That’s Show Biz

The last time I performed for an audience was in my senior year at Von Steuben High School in Chicago’s Albany Park. That was 1956 and I was 17.

Me and my buddies Alan, Larry, and Russell wrote the class song. Sadly, I had little to do with it since it was clear which of my friends had a talent for composing, and it wasn’t me. I have little memory of how we did it, but it got done and we were assigned the job of presenting it to our fellow graduates.

We stole the melody from the Georgia Tech fight song…

I’m a Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech, and a hell of an engineer—
A helluva, helluva, helluva, helluva, hell of an engineer.

Here we were, four Jewish kids in a predominately Jewish neighborhood. I grew up thinking that we were in the majority and that everyone living in, or emigrating from Russia like my parents, was also Jewish. Why we picked Ramblin Wreck escapes me, but it was certainly out of character. Ha Tikvah maybe, but not the Georgia fight song.

I occasionally, 66 years later, still sing some of the lyrics we wrote…

We’re the class of pride and destiny and we’re shouting out our name

Cause we are proud of what are and put to song our fame.

And then I forget the rest and switch back to Ramblin Wreck.

That was pretty much the end of my career until I picked up the ukulele six months ago and after 66 years, was again primed for stardom. I learned enough chords to be respectable, and to be mute when appropriate. I have a small, soprano ukulele that minds its lilliputian manners and lets others grab the limelight.

In November, the Ojai Music Festival invited our ukulele group to play background music at the Holiday Home Look In. The music keeps the atmosphere lively while paying guests prowl the insides and outsides of the four private homes.

Guests come and go, are polite, quiet, and respectful. The festival docents are well trained and restrain guests from leaping into the swimming pools, raiding the hosts’ refrigerators, and stopping them from relieving themselves in the outdoor shrubbery. Our dozen ukulele players at times outnumbered the guests on the premises. We played for two hours, received kudos for our performance, and agreed we would do it again if asked.

Gina and Anna, the festival folks who make everything happen at the Look-In, asked us if we’d like to do background music for the docent appreciation party in December. Reflecting on our experience at the Look-In, we quickly fell in line and agreed to participate.

The event was at the Women’s Club located in the center of town. A building that was once threatened by destruction because of general malaise, wood rot and lack of funds, it has gained new life and is likely to be hosting events well after my own demise from rot.

I’ve been to the Club many times, mostly for musical acts that were once ubiquitous but now have decreased in frequency. I miss them, especially the one that featured the singing cowboy, Sourdough Slim. I have no idea how old Slim is since Google failed to produce the answer after an in-depth ten second search. It’s a well-kept secret that lets Slim cavort without the audience worrying about this probable septuagenarian falling over his guitar and accordion and strangling on the harmonica that hangs like a pendulum under his oversized ten-gallon hat.

Always an observer, I had never been on-stage at the Women’s Club until the ukulele showed up and allowed me to resurrect my musical career. Arriving just before show time, ten of us filed onto the stage defying the five dark narrow wooden steps, and the floor to ceiling drapes that forced an entry perilously close to the edge of things. I felt like an elderly Tom Cruise of Mission Impossible fame, avoiding a five-foot fall into the unknown abyss. In retrospect, I got some idea about how Sourdough must have felt and a new appreciation for performers.

The event was sponsored by the Festival in return for the work done by volunteer docents, florists, and others. We were asked to play for about 30 minutes, then break for a dinner that featured soup and bread, just like they fed to the political prisoner Ivan Denisovich in the book The Gulag Archipelago.

In contrast to our sublime performance at the Look-In, the Women’s Club show was more like the bar scene from the film The Blues Brother starring John Belushi of Animal House fame and Dan Aykroyd. Suffering beer bottles thrown by the boozers at Bob’s Country Bunker, the Brothers learn to accommodate to the will of the people and give them what they want. The chicken wire screen that blocked most of the bottles helped a lot.

We played for thirty minutes while the crowd got louder. I’m sure it was in part due to the age of the guests and their pervasive hearing aids. Since we were hardly able to hear ourselves, in part due to our own hearing aids, we could enjoy ourselves by skipping the finger challenging chords, yell at the audience, laugh with them, and accommodate.

