Friday Foto Friends...Memories of Youth

Good Morning Friday Foto Friends! Today is going to be a rainy, stormy day all day long and even tomorrow...they are calling it a "nor'easter" along the coastal areas of Florida and southern Georgia. So it will be a good day to stay indoors and watch the rain. It's supposed to be much colder as well, so maybe even a fire in our "fireplace" might be in order today!

In the way of having some kind of pictures to share with you today I thought you might like to watch the sun going down...

down...

down over Still Waters Pond the other evening. 

It's always a delight to sit out on the swing and watch for the sunsets.

You can't really tell it from the above picture, but that is our holly tree in front of me, and the holly berries are ripe and red and waiting for "customers" any day now. Last year we had such an influx of Robins and Cedar Waxwings that they ate every single berry within a week.  In looking back at that link I noticed it was around November 20th. So let's see if it happens again this year!

But now let us move on to other things that I've been thinking about this week.

Someone posted on Facebook these pictures of my old Alma Mater, Tavares High School:

This is how it looks today.  When I attended there over 50 years ago, (!!! Really??? How can that be?) we didn't have to have that tall fence in front of the school. No one ever thought of doing the horrible things that you hear of happening in schools nowadays back then. But anyway, let's don't go there.

This particular building was built in 1926 and was our Junior High and High School main building back when I attended there. The elementary school building was next door. At that time there were probably only about 500 total students in grades 1-12.  (We didn't even have kindergarten then). My graduating class had 50 students, and a large majority of us were there the whole 12 years.

Here is the current view of our beloved school auditorium, which was used by all grades for their special programs back in the day.  Now I don't even think one full class of students could fit in here at the same time...

Oh, and we didn't have those nice cushy seats back then either. Ours were the old wooden style auditorium seats...not very comfortable, but we spent a lot of time in there for school assemblies, concerts, plays, programs of every kind...cheerleading tryouts, talent shows, elections of school officers, homecoming queen, Miss F.H.A. contest, Mr. F.H.A. Sweetheart Contest (Future Homemakers of America...does such an organization even exist anymore???).  All grades 1-12 used this auditorium back then, so you can imagine it stayed very busy.

And here is the stage, very much as I remember it. I am so glad they still have the red velvet curtains.

Somehow the stage looks smaller to me than it did back then, but actually I think they have added a section out in the front that wasn't there before.

Here is a throwback to 2nd grade, and our class Easter program! Yes, we celebrated Easter in public schools back then, and I remember going on Easter egg hunts as a class as well.  

Here is our whole 2nd grade class on that same stage:

and in this close up, I am on the front row, on the right, with a flat hat on my head and dark sweater. My girlfriend Rhonda is the white cat on her knees right beside me.

And there we are 11 years later, walking side by side as we graduated:

Funny, I'm still wearing a "flat hat"! LOL.

And here's what's left of our class for our 50th class reunion a few years ago. Not everyone could attend, and then sadly we have lost a few of our classmates over the years. My friend Rhonda and I are standing in the second row at the far right end. I am in blue, and she is in black.

As a matter of fact, one of our dear classmates is currently battling a brain tumor with other complications, and perhaps that is what got me thinking about this right now. His name is "Jimmy", and he's the taller guy on the back row, the third one over from the left, wearing glasses. Prayers are much appreciated.

Jimmy is also in this picture below, standing on the back row, in the middle with a bowtie.

Jimmy's daddy was our family doctor in the early years. He took good care of me in this very year, 2nd grade, when I got pneumonia and had to spend a week in the hospital inside an oxygen tent! (Does anyone remember when they did that?)  I missed a lot of school that year, so I am glad to see I was able to participate in this Easter program! 

So now we pray for the doctor's son, who needs the Great Physician to heal him. Jimmy is a retired pastor, and he knows and loves the Lord, and is ready to share his faith with anyone and everyone.  May God give him the strength he needs to fight this battle.

