Ephemera

A couple of days ago I was looking for something and thought I'd check in that top drawer in the little cabinet in the storage closet. That's the one that holds all sorts of memorabilia that I intend one day to organize, but I know I never will. For some reason, I felt the need to share its contents, so I'm sitting here with the drawer in front of me. I'll organize the list better than I've organized the drawer. I started to list all the photos, but there are too many. I'll just mention some special categories.

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• A little photo album that Jim's mother made up of pictures of him as a child


• A deflated mylar balloon that says "Go for it." I'm sure it was supposed to be encouragement for something, but I don't remember what it was. It was probably from Nicki.


• A deflated mylar balloon for Mother's Day. Definitely from Nicki.


• A box of bookplates with fairy designs on them. I've no doubt they were a gift.


• Pictures of my brother-in-law Michael and his ice sculptures


• A bumper sticker that obviously belonged to Nicki: "Left-handed -- Right-minded"


• A Christmas ornament that Nicki made.


• The works for a music box -- no box, just the music-making part with a hand crank. Plays "Greensleeves." A gift from Nicki.


• A paper fan. Must have been Nicki's.


• Pictures of me and of my friend Richard when he came to visit. -- 1975


• An envelope of photos taken when Nicki's "Kindergym" class had their public performance. -- 1976


• Ticket stubs and program for the three-day Bread and Roses festival in Berkeley. (Price: $5.00 for each day) -- 1977


• Nicki's baptismal certificate -- 1979 (She was baptized when she said she wanted to be.)


• My college diploma and my magna cum lauda rope -- 1981


• A picture of Jim and me from the weekend we spent in Tahoe after we got married. The closest thing we had to a honeymoon. (This one must be scanned to show to the world!!) -- 1983


• Nicki's fingerprints, taken by the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department "just in case". -- 1983


• Nicki's school ID. -- 1984/85


• A certificate for Nicki finishing second in a spelling bee. -- 1985


• Ticket stubs from when Nicki and I saw The Nutcracker at the Shrine Auditorium in L.A. -- 1986


• A page from a newspaper in Merced that has an ad featuring my friend Dee. -- 1987


• Ticket stubs and program from a production of La Bayadere by American Ballet Theatre. -- 1987


• A card that came with a gift for Nicki -- 1990


• A long article featuring my friend Kaye that was in the Ventura CA newspaper -- 1992

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A separate section for theatre productions I was a part of:

• March 1985 -- The Crucible at Modesto Junior College. I played Sarah Goode and the offstage voice of Martha Corey.




• 3 photos


• Program




• May 1985 -- Museum at Modesto Junior College. This was an acting class production. I played "Maggie Snow, lost woman", "Barbara Castle", "Lillian, one of the laughing ladies" and "Zoe, Giorgio's wife".




• Program




• 1986 -- Addict at Fresno City College. What a horrible play! I played Janis, the crack-smoker.




• Program




• 1987 -- Noises Off at Fresno City College. I played "Dottie Otley/Mrs. Clackett" (the role Carol Burnett played in the movie)




• Program


• Article in the college newsletter)




• 1987 -- Eden Court at Fresno City College. I played Barb, the neighbor.




• Program




• Summer 1989 -- Madwoman of Chaillot at Miracosta College. I played "Josephine, the Madwoman of La Concorde."




• Script




• 1989 -- A photo. Can't remember the name of the play. It focuses on a married couple. I played the secretary of the husband who was having an affair with him. I guess there's lots of plays with that plot.


• Spring 1990 -- Love and Desperation via Pineapple Manipulation: A Psycho-Comedy with Fruit, a one-act, student-written play that I directed at Miracosta College in Oceanside CA.




• Photo of the screaming pineapple


• Photos of "my" actors getting into their drag queen makeup


• My copy of the script


• The card that came with the flowers my friends sent me on opening night




• Fall 1990 -- Androcles and the Lion at Miracosta. I was the assistant director.




• Program

I guess I should talk about what I was looking for, rather than being cryptic. I used to manage the newsletter for a grief support group in the area. I was thinking about one of the essays I wrote for that newsletter and I thought it was in the drawer. It wasn't. I was able to get a copy of it, though, because the founder of the group has all the past newsletters and made a copy of it for me. The funny thing was that when I read it, it wasn't nearly as good as I thought it had been.

Farewell to Luna

Most people probably don't know anything about Luna, the orca, but he's been in the news off and on for about five years around here. Poor little guy got in the middle of human politics and paid the price He was born in the summer of 2000 to a pod of whales that lives off of Vancouver Island in Canada. At that point, he didn't have a name that humans could pronounce. The scientists who study whale pods called him L98 in their records.

When he was about a year old, he got separated from his family. It seems that he was a very curious little fella and liked following the boats that travel around Nootka Sound. He stayed in the Sound while the rest of the family went back to their normal hunting grounds in US waters. The humans who enjoyed his company called him "Luna."

The next year, while Luna was still wandering around Nootka Sound, another young whale called "Springer" was separated from her pod. Her family was usually in Canadian waters, but she somehow strayed into Puget Sound. Orcas are very sociable animals and without her own kind to interact with, she sought out other mammals who just happened to be traveling in motorboats and ferries. She was quite a tourist attraction, but everyone knew that it would be best for her to go back to her family. So money was raised and scientists arranged to capture her and take her back to her home pod. It wasn't certain that she would be accepted back into the pod after having been away from them, but she was accepted and was still with them as of last fall.

Meanwhile, Luna was still in Nootka Sound, growing like a whale and interacting more and more with people. In May 2003, a woman was fined for touching Luna, which is against the law in Canada. (Similar laws exist in the US. Both are designed as protection for the animals.) In September of that same year, the Canadian authorities started to consider capturing Luna, spurred both by the success with Springer and an incident where Luna nearly caused a crash of a float plane that was landing.

Plans for relocation were announced, but then members of the local First Nations band stepped in and said that Luna was the reincarnation of a chief of theirs who had died and they wanted him to stay. Still, a joint Canadian/US effort was launched, money was raised and things were set into motion. In June 2004, the plan was put into effect, but the First Nations members lured Luna away from the scientists, and the plan had to be abandoned. The First Nations people were jubilant at their success.

Yesterday morning, still in Nootka Sound, a considerably larger Luna decided to be friendly with a tug boat. He swam too near the propellers and was killed. I wonder how jubilant those First Nations folk are now.

There are those who say that it's just the way things are and that the scientists shouldn't intervene in nature. I would agree if it wasn't humans who likely caused Luna to stray in the first place and if it wasn't humans who have caused the numbers of orcas to dwindle so dramatically.

I've seen people on the news say that it was the Canadian fisheries department who is to blame because they didn't consult with the First Nations before making a decision. Possibly that would have been preferable, but is the pride of the First Nations more important than the life of a creature they claim to revere? If what they say is true, then Luna is merely a victim of human politics, which is one of the saddest things I can think of.

Full circle?

I find it somehow amusing that Diamonds Are Forever is on television right now. I first saw it on Christmas Day, 1971, at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood.

In case anyone is interested, there's a bit in the movie that relates to my time on the carnival. About halfway through, Bond chases someone through the "Gorilla Girl" show at the Circus Circus in Vegas. I was in a traveling version of that same show. We even used the same bally tape, although ours was longer. They obviously cut some of it for the movie. For those who have met me in person, imagine me 34 years younger, with long blonde hair, at least 70 pounds lighter, wearing a very, very short leopard-print thing off one shoulder. LOL!

As I was typing that, I was wondering if I would go back to that time. I guess it would depend. If I had to relive the same things, not on your life. If I could go back with even a smattering of the knowledge I have now, you bet.