needing a break, she'll say to him, "Honey, can't we just watch "Schindler's List" tonight?"  Bobby and Kristen then brought the house down by singing a song they wrote about an interview they heard Stephen Sondheim do.  The song was called, "I Wish I'd Written a Song Stephen Sondheim Wished He Would Have Written."
     The all-star day finished up with a session by the also far-too-young Tony-Award winning playwright of "In the Heights," Lin-Manuel Miranda .  Amazingly, he had gone to the same grade school as Bobby Lopez.  What are the odds?  And get this: he's currently working on a hip-hop musical about Mr. 10-Dollar bill himself, Alexander Hamilton (I am not making this up).
   

 Still on a high from the day's encounters, I joined Diedre that night for a wonderful mystery-comedy play at, of all places, the city's water works.  The play, "Big Lake, Big City" took place at the Lookingglass Theatre in the inner bowels of the ancient Chicago waterworks facility.  And it worked.  The play had been directed by "Friends" TV show star David Schwimmer.  He did a wonderful job.
     The final day of the conference could in no way compare with Friday's events, but I still enjoyed my time there.  In the Dramatists' Guild Conference vendors' room, they had a display there from their archives that included the following pieces of history:
1) a Eugene O'Neill contract from 1918;
2) a 1967 letter from Robert F. Kennedy;
3) Gypsy Rose Lee's application for Guild membership in 1953;
4) a letter from Ernest Hemingway written in 1939;
5) a 1969 note from Arthur Miller; and
6) Tennessee Williams' 1948 Pulitzer Prize announcement letter from the Pulitzer committee.
     This place felt like the Cooperstown of Broadway (There's that baseball thing again.)
     My last session combined my love of history and writing.  There were two people up front speaking about writing the history-based play.  One lady told the wonderful story of her research about the Alabama man who made the first flag for the Confederacy at the start of the Civil War.  It turns out that he secretly supported the Union.  To make things even more confusing, he was also the owner of 4 slaves.  Go figure.  Boy, I certainly want to see that play when it comes out.
   

Alexx at the train depot in Downer's Grove

 Relaxing after the end of the conference on Sunday, our last day in the Chicago area, I dragged Diedre out to find some landmark locales where my grandparents and my mom had lived from the 1930's up to about 1970.   I was able to find the last house where my grandparents lived and where I visited up till I was 15; unfortunately, there was a fence covered with vines at the spot where their driveway would have been.  Being tall enough, I peeked over the fence.  To my dismay, the house was gone and their hobby farmland had been turned into a housing development.
     Ah, progress.  What are you going to do?
     

Side view of the train depot

We then went searching into downtown Downers Grove.  Once there, I immediately spied the old train depot I remembered from when my grandmother would take me into town to get my baseball cards.  Amazingly, the depot is still being used as a waiting room for trains into the big city, but now with a few shops added in.  I especially liked the bakery there called "The John Dough Bakery."
   

We had a 1930's photo of my mom's dog "Laddie" in front of the house where she grew up.  Fortunately this time, the address was on the back of the photo, so with the use of "Penny," our wonderful yet sometimes obstinate GPS, we found the house, still intact, and still identifiable with the Laddie picture.  As we were taking some exterior photos of the house, we noticed the front door was open and a woman was walking around inside.  So spurred on by fearless Diedre, we rang the doorbell.
   

Same view of the house as in the photo with Alexx as the dog

 Carol Ford was the homeowner's name; she had been living there raising her family for the last 21 years.  She couldn't have been nicer, even inviting us in and showing us around the place.  Many parts of the house were identifiable from stories we had heard from my mom.  After a wonderful tour, we bid her a fond farewell.
     

The fireplace in it's original condition.

Our final stop was Avery Coonley, the private school I had heard so much about while growing up.  

There my mom, having skipped first grade, joined her brother John in his 2nd grade class.  The school was built in 1929, and sure enough, it was still there and still functioning as an active school, although a bit enlarged I'm sure.  I had Diedre take a picture of me on what I supposed to be the same front steps where John and Mom's class picture was taken some 80 years ago.
     Wow!
     I'm now going to ask you for a favor:
     Meet me in St. Louie, Louie!
     See you next week.
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Hi All - Diedre here.  Just want to make a few additions of my own for those of you wondering how I occupied my time while Alexx attended his conference.

