I’ve been working with genealogist, historian, city walker, and community activist Tom Stone lately on a project featuring families who have lived in the Clarkston area for generations.
There are quite a few of them, which Stone notes speaks well of the community. Their family names are familiar, up on street signs and lake markers throughout the area.
Response so far has been positive, with folks coming forward to share stories passed down from parents, their grandparents, and so on.
We’ll feature them in upcoming editions, probably one a month. First up is the Bailey family, of Bailey Lake Elementary and, at one time at least, Bailey Lake.
Things have changed a bit, but I like how people can look around and know their great-great-great grandparents lived their lives in the same area, walked the same streets, swam in the same lakes.
I grew up in Dayton, Ohio – my dad was assigned to Wright Patterson Air Force Base in his work with the Department of Defense. I’d have to drive up to Montreal in Canada, or take a plane ride to the Philippines to experience something similar.
That’s not actually a bad idea…
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Many folks filled Depot Theater for the Clarkston Village Players’ “Lend Me a Tenor,” which closed up last week and in which I played the Bellhop.
I had a great time. With nine shows, I was always backstage behind one of the doors, waiting for my Act One, Scene One cue, which was Wendy Hedstrom saying her lines about why her husband Tito was so sick (he liked the waitress and let her serve him seconds even though he wasn’t hungry).
The set was awesome, with two levels, six doors, windows, working phone (most of the time), and stairway, and it was all stripped away in one morning, to start getting the stage ready for the next show (“Farragut North,” opening in November). That’s show business.
I’ll probably remember my lines for the rest of my life. I expect nightmares to start soon, where I find myself on stage not knowing what to do or say.