Utter Nunsense!

I couldn't believe my eyes -- downtown Hunter covered in cars, all the usual parking spots filled, cars even using the volunteer fire department's private back yard.  The Doctorow Center on Main Street was buzzing - people chatting in the lobby, a line for tickets (the first time in my time in the GNC that I've seen a line for tickets for anything except lift tickets at Hunter), very few seats available in the theater.  No, not for Harry Potter; I saw that last week here and I was one of five in the theater.  The commotion was for the Saturday night performance of the Greene Room Players' production of Nunsense.  


It was a laugh-a-minute night of musical comedy.  The book, music and lyrics about the "Little Hobos" of Hoboken, NJ by Dan Goggin (who must have been a Catholic school drop-out) was putty in the hands of Linda Nichols, the director, musical director and choreographer.  The Sisters could not have been more natural combinations of "gentle but firm", which, come to think of it, describes every Nun I have ever met.   Every member of the production was Talented and Perfectly cast.  The mother superior ("Lake Superior") and her side-kick Sister Mary Hubert ("The Black Sea") played off each other with marvelous timing and rapport.

Sure, there were predictable Nun jokes ("Attila the Nun", The Flying Nun and the necessary penguin march) but they were delivered in such an off-hand way that they managed to avoid being trite and instead became charming.

Every member of the all-female cast was up to the tasks of her  role, but two numbers were show stoppers. Sister Mary Amnesia, played by Kelly Transue, belted out a touching "I Could've Gone To Nashville" so well that the crowd was ready to line dance in the aisles.  Two numbers later, Sister Mary Hubert, played by Myra Garcia, doing her best Whoopi from Sister Act, delivered "Holier Than Thou" as if we were at a gospel revival in the Bible Belt.

Congratulations to the GRP, who proved that  Hey -- there's talent in them thar hills!

Such Cute Little Fireworks

Bear Creek is a little business at the junction of Route 23A and Route 214, east of Hunter, west of Tannersville. The proprietors try hard to entertain the local families and the summer visitors, giving them something to do in the evening when the Sky Ride and Zip Line at nearby Hunter Mountain close for the day. There's a restaurant and bar, mini-golf, a driving range, horseback rides, a kiddie playground.  They tried paint ball, they tried go-karts.  To their credit, they keep trying things to attract a few bucks and make a living.

Last night, they lit up a fireworks show, and boom!  As they do every time, fireworks worked.  People in the GNC love their  fireworks and hundreds converged on Bear Creek to watch.  The extravaganza went on for thirty minutes, featuring all your favorite pyrotechnic effects and ended with a patriotic display of red, white and blue sparkles in the night sky. Everyone left feeling quite American, I'm sure.  Good Job, Bear Creek.

About 3am, Mother Nature decided she would show Bear Creek how to put on a show.  Lightning lit the sky as if it were high noon; thunder rocketed through Stony Clove, echoing from peak to peak and rattling my window panes.  The sky threw furious rain at the GNC. (Still is, as I write this Sunday morning.)

We sat on our deck last night, watching the fireworks rise just over the treetops, impressed by the effort Bear Creek had put into producing the show. We awoke this morning thinking how cute those little firecrackers were.  If you really want to see a brilliant show, wait for a lightning storm in the GNC.

My mobile weather apps...

...were all over last night's Rolling Thunder performance.  They issued an alert to take the blue folding chairs off the front deck, showed the storm track in pretty, dynamic colors, pointed out that I had left the weed-whacker outside, and provided other technical information in case I wanted to go fishing as the storm peaked.  With map app, I zoomed in and out on the intensity bands and then added layers of landmarks.  Radar app showed a line of rough phenomena roughly from Phoenicia to West Kill, eight miles or so West of Hunter.  Bug app predicted the storm to pass over Rt 214 at 11:09p.  It was 11:09p (according to clock app) when it did.  The frequent lightening introduced more theatrics, metrics and statistics - the app reported the number of lightening strikes in real-time.  I was so busy, I didn't check the Earthquake app!


This is not an endorsement of smartphone technology, though I must say,  the same device was my flashlight during the short power outage, and I listened Beethoven on it  as the storm rattled and echoed through Stony Clove.  I realized this morning, when the atmosphere is more hospitable, that probably I shouldn't have been using it outdoors, twirling my key chain and listening to No.5 through wireless headphones.




PS - Happy Birthday to my brother Larry!