 I absolutely LOVE Chicago and was thrilled to be back in the city!  The country and scenery we are seeing on this trip is lovely and I do enjoy the little towns we find along the way.  But there is just something about cities like New York and Chicago that just make my heart sing!  Walking issues with my hip and asthma seem to dissipate as I just fly through the streets with an enthusiastic pace (not unlike what Alexx does when we are in a ballpark.)  So having three full days to myself while Alexx was in his conference was noooo problem for me!  I had the joy of seeing two matinees (The Color Purple at Mercury Theater and The Pianist of Willeden Lane at the Royal George Theater.) Both productions were outstanding.  I absolutely love going to the theater by myself.  I never have to worry if the other person is enjoying the show or not and I can totally focus on the play.  I would highly recommend both of these plays.  Especially the later which is only performed by. Mona Golabek, the playwright.  It's the story of her mother who was the lone survivor in her family from the Holocaust.  Due to her mother's talent as a pianist, she was chosen by the parents to board the Kindertransport and escape the Nazi treatment.  Mona tells her mother's story though text and music as a one woman show.  It's absolutely amazing as she allows her mother's story to give flight to the inspiring music and prose that touches the hearts of everyone in the audience.  I was spellbound.  If her  tour comes to your city - definitely see the show.
     

Besides seeing theater and walking the streets of the city - I covered 9 miles on one afternoon and 5 on another and was able to do a quick stop at both Second City and Steppenwolf on my little tour.  I also rode the subway and train but walking was my favorite mode for the best site seeing/people watching.    I managed to look at lots of items in stores without spending a dime!  I especially enjoyed having time for a leisurely lunch of sushi at an exquisite restaurant high above the city.

My third afternoon I spent in the stylist's chair in the Water Tower Place.  I had hoped to go the full 6 months without a haircut and just see how long I could grow my hair.  But the box coloring job I opted for in Michigan over a salon job was now starting to turn orange and my hair was not doing well with the length as it got thinner and less manageable.  

My "Before" picture.

So since I was in the lovely city I thought my odds of finding a qualified stylist were much better than on the backroads of Tennessee.  As luck would have it, I found Susan MacCoy at the Elizabeth Adams studio in the Water Tower Place.  Susan is an expert witness for cosmetology court cases and has styled the likes of Diane von Furstenburg, Barbara Walters and other celebrities so I figured she could handle my issues.  And well she did.  Three hours later I exited with softer tones and three inches less - still long enough to satisfy my agreement with Alexx that if I keep my hair long he won't grow his to pony-tail length - and not a big enough change for him to notice that I had had my hair done which I realized when at dinner he asked me what I did that day! Sheesh!  

My "After" picture

The only disappointment with my afternoon at the hair salon was the loss of one of my favorite earrings.  It apparently disappeared in a towel after the shampoo lady rinsed me as it was not to be found anywhere.  Bummer.  I seem to be acquiring a lot of single earrings! Thank goodness I have three holes in my ears!

     That's about it for me.  Alexx  covered the rest quite well.  Except for the jerk manager at the campground it was another great town on our trip as far as I was concerned!  See you in St. Louis!

Minnesota Return - Days 97-107 of 178 Day Adventure

Alexx taking aim at some giant mosquitos.

On Friday, August 9, we made our way back to our home state, good old Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes and a few more than that in mosquitoes.  Soon after landing, we were greeted at the campground by longtime friend Randy "R.J." Johnson and his fiancee Jacqueline.  R.J. and I have known each other since the 9th grade; later, we were both hired by the St. Louis Park Parks and Recreation Department back in 1974 for our first real jobs in the grown-up world.  His lovely fiancee is from England, putting the "lonnnggg" in long-distance relationship.  In a charming trend for us, Jacqueline becomes the 5th English woman who has either become a friend of ours (Jo and Lesley in AZ) or is dating one of our male friends (Mary with college roomie Jim, and Vickie with Sam Campbell, the son of one of our best friends).  It's a regular "British Invasion" all over again.

Jean Alexander with Mick and Jennifer Kirkeby.

    
















 Our main reason for our return trip to Minnesota was to have a party at my mom's house on Saturday, August 10, that would be a combination book-signing party (We finally had been shipped 200 copies of my book, The Fastest Gun in Hollywood: The Life Story of Peter Brown) and a celebration of the last party we would have at the house where I grew up.

Alexx and Scott "Marty" Martin with the book.