Taking advantage of elderly, unpaid musicians, Anna and Gina urged us to play again following soup time and thank-yous. The wine that accompanied the soup had increased and amplified the audience chatter which gave us further license to do pretty much anything we wanted to.

Bedtime for many guests finally brought a steady exodus onto Ojai Avenue. Oblivious to the declining population, we played on and finally realized that the only people left were those who were cleaning up the place. We had shut it down with our ukuleles, gaining another show biz learning experience.

Next time I will drink the wine instead of worrying about its impact on my musical skills. I probably could even substitute the Ramblin Wreck for Jingle Bells. No one will notice.

Three Jews on a Treadmill

Sounds like the beginning of a joke…There were these three Jews on a treadmill…

Two months ago, I moved from Sulphur Mountain Road in the Upper Ojai to the more gentrified mid-town. Prior to moving, my drive time from the mountain to town was eighteen minutes. After Ila died, I made the thirty-six-minute round-trip to the Ojai Athletic Club every day just to get out of the all too quiet house and find social interaction. It was lonely up on the hill without someone to share my life.

I had used a rowing machine at our mountain home nearly every day. Five thousand meters of rowing in thirty-five minutes, that got me nowhere. A nagging shoulder injury caused a forced migration from the rowing machine to the treadmill and, thanks to Jackie, membership in the athletic club.

My daily routine on the hill was religiously repeated day after day. Up at 5:45. In the car by 6:15 and at the club by 6:35. Flash my membership card at the electronic reader and react with hidden glee at its assurance that I was still welcome.

Exchange pleasantries with the ever-changing person behind the front desk. Enter the men’s locker room. Change into my Lulu Lemon shorts. Grab the headphones that Jackie bought for me…got to be careful what I wish for, or it will surely end up in an Amazon box at my front door.  March up the stairs to the second floor without the aid of the handrail…it’s a macho thing…and deposit myself on one of the six treadmills that line the far wall.

Moving to mid-town replaced my old eighteen-minute car ride to the town epicenter with an eighteen-minute walk. But old habits are hard to break, so I still hop into the car for a three-minute ride to the club. Not enough time to warm up the innards of my car on cold mornings, necessitating the wearing of a wool cap that sometimes draws giggles from the club’s front desk.

Even though my shoulder has healed, and the club sports two rowing machines, I am still on the treadmill. To further cement my place on it, I sold my own Concept 2 rowing machine last week to a nice guy who schlepped to my house from Glendora, a one-hundred-fifty-mile round trip.

The club opens at 5:30 am and draws people who exercise indoors or, god forbid, swim outdoors in near freezing ambient hell, then head for work. When her teaching responsibilities require it, Jackie often prides herself at being first in line at the club’s front door, in the dark, with little to wear but a very pretty smile on her face.

The sweet spot for me is between 6:30 and 7. That’s when the locker room empties, and parking spaces open up close to the club entrance. Finding an idle treadmill is easy. Sometimes I get the pick of the litter, the one on the end in front of the windows that open onto the pool where crazy people do laps. Or, in a pinch, I take the one next to it. My decision whether to turn on the overhead fan is challenging. Shall I suffer a cold draft until my body warms up, or be an overheated wimp.

Each of the treadmills has its own video monitor. I can watch live TV, but I nearly always opt to sign into my Netflix account where I am entertained with mindless comedies, serious documentaries or, my favorite, the Great British Baking Show. I avoid the news which, I have found, generally provokes me to mumbling angry epithets that attract the unwanted attention of those within earshot.

The same faces regularly populate the area around the treadmills and the other, sometimes fathomless, exercise equipment. It’s comforting to see these faces nearly every day. It brings order to an otherwise chaotic and all too often sad world.

My sixty-minute treadmill routine at a four percent grade generally starts before the others arrive. About fifteen minutes into it, Sheila appears. My age, but not yet aging, Sheila is a whirlwind of activity both on and off the treadmill. We are also members of the synagogue where she leads the Friday night service on alternating weeks. Her petite, bouncy, figure and perky cropped hair are a welcome addition to my sixty-minute trip to nowhere.

