By Debbie Moore

Ailene Bailey Kelley and fellow grads had a lot of fun during their 55-year reunion

on August 7 during Homecoming weekend. Ailene writes: The 55-year reunion for BHS Class of 1955 started out with a ride on a float in the parade.  It was hot but it was fun.  Classmates brave enough to ride were Ailene Bailey, Gerald Hanna, Fred Hoffman and wife Rebecca, Jimmie Jones, Elaine Kreitz, Richard Martin, Bobby Lee and Clara Willenberg.

After the parade, we met at the Texas Grill for lunch and more visiting.  Those present for lunch were Aileen (Bailey) Kelley, Richard and Delma Fay (Clardy) Pfeil, Gerald and Carol Hanna, Fred and Rebecca Hoffman, Jimmie and Connie Jones, John and Elaine (Kreitz) Weiss, Bobby and Joyce Lee, Richard Martin, Barry Moncure, Clara (Willenberg) Voigt, and John and Barbara Allbright. Those not able to attend were missed.

Also joining us for lunch were special guests Earle, April and Ephrene Weiss.  A special thanks to Earle for driving and for furnishing the trailer for our float.

A founding father returns

Word coming from the Liars Table at Maxine’s on Main has it that Jim Edwards, known as one of the founding fathers of this daily gathering, has returned to the group of distinguished gents.  His daily presence has obviously been missed.

More Leo birthdays

Friday night we celebrated the Aug. 16 birthday of chef and caterer supreme Kay Wheeler, owner of Texas Kitchen Divas.  We gathered at her home and she cooked for us.  Something seemed a bit wrong with that, but I never turn down a chance to enjoy Kay’s food.  On top of that, she sent each of us home with a care package that included her wonderful lasagna and her delicious gluten-free chicken enchiladas.  Those helping Kay celebrate were Kiersten Legge, Susan Nogues, Christine Huber, Lynette Cason, Kay Garcia McAnally, Kiley Elsworth, and Nancy Wood.

And on Monday we celebrated Nancy Wood’s Aug. 16 birthday with a surprise get-together at Ramos Restaurant.  Despite the sudden and welcomed rainstorm, lots of folks helped Nancy celebrate her special day.  Those enjoying the festivities included Karol Rice, Vick Gonzales, Martha Harris, Jeanette Condray, Nancy’s other half John, Judge Bill Weddle, Deb Viesel, Debbie Denny, Kay Wheeler, Kiersten Legge,  Lynda Miller, Jamie Damon, Dock Jackson, Caroline Parobeck, Sunny Beall, Peggy Van Blaricom, Kay Garcia McAnally, Christy Kosser, Shawn Pletsch, and Dianne Newsom.

Jamie Damon on stage

Jamie Damon told me last weekend about an upcoming play in Austin based on her life.  It seems that Rubber Repertory spent hours interviewing her about her life experiences and turned it into a unique type of play.  It is called “Biography of Physical Sensation,” but it’s not your ordinary play.

Their website says that over six months in the making, the show is an experimental biography that will be performed ON the audience.

We don’t pull the curtain off this thing until October, but here’s why you’ll want to snap up some tickets right away: there are only three weeks of performances with only 40 seats per performance.  And each of these seats promises to unlock different sensations for you to enjoy. You could easily come every night and still not experience all of the tastes, touches, smells, and sounds that will be so exuberantly distributed.

Each night, an audience will be given the chance to experience a human life through actual tastes, touches, smells, and sounds. This reinvention of the traditional biography forgoes narrative in favor of pure physical experience, placing audience members in the center of over a hundred pivotal moments of perception.

Everyone who attends the show is invited to choose from seats of three different sizes. The size of your seat dictates the intensity of sensations you’re willing to receive. Those in the smallest seats will receive low-intensity sensations – the smell of lavender and stale cigarettes – while those in the larger seats expose themselves to far livelier thrills.

Once the show begins it’s a fast and feely ride through puberty and porkchops, gunshots and tetherball, party whistles and old pianos, tonsillectomies and lemon cake. In other words: life itself.

I always knew Jamie was an interesting gal, but she was one of over 50 people who were interviewed for the opportunity to be the subject of the show.  After being selected, she turned over tons of personal letters, journals, photographs, scrapbooks, videos, and memoirs; then came the hours of taped interviews.   Jamie said, “I won’t know what they’ve done with my life until I go.”

The play is directed by Josh Meyer and Matt Hislope. It runs Oct. 14-30, Thursday-Sunday at 8 p.m. at the Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 Manor Rd. in Austin.  Tickets range between $15 and $25, depending upon the level of sensation you want to experience.  Order tickets online at www.brownpaper
tickets.com/event/122385, or by phone at 1-800-838-3006.  I’m not sure what all that means, but it sounds very intriguing to me.

Speaking of theatre

Chester Eitze, father of our local theatre and director of our historic Opera House, played host last week to the four-day annual meeting of the Texas Nonprofit Theatres’ board of directors.  Christy Kosser, Engela Edwards and I were lucky enough to chauffeur some of the board members to the Jerry Fay Wilhelm Center for the Performing Arts.  We were treated to a real behind-the-scenes facility tour.  I was blown away and so were our visitors.  They couldn’t say enough nice things about the center or about Bastrop.  Chester says there may be more and bigger meetings on the horizon.  Stay tuned for the next act.

Until next week

That’s all for now.  Until next week, be good to yourself.  Let me hear from you by email at  mooreaboutbastrop@ya
hoo.com so I can share the fun things that are going on in and around Bastrop.  Remember, “Your past is not your potential.  In any hour you can choose to liberate the future.”  Marilyn Ferguson