Thinking about that stage got me to remember when I spent a lot of time acting on that very stage. It was our junior year, and we performed "The Curious Savage" for our class play.  You can click on the link below for more information about the play. Sadly, I don't have any pictures of our class performance. I wish I still had the playbook with the script.  I played the part of Mrs. Ethel P. Savage, as seen below:

The Curious Savage

The Curious Savage, written by John Patrick, is a comedic play about Ethel P. Savage, an elderly woman whose husband recently died and left her approximately ten million dollars. Contrasting the kindness and loyalty of psychiatric patients with the avarice and vanity of "respectable" public figures, it calls into question conventional definitions of sanity while lampooning celebrity culture. The play was first produced in New York by the Theatre Guild and Lewis & Young at the Martin Beck Theatre and opened October 24, 1950, with Lillian Gish 

Lillian Gish as Mrs. Savage

in the role of Ethel. Peter Glenville directed the production.

 Mrs. Ethel P. Savage: Referred to as "Mrs. Savage" for the majority of the play, she is a witty, kindhearted, blue haired woman with a shifted viewpoint of humanity. The events of the play are centered around her and her decision to hide the money which she has inherited from her late husband from her greedy stepchildren, to give away to those less fortunate or to fulfill others' random, yet important lifelong dreams. She dislikes her stepchildren, but learns to love the residents of The Cloisters, accepting their own realities and delusions with an open-mindedness that others on the outside do not.

Although I don't believe my hair was blue for the part,  I do remember spraying it with silver hair spray. I remember wearing an old fashioned hat that was loaned to us by a lady in our town.  I carried a large teddy bear much like the one above, and we sewed a little pouch on his bottom where I was hiding the bonds that my selfish step-children were trying to take away from me.  I had over 400 lines to memorize in this play, and today the only lines I can remember are these:

"I do not like thee, Lily Belle;

The reason why I cannot tell;

But this I know and know full well,

I do not like thee, Lily Belle."

Lily Belle was my spoiled, selfish step daughter.  The step-children were trying to have me committed to an institution so they could get a hold of the inheritance.  It was a great play...and the only other memory I have is that on the day of the evening performance, when all the parents and town people were invited to attend, I came down with a sore throat.  There was general panic as no one else knew all of my lines and there was fear they would have to cancel the play. However, I spent the day at my friend's house  (because my mother had to work), and her mother got me some chloraseptic spray.  It really seemed to help, and so that evening I carried my little bottle of chloraseptic spray onto the stage with me and hid it in the couch cushions so that I could spray my throat in between scenes as needed.  "The show must go on!"  And so it did and all was well!  

For our senior year we put on another play, and I honestly can't even remember the name of it, but I remember that I had to wear my mother's red negligee' set (it was an anniversary present to her from my father).  It was perfectly modest, have no fear, but I think I was some gambler's girl friend, or something like that. It was another fun experience.  

I enjoyed acting, and did one more play at a community theater, "The Ice House Theater", and it was the play, "Life With Father".    In this story, the father liked having red-haired maids, and there were three girls in my senior class who were all redheads, myself included, and so we three girls got the parts of the maids. It was a lot of fun to do this play, and I enjoyed acting so much I thought I wanted to be an actress. However, my parents said enough was enough and that the theater was not an appropriate place for me, and so that was that.  So a year later I met my husband and got married and that was the beginning of my best  and longest lasting performance of all.

I guess it is time to put this "show" to rest and get it posted before the day is over and done. It's still raining and I don't think we'll be going for our walk today.

I hope you enjoyed this little walk down memory lane with me. I wonder if there are any other young (or current) actors out there in blogland? Would love to hear about your experiences if so.  Today I can't even remember what I had for breakfast hardly, let alone memorize over 400 lines. Oh to have the memory/mind of a 17 year old again! LOL.  

I like what God says promises in the book of Isaiah

Isaiah 46:4

"Even to your old age, I am He,

And even to gray hairs I will carry you!

I have made, and I will bear;

Even I will carry, and will deliver you."

Yes, no matter how old we are, or even if our mind goes, God will still be there for us...He will carry us through anything we have to go through.

This is good news.

Thank you again for your kind thoughts and prayers for my friend Jimmy.

Have a blessed and happy Friday.