Norm, also in the octogenarian category, is a lot less bouncy. But he makes up this unfortunate difference with a strong torso, friendly smile and a blessed sense of humor. I relish our conversations which, on occasion, include prolonged inexplicable laughter over a comment that often has its grounding in something Jewish.

Silence, or the soft-spoken word, is the desired state when in motion. This unwritten treadmill rule is often violated by heavy footed young men and women who strive for unattainable recognition by generating massive decibels that offend nearly everyone in range of them. Fortunately, a good pair of over-the-ear headphones tends to mitigate the otherwise mind-numbing racket.

This morning, Sheila, Norm and I find ourselves together on three of the six treadmills. The other three are unused and blessedly quiet. Norm correctly notes, with some humor, that we are three Jews on treadmills, which seemed to me apropos of life as a Jew. Moving with determination to escape stereotyping, and maybe worse, with only a modicum of success.

Ojai has a significant number of Jews who have blended into the community. Except for the synagogue, we find ourselves fully integrated in the life of the town. Yet there is something special when three of us find ourselves on the treadmill. A certain comfort, often indescribable, takes hold. A certain calm descends and allows us to enjoy a moment devoid of tension.

Perhaps it’s genetic. Perhaps it’s our strange customs that have been etched into us over thousands of years. Maybe it’s the same for people of other faiths. Maybe they relish time together on the treadmill. I hope so.

I’m a Townie

The ride up the Dennison Grade last Thursday was interminable.

I had made that trip, sometimes twice a day, for nearly twenty years. More than seven thousand round trips. I start by driving one mile down Sulphur Mountain Road, carefully avoiding collisions on the all too narrow road. I turn left on Highway 150 after assuring myself that speeding cars are not lurking in the shadows of the ancient oaks that line the road. I cruise by the seasonal yellow mustard fields on the Black Mountain Ranch. I wind down the seemingly endless Dennison Grade, ticking off the twenty-three turns. I reach the bottom of the hill where Boccali’s restaurant gives me the first evidence of a civilization set apart from the Upper Ojai. Not yet finished, I drive another two miles into the middle of town. A one-way total of eight miles. Consuming thirty-six minutes of my life during each round trip.

And I had loved nearly every minute of it. Until last Thursday.

Two weeks earlier, I had sold my house on Sulphur Mountain Road and had moved into town. I traded those thirty-six driving minutes for the freedom to walk to restaurants, stores and community events. In those two weeks I thought that my car’s fuel gauge had malfunctioned; it didn’t seem to move. I walked to a friend’s house for dinner last Tuesday and thought “In twenty years I’ve never gone out to dinner without first getting into my car.”

I had lived those many years in the Sulphur Mountain house. My sweetheart and I built it. She died in it. With her death and my inevitable aging, it became clear that I needed to move from the mountain to the town. With her passing, the house seemed to have doubled in size. It had become too silent. Even the birds seemed to visit less frequently. The olive groves, once a delightful diversion, now seemed a burden. The mountain vistas lingered, but the inevitable night abruptly shut them down.

Jackie loved the spaciousness of the mountain house during her too infrequent visits. Spoiled by the advantages of town living, her zeal for dragging that very cute fanny up and down the Dennison Grade waned. Night driving on the darkened roads proved too much of a burden. She never said, “You should move.” But my feelings for her helped push me off the mountain and into “Townie” living.

It took fifteen months to sell the mountain home, and one day to buy the home in town. Escrow on both homes closed the same day; think of it as a whirlwind love affair. The town home is about half the size of the mountain home and its diminished storage capacity was a challenge. Twenty years of accumulated detritus required a hardened heart as I waded through it. And in every room, closet, drawer and cabinet I was confronted by memories. Photographs seemed to emerge from everywhere. Birthday and anniversary cards numbered in the hundreds. Like buried land mines, Ila had stowed them in dark recesses that hid them from prying eyes.