 Yes, after 55 years, my mom is putting the old place on the market and moving to the incredible Presbyterian Homes on the Twin Cities premiere lake, Lake Minnetonka.  Newly built, P.H. is 5 blocks of senior housing coupled with some 130,000 square feet of retail shops and restaurants, a 100-room hotel, and a grocery store, all within a block's walk of downtown Wayzata and the lake.  We think it's going to be good for her, and at 86, she won't have to be climbing on the roof anymore cleaning acorns out of the eaves trough, as we caught her doing again last week.

The Mumbleaus enjoying the "spread" of goodies.

     The party turned out wonderfully.  New friends and old along with relatives and neighbors came by to reminisce about the home and parties of yesteryore (Is that even a word?).  



Mom had the place decorated perfectly for a western book signing and Diedre was a wonder in the kitchen putting all the hors d'oeuvres together.  It was a night we won't soon forget, even as we have trouble daily remembering where we left our glasses.

Long time friends Alps, Ax and Annie

Alexx reading to Diedre and all an excerpt

      The following week our dance card was full up.  We played golf with long time friends Cat and Greg, utilizing our usual 9-holes-only, 2-person-scramble format.  We figure if we want to keep playing golf, we really have to like the game, and to like the game, we need to keep it to about 9 holes, or I start bleating, "Is this almost over!?"  The scramble allows us to usually be hitting from somewhere good as most times one of us is in the fairway on any particular shot.  It works for us.

Cat at the Nugget

     Afterwards, we dined at the Gold Nugget.  When I bought my house on Glen Lake in 1984, I found this dumpy little burger place 3 blocks walk away.  For the next 20 years, I was a regular at owner Doug Carlson's Gold Nugget Restaurant.  Great burgers and even greater atmosphere.  Unfortunately for us (not so unfortunate for Doug), a developer bought him out for several million dollars.  He did put up a  new Gold Nugget in the middle of his development; the place is OK, but it will never be the same.  Ahh, progress, I guess.
    
     

     On Tuesday, we had lunch scheduled with Gerry and Judy Turnberg.  25 years earlier, I resigned my position as state athletic director for the Minnesota Recreation and Park Association.  The MRPA board asked me to pick my successor, so I went with Gerry, one of my regional softball umpires-in-chief.  He did a wonderful job over the years and really grew the program.  Now, 25 years later, HE'S getting ready to retire.  Where the hell did the time go?!
   

Judy and Gerry Turnberg

 The Turnbergs have two stunningly beautiful adult daughters.  One of them was a Minnesota Vikings cheerleader.  At lunch, Judy told us how their daughters, along with their three equally stunning cousins (all 5 are blondes) made a video and submitted it to the TV game show, "Family Feud."  And amazingly enough, some old guy producer saw the girls and decided they must be on the show.  They made it through 3 nights of competition and in the end, totaled $21,000 in winnings.  The show was repeated last week and we were able to view one of the night's competitions while in Air Barty One in St. Louis.
     That evening, we had a family dinner at my brother Mark and his wife Linda's house.  As sometimes happens, Diedre mixed her wine and with some very good (and strong) martinis.  You can imagine how that night turned out.  At 2 a.m., I found her on Mark's roof yelling, "I'M KING OF THE WORLD!"  I don't know ... maybe I dreamed that last part.

   

Dennis and Ellen - the newlyweds!

 On Wednesday, we made it out to a Twins baseball game with Ellen Joseph and new husband Dennis.  Ellen and I go way back, our lives intersecting with each others many times over the years.  In high school, she cheered for me when I was captain of the basketball team and she was the head cheerleader.  We found ourselves on the same airplane freshman year of college when we both attended the University of Michigan.  When I was the athletic director for the city of Eden Prairie, MN, I ran into her often as she was married to one of the better softball players in E.P.  And then years later, we reconnected when I was running my Duck Soup Softball Fiasco tournament; the proceeds went for scholarships at the old high school, so I had been recruiting as many of my classmates from the late 60's as I could.  Ellen even made time to come down to Arizona to see my plays, something for which Diedre and I are eternally grateful to her.

Joe Mauer taking his bases on the Home Run Hit

    We had been in the Twins new stadium last year, so it didn't add to our quest of seeing all major league stadiums.  But we were confident of victory, as so far on the trip, we were 5-0 for home teams in baseball games we had attended.  Sure enough, the Twins jumped off to a big 7-3 lead after 7 innings.  However, the Indians of Cleveland tied it in the 8th on a 3-run home run by that noted steroid fan, Jason Giambi.  The Indians then took the lead by scoring a run in the 10th, but in a most exciting , crowd rousing turn of events, local Twins star Joe Mauer tied it up with a line shot home run in the bottom of the inning.  We thought we had the game now, but unfortunately, our  streak came to an end as the Indians scored 1 in the 12th on a sacrifice fly for a 9-8 win.  We drowned our sorrows in beer in the pubs on the walk back to Ellen and Dennis's townhouse.
   

