1. For me, today's time on ZOOM with Diane, Bill, and Bridgit was momentous. Until today, I had not known that Bill's dad, like mine, enjoyed drinking Heidelberg beer. The subject came up because I cracked open a tall boy of Heidelberg to drink while we ZOOMed. I'd say I cracked one open to sip on, but one of the wonders of Heidelberg beer is that it's not a beer anyone wants to drink slowly. Once it gets warm, even a bit warm, it's really awful. I succeeded today in finishing my can before it got lousy.
So Bill took us back to his youth and summers with other families and funny things they did on Fox Island. The families that hung out together there not only played music and sang songs together, they created make believe worlds, carried out tongue-in-cheek rituals, and often accompanied their frivolity with Heidelberg beer.
Later, I asked Bill about his time in Spokane earlier in the week with longtime hiking friends of his. Three of the guys, all Whitworth alums, didn't make it to Spokane, but Bill rode over with the one guy in the group who didn't go to Whitworth and they paid Alan Hicks a visit at his home north of Spokane.
I enjoyed Bill's story of the guys' return last Monday to a hilltop near Indian Painted Rocks, what Bill called in a photo he posted, The Original. I think that means this peak is the original spot where these guys hiked and camped about forty-five years ago and out of this original hike and time of camping emerged a tradition of getting together and heading into mountains in Washington State.
I enjoyed Bill's account of the challenges he faced making this modest hike because of the chronic maladies that affect his legs and hands and that makes being in any kind of heat very difficult.
Bill triumphed. He ascended The Original, loved being with Alan and Paul (and a newcomer, Alan's nephew, Johnny) and was able to spend much of Tuesday recovering, sitting in a cool creek.
Bill also updated us on what's happening with Alan's father, the retired and most esteemed Professor of Biology at Whitworth University. I don't feel I'm at liberty to write what Bill told us, except to say that Dr. Hicks' is, in this late stage of his life, a sweet, loving father and friend whose mental capacities have diminished with age.
2. It's a great time right now in Bridgit's life, too. She recently received a promotion and will supervise about seven resident care social workers in the Kelso/Longview area. If I understand her new job correctly, this means Bridgit will no longer be working in the field, no longer making nursing home visits, no longer making home visits. With the onset of the pandemic and the recent surge of cases, especially in nursing homes, Bridgit's work had become riskier. Bridgit inspired all of our respect and admiration as she described the graceful and conscientious work she did in leaving her former job, making sure that case files were in order and that those who took over her case load could move readily forward with Bridgit's former tasks.
Colette couldn't make it to our ZOOM time today -- and for good reason. MORE GOOD NEWS! Colette completed her Master of Fine Arts at Eastern Oregon University and this weekend she received her diploma at the graduation ceremony.
It's been quite a week for our Westminster Basementeers!
3. At some point toward the end of our time together, we shifted our conversation to movies made between oh, let's say, 1968 and 1975 with the addition of 1980's Atlantic City. Bill and Diane recently watched two Mike Nichols' movies from that time period, The Graduate and Catch-22, and I had watched The King of Marvin Gardens. Our discussion led us to agree that it might be fun to all watch and discuss a stirring movie from this time period, The Last Picture Show. We haven't arrived at a consensus about this yet, but thinking about doing this together made me wish we lived in closer proximity to each other. I just received my shipment of a 7 disc boxset of movies collected by Criterion under the title, American Lost and Found.
One of the movies in this set is The Last Picture Show and its disc features a promising looking collection of extras -- interviews, commentaries, and other things. If we lived closer to each other, we could gather in one place, watch the movie together, decide whether to also watch some of the extra material, and discuss the movie. It would be something like the days in my apartment in Spokane about forty years ago when I'd have students and friends over to watch movies together. In fact, a couple of times, in January of 1983, I squeezed my entire Family in American Drama class into the apartment and we put on MTV preview content and then watched movies I'd recorded on my Betamax. It was kind of crazy. It was really fun.
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