Letters between two lovers had been placed in the backs of her dresser drawers; I could not bear reading them. And in every instance a decision was needed. Toss or keep. At first, I kept nearly everything. As I realized the futility of it, I began to toss more. Would the children be deprived of some legacy if I tossed rather than kept? Probably not, I lied to myself. So I tossed more and more. Without ceremony. Without a proper burial. Like junk, the cards, letters and photos were deposited in king-sized black plastic garbage bags. Lugged to the garage, they awaited a trip to the dumpster. There were times I wanted to run after them. But didn’t.

Packing boxes soon littered the house. My god, I thought, who needs seven frying pans. A fish poacher that had been used once with disappointing results. Twelve different fruit extracts, only one of which had ever crossed our palates. What were we thinking when we saved scores of empty plastic containers with mismatched lids? Silverware that hadn’t seen the light of day more than twice in twenty years. Ten flower vases that had once held the precious flowers I sent her.

The movers arrived with the cast from Spartacus. Brawny guys, lean and mean guys and one that looked like he needed a good meal. They wrapped artwork, hung clothes in garment boxes and dragged everything onto two trucks. “It’ll never fit in the new house” I thought. But it did. All sixty-five boxes, a rowing machine and Jackie’s treadmill in a pinch.

Oliver and I unpacked. As we did so, I felt the urge to toss some more. And I did, setting aside items that might find their way into more needy hands. We filled cabinets. We stuffed clothes in bedroom dressers and filled every square inch of kitchen space with only three frying pans and a blessedly diminished horde of other items. It was sort of like running a video of the packing phase, only backwards. Empty boxes and discarded wrapping paper were enough to start an Ojai version of the Chicago Fire.

I’m settling in. I can hear cars go by. They make a whooshing sound, just like the surf rolling in off the Pacific. People are as close as a hundred feet away. Their faces visible. They stop, we chat, just like neighbors are supposed to do. There are two youngsters next door at Danni’s and James’ house. My doorbell rang last Sunday, and Danni’s brother was there asking me if it was alright to come into my yard to retrieve a ball the kids had tossed. “Sure,” I said. “Please do, and then do it some more.”

I always wanted a porch. And now I have one. It’s an overstuffed chair that cost $5 at a garage sale. It sits in my garage. I open the overhead door, grab a sandwich and sit in that chair. I can see some of the Topa Topa mountains. But more importantly, I can see and hear the sounds of life.

I drove up to the mountain house last Thursday to check my old mailbox. The ride was interminable. I’m glad I’m a Townie.

Yoga is fun, so they say

Went to a yoga class last night.

I decided to try it again after some gentle encouragement from Jackie. She is a yoga fanatic. Much like my daily habit of visiting the athletic club gym, Jackie lives and breathes yoga. A day without it affects her much like a coffee addict who has failed to meet her daily quota of caffeine at Java and Joe…only worse, much worse.

Our first date was a private yoga class at Jackie’s house. I struggled to achieve poses that for her were second nature. It was as though my aging ligaments had been replaced with inelastic twelve-gauge wire. My back hurt. My ego was bruised. I was a failure looking for a graceful exit. A tough first date.

During the last year I have tried to redeem myself. I participated in Robert’s yoga class at the club. Robert is an excellent trainer who teaches yoga to punish people like me who think they can master the art. He takes no prisoners. I spent the better part of his class watching others do things that seemed second nature. Attempting to emulate their contortions left me several minutes behind the thirty more experienced participants. I drew menacing stares from the women on either side of me as I violated their space, awkwardly fumbled with bolsters, blocks and straps, and made impermissible contact with their body parts. I was the poster boy of yoga, reaching out for help and release from a self-imposed sentence. It was the longest hour of my life. I promised myself never again.

Like all other resolutions, events conspire to make a mockery of them. The athletic club houses a bevy of yogis, predominantly women, who enter the facility with their personalized yoga mats tucked under their arms. They are serious about their yoga; especially their lungs.  For them breathing is not just a way to stay alive, it is a religion that puts one in spiritual contact with mind and body. Failure to breathe properly dooms one to eternal purgatory.

