Unearthing a life.....

Mother's Day is almost upon us and so it may well be time for a small tribute and tasteful laudation of the 'Mother' in this household ... Ms. Dr. Bookworm. Because of znglass's use of the phrase 'back in the day', today's laudation will focus 'back in the day' when performance anxiety was King at our humble home. A decade otherwise known as 'The Seventies'.....


This is a faded old Bremerton Sun newspaper photo of Bookworm and our dear old friend Carl Wiltermood. Carl was my mentor of sorts when I was a young man. He gave me a smack up the head that reversed my political leanings ... from right-winger to liberal . In his youth he was a Wobblie ... International Workers of the World ... a radical, socialist union movement that was met with much violence here in the U.S. of A. And lynching here in Washington State. When I first met him, he worked in the shipyard and he and his wife ran a nudist camp over back of Port Orchard.

What's going on here in this photo is: Carl and Bookworm and Sam, the Washington State History teacher at East High, put together a program where Carl and Bookworm came each year and Carl delivered an oral history of the Wobblie movement in Washington State and Bookworm played guitar and sang songs from the Wobblies' "Little Red Song Book".

Bookworm as Ginney Jenny in "Three Penny Opera". She was totally mortified when she discovered that Ginney Jenny was not the one who got to sing "The Black Ship" song.

....and again from the Three Penny Opera.......

This is one of my favorite pictures even though it is a scan of a photocopy of a beat-up newspaper photo. Bookworm as Constance in "The Constant Wife", a show I always get confused with her wife's role in "A Little Night Music". These were all shows from the Olympic College Theatre.

.... as Nancy(?) in the Bremerton Community Theatre's production of the musical "Oliver". She may be surprised to find that I still remember how she had to battle with keeping her voice .... due to the smoke machine that produced a stageful of oily, rancid 'fog' during one of her songs.

....as Sally Bowles in BCT's production of "Cabaret". If I remember correctly, this was her last major theatrical performance. After a decade in local theatre, we both drifted off to other things, she to finishing her Masters Degree at PLU and teaching at Writer's Conferences, and me to photography and fossil hunting.

And through all of this, she was a good mother to her son and to my two teenage daughters. I WILL be providing her with Breakfast in Bed this coming Sunday morning.