40 years ago
We move too quickly through our lives. A week and a half ago Father’s Day was celebrated. A month before, mothers were honored. The rest of the year we stamp out our little fires of triviality, then wonder where it’s all gone. (You’ve heard it before – where are we all going, and what are we going to do when we get there?) We take you back through two time warps; to Mother’s Day just past and to this item in the May 20, 1970 Review. The writer was freelancer Julie Ann Lyman.
“I was awakened to the setting down of a platter bearing one lone toasted waffle and the promise of my 5-year-old daughter that ‘This was just the first course, Mom.’ Repeated trips brought on a sticky bottle of syrup, a dish of butter and a large bowl of chocolate ice cream. ‘How’s that for breakfast?’ she asked. I said it looked like the best breakfast I ever had. Also the most interesting.”
This little vignette is what it’s all about -the everyday, the commonplace. For want of a fancier word, the quotidian. Fine word. A good example is a 70-year-old play by Thornton Wilder called Our Town. What a work to see or read. Our library has a copy or two. Set aside some good time to read, pause and meditate over all the forgotten little things. They are what make up the big thing … the four-letter L-words, life and love. If you don’t have time to appreciate such things, you may not realize that time is all you have.
From the May 20, 1970 Forest Park Review
30 years ago
One spring over 30 years ago Barbara Lambke, wife of Commissioner Ed, had an idea that took hold – set aside a few acres of fallow land near Industrial Road south of 16th St. for a community garden. Many still remember how popular the idea was. Here’s how it worked for the better part of 10 years.
A $10 deposit got you a 20′ x 20′ patch of good earth; yours to plant, till and care for. Five foot aisles separated groupings of four individual garden plots for the growing of squash, corn. zucchini, tomatoes, carrots, peppers, pumpkins, colorful flowers. Thiesse Plumbing provided flexible piping for an underground watering system complete with spigots. Aside from obvious food cost savings, gardeners reaped home-grown
satisfactions like working with nature, growing one’s own, puttering with purpose and friendly competition with neighbors and family members. Then at harvest time, came a return of their $10.
From the May 28, 1980 Forest Park Review
20 years ago
Oh, the glamour of show biz! Example: An audition is something nearly every actor would as soon skip. He or she emerges from the dark wings into a cone of light from which he or she is confronted with the surrounding darkness and virtually empty theater. A disembodied voice asks what lines you will deliver. You deliver them. That’s it. You are now one of several to be judged. Don’t call us. We’ll call you. Never mind the time you’ve spent so long preparing.
Twenty years ago the name of the show was Under Ten Minutes – An Evening of Monologs or Performance at Circle Theater. At $3 a head it was a unique concept. Sixteen actors had already signed on to deliver short bits, and anyone from the audience who wanted to could do so by pre-registering.
From the June 13, 1990 Forest Park Review
10 years ago
How many years for a movie to be a vintage film? Ten for our purposes. It’s played the movie houses and is available on CD at our library.
The Big Kahuna – Salesmen Kevin Spacey and Danny DeVito spend a night in a hotel trying to nail a rich client (the Big Kahuna) at a trade show. The conversation ranges from business life to life.
Small Time Crooks – Ex-con Woody Allen and wife Tracey Ullman rob a Manhattan bank with predictable results. Strong supporting cast includes Mike Rapaport, Jon Lovitz and Elaine May.
From the May 11, 2000 Forest Park Review