Over the last seven decades, I have developed some familiarity with breathing. Never thought about it much. It either happens, or it doesn’t. That laissez-faire attitude began to crumble when Robert became my trainer. Lifting weights on Tuesday and Thursday required a change of thinking. Breathing is no longer a mindless exercise. Lift and breathe in. Relax and breathe out. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Or is it breathe in through the mouth when lifting and out through nose when relaxing? Sorting through these choices occasionally causes me to hold my breath and black out, making further yoga participation highly questionable.

Yet I have ongoing exposure to yoga in every form, necessitated by the coordination of my schedule with Jackie’s. It would be easy if her sessions were limited to one yoga venue. There are a multitude of yoga studios in Ojai. Add Ventura and it multiplies ten-fold. Selection of the studio-of-the-day is further compounded by the choice of yoga instructor within the studio. Evaluations of the various instructors are at times as intense as the awarding of a Nobel Prize. The focus of the chosen instructor’s class is the final ingredient in the selection process. Healthy Joints, Yoga RX, Postural Restoration, Yin Yoga and Chakra Flow (in multiple levels) hardly scratch the surface of the available flavors of the day. A recent arrival, particularly appealing to someone with lizard-like skin, is Hot Yoga. Locked in a room super-heated to 110 degrees, yoga takes on the punishing characteristics heretofore only available on Devil’s Island.

When not doing yoga, one is often seriously absorbed in discussing it. Community newcomers offering their own unique specialties are often the subject du jour. The reasons causing the departure of old studios are often dissected and, at times, lamented. Yoga instructors are microscopically investigated and, at times, discarded as over the hill, out-of-touch and attitudinally defective. Others are embraced on the same order as the messiah.

So, much like the pastor’s wife, I am involved with but not participating in yoga. However, being immersed vicariously tends to wear away my resistance. Always seeking ways for self-improvement, and with Jackie’s continuing search for the holy grail, I found a Start Yoga five session course at Ojai Yoga Shala. Session one was last evening.

I arrived and was welcomed by the instructor, Alana Mitnick. She scanned her attendance sheet and identified me as Fred. Not difficult, as I was the only male in attendance. Four women rounded out the class, none of whom had yoga experience exceeding my own. I was also the oldest participant, giving me a built-in handicap in the event that I messed up. This was going to be my coming out party.

I collected my equipment, mats, bolsters, blocks and straps. So far so good. On to breathing, something I had practiced in anticipation of the class. Moving my hands up and down my body, while erotic, did little to reveal the mysteries that surely lay ahead. Lifting my tailbone, thrusting my pelvis and arching my back seemed all in a day’s work. Feel anything yet, like a revelation?

Leg and arm stretch, bending and kneeling, balancing and rocking. My ability to earn an A+ was only limited by my ability to hear Alana’s instructions. A lovely young lady with Mother Teresa’s warmth, she was blessed with a gentle voice. A voice that limited hearing much of what she was saying. Surreptitiously spying on my neighbors’ poses filled the gaps.

Alana’s long day at the mats revealed itself when she regularly praised the group without opening her eyes to look at us. Despite this chink in the armor, her lithe movements made me yearn for similar results, knowing full well that I probably would not live long enough to emulate her.

The session ended well beyond its advertised time. I did not celebrate its end like someone who can’t wait for a bad movie to be over. I had neither soiled nor disgraced myself. Neither had I found Nirvana. But I had found enough to bring me back next week.

Fireworks on the Fourth

It was like the big bang, the birth of the universe. Booming, flashing and bright as the sun. That’s what it was like, watching the Fourth of July fireworks at Nordhoff High School.

It had been a long day, starting with the parade down Ojai Avenue. A taste of small town Americana that forces the corners of your mouth to perpetually curve upward and your hands to wave at every passing antique car, sleek coated stallion and smiling participant. I was continually reminded of our family camping trips to small towns where the county fair was the highlight of our adventure. Dusty, disorganized and unprofessional. But loveable, kind and welcoming.

