Play On

While walking through downtown Martinsburg, we passed the Apollo Theatre, a remnant of the era when any town big enough to be called a town had a professional theatre or opera house. Unlike many, the Apollo is still used as a theatre and plays host to a local community theatre. A poster on the building advertised a comedy called "Play On," and lacking anything better to do on Saturday night in Martinsburg, I decided to go.

The show centered around a community theatre group putting on a mystery, written by a new playwright who keeps making changes. The action takes place a few days before dress rehearsal, during dress rehearsal and on opening day. The first act started slowly, with few laughs and I began to worry about the evening. The second act was marginally better. Fortunately, the third act was very funny and redeemed the show. There were definitely things in the first two acts which one had to know in order to get the jokes in the third act, so it isn't clear how to fix the slow start. I'm reasonably sure the problems were with the script, not with the actors, who were all competent. This was, by the way, a nice choice for a community theatre since it was very much an ensemble piece. And several of the roles could be played by either a woman (as in this production) or a man.

It's always worth supporting community theatre and it was decidedly better than spending the evening watching TV at the hotel. I ran into several other people today who had been at the show last night and they seemed to feel similarly about it.

Mid-Atlantic Walking Weekend - Part 3

My weather karma held out and the rain showers had ended by the time I left the hotel this morning. It was a bit on the cold side out but it was still adequate weather for doing today's Volksmarch in Shepherdstown. The highlight of the route was the view from the monument to James Rumsey, who is said to have been the real inventor of the steamboat. (James Fitch got a patent, however, for essentially the same design, and Robert Fulton was the man who made the steamboat economically viable, so I'll let historians fight it out.) The monument has a nice view over the Potomac and the C&O Canal.

There are a number of historic buildings in the center of town, but they are more interesting than attractive. The building now used as a library is unusual for being located in the center of the street. That makes sense when you realize it started out as the market house and was in the middle of the market square. The most interesting story was about Moulder Hall, which served as a hospital after the Battle of Antietam. The claim is that amputated limbs were thrown from the second story windows into waiting wagons.

By the way, the walk directions were reasonably good, but there were at least three times when the number of blocks was given incorrectly. The historic notes were reasonably helpful, although one of them indicated a red gate where the actual gate in question was green. All of which once again highlights the need to have somebody test the walk directions.

This walk finished off my college campuses special program book. Since Friday's finished off the U.S. Presidents book, I've made real progress on reducing the number of special programs I'm working on. All three walks of the weekend counted towards three other programs I'm doing (authors, cemeteries, and railroads).

After the walk, I grabbed a quick lunch at a local pizza place, then drove over to Hagerstown to shop at the outlet mall. I was hoping to stock up on pantyhose (my normal outlet mall purchase), but they didn't have the color I want in stock in my size (or, in fact, in any other size). I'd also hoped that the L.L. Bean outlet would have long sleeve polo shirts, but they only had short sleeve ones. They did have some decent blazers but didn't have a color I liked in my size. As for other stores, either I'm too fussy or I was unlucky or both. I could use a couple of new jackets, but I have very strong opinions about collars, buttons, and pockets, which always makes that difficult. It's hard being the last person left in North America with taste. At this rate, I will have to wait until I'm in Cambodia in December and can afford to have a bunch of stuff tailor made. (I'm not actually joking - I've gotten great wear out of the grey linen suit I had made in Vietnam.)

Overall, it was a good weekend break. I'm hoping for more nice weekend weather so I can get a lot of 10K (or longer) walks in over the next few months.