Saturday morning in mid-September
I fell asleep last night an hour or so earlier than usual--about 10--and woke this morning around 5:30. That's plenty of sleep for me, even for a Saturday. I lay in bed and read an article in New York by Frank Rich about the social and artistic history of the musical Oklahoma that enlightened me about much regarding what Oklahoma was truly like at the time the story is set and its evolution from a novel to a musical drama, and that it opened in New York just months after Pearl Harbor. Rich points out that a musical drama rather than a musical comedy was quite innovative in the early 1940s. The first and only time I've seen Oklahoma on stage was a small-town little theater production starring my childhood dentist, Dr. Ken McCall. Watching small-town theater troupes is like a wait-and-see exercise in waiting for your dentist, the local radio host, or your fourth grade teacher to show up on stage in unusual clothes and sing. I also read a detailed obituary of Frederick "Toots" Hibbert, the front man and vocalist of Toots and the Maytal, a great ska/reggae group that began in the 1960s. Toots passed after weeks of suffering from COVID symptoms. I saw Toots and the Maytals about forty years ago in New Orleans when I was young and they were a decade or so older. Farewell, Toots. And good morning to all of you.