I hadn’t been to the Ojai parade in many years. I’d been lodging a silent protest ever since the fourth had fallen on a Sunday and the parade organizers had shifted the parade to July 5^th to accommodate church-goers. Unfair, I had thought then. But time erases all wounds, and my childish pouting had long ago ceased to be important.

Jackie had, in her can-do fashion, latched onto lawn chairs in the shade, along with free food and drink. Right up front and personal, where we might as well have been in the parade. Periodic breaks to greet passing friends made it seem even homier.

The parade ended around noon and we had time to visit the local Asian massage parlor. Little English is spoken there, and business is transacted with electronic devices, accompanied by a fair amount of hand waving and pointing. Not the best massage in town, but probably the cheapest. It’s mildly unwelcoming on the outside. Inside it’s surprisingly large, dimly lit, quiet and mysterious. Sort of like an opium den that’s had a Martha Stewart makeover.

Jackie’s friend, Susan, was visiting from San Francisco and staying at a motel near the high school. Because of the expected not-so-Ojai traffic jams, we decided to park at the motel and walk the quarter-mile to the fireworks. We picked up Susan and got a five second tour of her room where the three of us filled the available space. The jacuzzi tub next to the bed seemed particularly threatening . But the nightly room charge was cheap, unless you based it on the cost per square foot.

We walked to the high school, showed our tickets and donned a wrist band whose purpose was never revealed. We entered the stadium infield, found an unoccupied spot of grass, spread our blanket, and jockeyed for position. I was dubbed the Cream of the Oreo and was accordingly allocated the enviable position between the two women.

Having completed these logistics, we arose and searched for the source of the hypnotic odors wafting through the air, promising us assuredly unhealthy food. Drawn like moths to a flame, we tracked down two food trucks that had been nearly cleansed of all greasy deposits. Reading the menu and fearing for our lives, we retreated to our blanket and settled in for the nearly two-hour wait while the sun set and darkness became pervasive.

Lying on the grass, I had the distinct feeling that I was about to be trampled by small children. I wondered if I blended in too well and wished I had four bright orange Caltrans pylons to set about me. Even a small Ethiopian flag on a pole would be better than risking the maiming of irreplaceable body parts. Amazingly, I escaped major injury even though children (and quite a few inebriated adults) seemed blissfully unaware of the aging body spread before them.

It was getting darker but not yet inky-dark. Susan, complaining of stiff joints, went off to sit on the stadium bleacher benches. Alone, but for two or three similarly incapacitated persons, she remained there for the balance of the evening. This was an unexpected gift for Jackie and me, since we could now wrap ourselves in the blanket to supplement the inadequate cold weather gear that Jackie had insisted we did not need. Keeping warm against the descending night was brightened by the prospect of cuddling. With that special bonus, I was no longer concerned about the time spent waiting for the show to begin.

A ten-minute warning burst from a loud-speaker so close to my head that I thought I was wearing Bose headphones attached to my iPhone and set to max volume. Then another announcement blast erupted with five minutes to showtime. Just time enough to figure out the mechanics of the glow sticks I had purchased earlier. Mechanics that a four-year-old could have handled faster than me. Sticks aglow, we wrapped them around our necks and clipped the ends together. It was eerie, as we appeared to have our heads disconnected from our bodies. Much like Charles Laughton in the Canterville Ghost 1944 movie where he terrorized unwelcome visitors, including Robert Young, by carrying his seemingly cut off head in a silver tray held in front of his chest.

The show began. Slowly at first, then growing in intensity. Laying on the blanket, head looking straight up into the sky, I felt like I was in the show, not watching it. Bodies were involuntarily inert, barely getting “Oh my, look at that” out of our mouths before the next volley. Periodic booms that I usually complain about, were a welcome companion to the flashing and bursting of the fireworks. Kids who would normally display extreme attention deficit disorder were stark still, as though mesmerized. Aging adults, who thought they had seen it before, were enthralled. We were all viewing a cosmic birthing from within the birth canal.

And just when the show needed an extra lift, the finale arrived as if from another planet. Multiple rockets and bursting bombs filled the sky producing gigantic, multi-limbed alien life forms. Sonic booms again assaulted my ears and isolated my brain from the rest of my body. My only connection with reality was Jackie’s warm body touching mine. I felt like a kid again.