Becca and her Aunt

 Thursday was a big day for us.  After meeting up for an early pre-work breakfast with our wonderful niece Becca (her work, not ours), we ventured out to Roseville, MN, to meet up with artistic director Steve Peterson.  Steve works with senior actor programs and, through one of our Minnesota actors, had heard about my senior softball play, "Buzzard Ball."  We had sent him a script before we left on our trip; today would be decision day for Steve, and sure enough, he informed us he wants to produce my play, probably in March of 2014, in Minneapolis.  Pretty exciting stuff for us both!  It will be the 3rd time BB will have been produced, but the first time since 2004.  We're planning on flying back for opening night.
   

The original Boones Farm Boys hitting the bottle again.

     I mentioned earlier about the house I bought on Glen Lake back in 1984; I lived there for 20 years, joined by Diedre from 1989-2004.  We had sold the house to Chuck Pappas, a high school and work friend who had been our house-sitter for the first 5 years that we split time between Arizona and Minnesota.  When he heard we were finally going to put it on the market, he and his girlfriend asked for the first option on buying it; eventually they did.  This made it easy for us to visit Minnesota and see our old house, complete with 2 decks, swimming pool, and built-in bar, all the comforts one needs in life.
     But all good things must come to an end.  Chuck and now-wife Theresa have decide to downsize, so they put the house on the market.  This after doing a yeoman's job of remodeling, making the house roughly double the size of when we lived there.  So that night would probably be the last time we would be invited to our old house, unless the new owners are really good sports.
     Just like old times, it was a pizza party poolside.  Invited were the usual gang: best friend Steve "Alps" Alpert whom I have known since kindergarten; Dick "The Ax" Anderson, also a friend since kindergarten; and Ken Radde, long time next door neighbor with whom I go back to 1965 playing together on the high school basketball team; and their wives/girlfriends, Jane, Annie, and Bonnie.  It's a good thing we've got the RV now, since with my mom's and Pappas' houses sold, there would have been two fewer places for us to crash on our summer trips home.
   

 On Friday, we took Mom on a day outing.

 Her thing is antiques, so we found one of the oddest "antique" places in the city.

 Hot Sam's is more a combination junkyard/antique store /museum with over 10 acres of oddities.

 It's been described as "a place between a museum and The Twilight Zone.  Much to look at and a lot of laughs.  

You wouldn't believe some of the things they have on exhibit there.

     That evening, close friend Craig Campbell came over to the campground for a cookout.  He's threatening to meet up with us somewhere out west in the remaining days of our trip.  We'll see.

     

On Saturday, August 17, we went over to Mom's house for very possibly the last time.  The family had the house built in 1958 when I was in the 2nd grade.  On this day, the memories really came washing down over me.  

We noticed on my bedroom door that the height measurements of me as a growing boy were still there: the first showed I was 5'5" when I was 12 (3/13/63), and the last one was 6'2" when I was 16 (3/13/67).  Diedre decided I needed one more measurement there, so for the first time in 46 years, I stood against the door for the final time.  My final height was measured at 6'4" (with shoes on) at the age of 62.  I guess I'm still a growing boy.

   

 We ended our time in Minnesota just as it began, with a visit with R.J. and English Jacqueline.  We played a 9-hole scramble at Valleywood Golf Course, the same course where my bachelor party had been contested just over 22 years ago.  With all these dates and measurements of time, can you tell my degree was in history?
   

 
     We spent the next two days in Menomonie, Wisconsin, at Remy and Lisa's, Diedre's younger brother and sister-in-law.  We got there early enough Sunday morning to see Remy preach at his church.  We later took a walk around their beautiful grounds and were able to see the hillside bench on the path that had been dedicated to Barbara (Barty), Diedre and Remy's mother who passed away a year ago July.  It was a most idyllic setting and very comforting to sit on the bench and look down over the rural countryside.

   

Playwright and Author Alexx Stuart with college roommate Jim Schroer

 OK, on to Chicago for a Cubs game and my first ever attendance at the Dramatists' Guild (playwrights) National Conference.  See you there.