The School Play

When I was in grade school, I rarely participated in extra-curricular activities. It was difficult for me to stay after classes ended because I relied on the bus to get home. My Mom worked full time, and my paternal Grandmother, Tatjana, didn't drive: as a result, there was no one to pick me up if I didn't take the bus. We lived about eighteen to twenty blocks from the school, and my Parents thought that was too far a distance for me to walk when I was little.

In 1969, the school organized a play to celebrate its seventy-fifth (I believe) anniversary. There were two parts available for students to play nuns. I did not want to miss out on the role of a lifetime. I convinced my Parents that they should allow me to try out for the play because I could get a ride home from a friend's stay-at-home Mom, or, in the alternative, I could walk home from school occasionally because I was in the fifth grade.

I got one of the nun roles. The best part of the gig was that the sisters who ran our school allowed me and my fellow nun actress to wear real nun habits. One afternoon, we went to the convent and the sisters fitted us with their black robes. There were some cheesy additions—in particular, a silver heart made from aluminum foil—that my Grandmother added so that our habits would resemble the ones worn in the early twentieth century.

I had a great time playing the nun. This was the only time I acted in a school play. In later years, I instead was the piano accompanist for the grade school choir.

Suburban Chicago, Winter 1969. I strike my serious nun pose.

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Suburban Chicago, Winter 1969. "Tuition 50 cents."

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Suburban Chicago, Winter 1969. I played the role of Sister Frances, the Franciscan.

Musical Mountains

During the summer months, the Many Glacier Hotel in Glacier National Park, Montana, staffs its facility with college students. The students serve as maids, waiters, and groundskeepers throughout the property. Many of the students also bring their musical and acting talents to the hotel.

When we visited the Many Glacier area in the 1960s and 1970s, the student staff often staged musical productions and concerts in the hotel. We saw "The Sound of Music" and "Funny Girl" in the makeshift theatre on the hotel's lower floor. On Sunday afternoons, groups of students also performed classical music in the lobby of the hotel.

It was such a tranquil place.

Many Glacier Hotel, Glacier National Park, Montana, July 1966. This is the view of the hotel's entrance from the parking lot. The parking lot is adjacent to the area from which one could launch a horseback ride.

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Many Glacier Hotel, Glacier National Park, Montana, July 1966. The red Glacier National Park tour buses have pulled up to the lobby entrance. We used to say that this is how the rich people arrived at the hotel.

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Many Glacier Hotel, Glacier National Park, Montana, July 1966. Student musicians entertain guests in the hotel lobby. A glass wall separates the musicians from the gift shop.