Then it ended silently, like the spinning down of a treadmill in cool-down mode.  It gave me time enough to absorb the grandeur without feeling like I’d overeaten. We lay silently on the blanket, not ready to end the night. People around us began to rise slowly from the chilled, damp ground. There was no sense of urgency to leave the site of the spectacle. No rush to our cars. Taking time to re-enter life. Strangers spoke to other strangers, wasn’t that something!

Yes, it was. And there could be no encore, for this had been perfection.

Ojai Music Festival

Avant-garde can be both a noun and an adjective. As the latter, it means favoring or introducing experimental or unusual ideas. As any one of these ideas is untried, a certain percent of them will fall flat, fail to succeed, or in contemporary usage, be just plain ca-ca.

The Ojai Music Festival wends its way into town this weekend. It brings with it several truckloads of what can be termed avant-garde or contemporary music. A thousand people, mostly from other than Ojai, will squeeze into Libbey Bowl and sit enraptured while artists do their best to be unique and engaging. Local businesses will also be ecstatic as the town swells with well-heeled patrons of the arts.

Before the new Libbey Bowl was constructed a few years ago with its high impact, relatively uncomfortable plastic seats, concert goers sat on high impact, very uncomfortable wooden benches. A once homey feel, the old benches were fraught with the possibility of slivers in your fanny.

Before its recent facelift, you also had the option of bringing lawn chairs, sitting on the grass at the back of the Bowl and, if you were lucky, got a reasonable, though pixie-like, view of what was happening on the stage. The Bowl renovation left things as they were, minus the view.

When Ila and I arrived in Ojai eighteen years ago, we had never heard of the Festival. Our sources of information about the Festival were limited. But always ready to try something new, we bought bench seat tickets, dressed warmly and attended a Saturday night concert. Not sure where our seats began or ended, we simply allowed ourselves to be shouldered at will by our bench mates. We took it in stride, sat back and anticipated classical music. We expected Beethoven, Brahms and Bach. Shostakovich was perhaps as far out as it would get.

What we did get can best be described by my recollection of the first performer. A man, neatly dressed, entered stage left and sat at what appeared to be an expensive Steinway piano. So far so good. But not for long. He began to play…with his elbows. Or so it seemed. I’ve told this story so many times that I don’t really know if he was actually using his elbows. Perhaps he was just clever enough to finger the keys in a way that sounded like he was using his elbows.

Taking a well deserve break at half-time, we mingled with the crowd and tried to look erudite. Our friend Ralph, fresh from yelling Bravo! blocked our way and said “Wasn’t that wonderful? Wasn’t it inspiring?” Never having been mistaken for someone who could be an Ambassador to the Vatican, I said “No it wasn’t.” Ralph waved me off as someone who definitely was ill-suited to premium bench seats.

We were not to be dissuaded. Still searching for the Holy Grail, Ila and I continued to attend the Festival each June. We confessed to our low-level erudition and had demoted ourselves to the lawn area. We didn’t see much, but then no one seemed to mind if I closed my eyes and feigned being erudite; as long as I didn’t snore.

A number of years ago, one of my riders on the Help of Ojai bus was a man in his nineties. During one of our  trips together, Mike and I talked about music and I asked him if he had ever been to the Music Festival. “I haven’t been there yet but I do regularly attend concerts in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. Maybe it’s time I tried the one at Bowl.”

About ten minutes before the opening afternoon of the 2010 performance, here came my ninety-ish bus-mate Mike. He had spotted me and carefully picked his way to us through the mass of other less erudite concert goers. He unfolded his chair, a bit of a task given his age and the built-in complexity of those medieval instruments of torture, and plunked himself down next to me. We listened to the first half of the performance without identifying a piece that would offer lasting memories. At its conclusion, Mike got up, folded his chair and said “I’ve heard quite enough.” He wandered out of the Bowl, never to be seen again.

