Spring Term

Well, here we are at the end of April already -- 1/3 of the way through 2010. We can literally count on the fingers of one hand the number of shooting days left on our current feature film project, Politics of Street Crime. Our Spring Term has gotten off to a great start with a new roster of ambitious, talented actors. We're looking forward not only to working with this new group in an upcoming play, Dreams, but to start on our new film project, Rabid. It's a good time to be involved at the studio.

Ah, it's been a while since I've been here....recently saw some truly nice pictures of a family day trip to Alger last October to visit the family cemetery. My two grown sons, Dylan and Bryce, with their dad and his Aunt Marie. She is a remarkable woman. Petite, perky, punctual and ever pleasant, she is. The cemetery in Alger is a near magical place. Quiet, a little lonely, and -- one might think -- abandoned, except for some recent dates on some headstones and the trimness and neatness of the grounds. Not the prettiest lawn, but neat nonetheless. There are some old, great trees, appropriately sad-seeming themselves. In the distance is the substitute murmur of the highway, which in the times of progress replaced a river. Here, my sons can visit the resting places of their forebears. The patriarch of the main branch of the family -- who came from County Monaghan in the north of Ireland to Canada first and then to Michigan -- Hamilton Dunn (and all the other Dunns, of course); the Geislers; the bit of Native American blood thrown in by a stray relative and the infamous Aunt Ivah, about whom I've heard some little whisperings about white witch-hood, whatever that is. Also resting in this place is a hero, Calvin Davey. His sister (and my dear, much missed, mother-in-law) Audrey, would show us movie-star pictures of her forever-mourned brother whose ace flyer missions in World War II sometimes weighed heavily on him, a son of a clergyman. Not a visit goes by without his nephew Brian's mention of the hushed awe inspired by the planes that flew over this little cemetery in tribute after his untimely death. My sons are comfortably familiar with this place that shelters ones who've loved them and others who loved those before. With some sweet-sad sighs, we all left and headed toward Standish, location of Wheeler's Restaurant. I'm told eating at Wheeler's was a family tradition. Beneath pictures of Marilyn Monroe and other Hollywood icons we enjoyed a hearty meal seated at a round table. We bid Aunt Marie a fond farewell and gave her best wishes for her yearly winter trip to Florida (smart woman!) That day last October is a gem in the jewel box of my memory.