Years ago, I had the pleasure of breakfasting with Bill Kraft. Bill was, and still is, an elderly gentleman who in his earlier days had been the lead tympanist for the Los Angeles Symphony. After sharing our mutual genealogies, I took the opportunity to tell him about my difficulty with the Festival’s avant garde music. “Bill, I don’t know what’s the matter with me. Try as I might, I cannot fathom the music, much less appreciate and like it.” Bill unhesitatingly drew himself up to his full five-foot-four height and said “You don’t have to like it. It’s okay to dislike it. You are not a lesser human being for not liking it. And studiously avoid anyone who tells you that you must develop a liking for it.”

I still buy Festival tickets every year.

Big Cat

When we moved to California over forty years ago, I was occasionally asked  “you’ve been to Yosemite, haven’t you?”  For most of those forty years, I’d respond with a certain amount of shame and sheepishly say “no, but I plan to go…eventually.”

We did finally go to Yosemite, were duly impressed, and most importantly I could then say to others “you’ve been to Yosemite, haven’t you?”

Now living in Ojai and occasionally being exposed to rubes from the Big City, I’ll be asked “what kinds of animals have you seen in Ojai?”  I’d reply like I was Marlin Perkins, the now gone, long time host of the TV show Zoo Parade.  “We’ve seen bobcats, snakes, foxes, coyotes and even a bear or two.”  Then I’d qualify my otherwise impressive array of critters by saying ” but we haven’t yet seen a mountain lion.”

That changed last night.

Sitting in the living room and watching the News Hour, I was distracted by a brown shape moving across our just watered lawn not more than twenty feet from me.  At first I thought “maybe a bobcat or a large dog.”  The shape stopped and looked straight at me.  It was at that point that I was grateful for the wall of glass that separated me from the mountain lion that had decided to visit our home.

I grabbed my iPhone and took some frantic photos, fully expecting the lion to leave quickly once he (I think it was a he) discovered that there was nothing to eat or tear to shreds.  However, he was in for the long haul as he spread himself on the edge of the lawn and proceeded to lap up the water that the sprinklers had deposited on the concrete walk.

The iPhone images were much too small to appreciate the creature’s dimensions so I ran for my camera with the long lens and spent the next thirty minutes photographing a very cooperative guest…through the glass doors, of course.

I was even able to call Harry on the iPhone, start a Face Time session and video the live images to Livermore.  I felt even more like Marlin Perkins by exposing Harry to a sight that for even him was a first.

I estimate that the majestic animal was about four feet long, head to rump, with another two or three feet of tail.  I was tempted to take the bathroom scale out to him, coax him onto it and thereby get his accurate weight.  But I thought better of it and asked Sweetie if she would do it.  In the end, I had to estimate his weight at well over a hundred pounds.

He was with us for about ninety minutes, trying out various spots on the lawn, rolling about, dozing and seemingly enjoying the luxurious respite from his less comfortable digs.  It was nearly dark when he melted away.

National Geographic has this to say about mountain lions…

Mountain lions require a lot of room—only a few cats can survive in a 30-square-mile range. They are solitary and shy animals, seldom seen by humans. While they do occasionally attack people—usually children or solitary adults—statistics show that, on average, there are only four attacks and one human fatality each year in all of the U.S. and Canada.

Both Sweetie and I feel fortunate and privileged to have seen this wonderful animal.  We’re also glad that we avoided becoming a statistic.

If you want to see more photos of our guest, click here…

Libbey Bowl Has Seats

Over 900 seats have been installed at the Bowl and the lawn seating area is ready for prime time.  If you would like a 360 degree ride around the site, click on the photo.  When you arrive at the Photosynth site, click on the plus sign to enlarge the image before scrolling around.

Libbey Bowl 360 degree Panorama

Time for another Libbey Bowl panorama.  This one was done on December 3. 

Click on the image and you will be taken to the pano host website.  Be patient while it loads, then scroll around the construction site.

Don’t forget your hard hat.

 

Raising the Arch at Libbey Bowl

If you missed the raising of the main arch at Libbey Bowl on November 23, you might like to see the slide show…click on the arch…