California October - 10/28/08

October has always been my favorite month. I grew up in upstate New York, which is a great October place. Cool, crisp days, and the bone chilling, blustery nights that followed, marked the best of months for me as a kid. You just couldn't beat the smell of burning leaves and the visual feast of an upstate New York rolling hill covered with a carpet of trees seemingly on fire with Fall color. Yep, October.
We would get our pumpkins in mid October, and the whole family would carve them together. My Dad's were always the best. He developed a technique to give Jack-O-Lanterns a set of EARS which couldn't be beat! We would set them all up in the front window on a tv tray with a candle in each of the six, where the whole neighborhood could see them. They didn't always make it all the way to Halloween, and you really did have to throw away a pumpkin when it started to go bad, as it got pretty smelly. Or, at least you had to move it outside to the front porch where someone most likely, eventually, smashed it. Still, there was that first night or two where everyone out there in the dark could see our pumpkins all lit up spooky and glorious in the front window, and the back of my neck would secretly tingle with pride.
Another thing I loved about October was apple cider. It wasn't the hot stuff that I now, sometimes, drink at Starbucks. This was cold, fresh, apple cider that you got from the farmer direct. I remember this one place up on top of Boughton Hill where we would stand in line to get our cider. The apple orchard and the barn were right beside us as we waited. There was no mystery as to where the cider came from! Today, I glance at the bottles of apple JUICE that they label "Apple Cider" in my local super market, but it's nowhere near the same. For one thing you can see through it! The good stuff, the real apple cider of my youth, was never filtered to any degree, and rarely had a label of any kind. It was just strong flavored and cold. I don't think I ever drank anything colder than October apple cider. The fact that it ALWAYS gave me a wicked stomach ache never seemed to matter...
I grew up and went away to College and eventually made it out to California, but I would always try to get back to Batavia, New York to see Grandma Watkins in October for our annual foliage tour. That's what she called it. "Should we go see the foliage?" she would inquire with a twinkle in her eye. I think she knew it was my favorite part of the visit. That and the brisket she always roasted for me. Gram was on oxygen for several of those later years of the foliage tour, so I would lug the canister out to the Le Baron. She would hook up and breathe as deeply as she could and we would be off! I remember very distinctly the little puff sounds that the machine made. Gram also needed the air conditioning on the whole time to breathe better. This made the inside of the Le Baron as cold as a freezer and I would watch my knuckles on the steering wheel slowly turn Ontario Lake blue!! There were times when I thought I might need a hit off Grams O2 just to get my heart started again, but I made it through. Our quest in those days was not just for the view of pretty Fall trees. We usually went up past Attica to Merle's Farm to get some syrup. This is another wonderful by product of October in upstate New York, some of the best maple syrup in the world. Gram and I would wind our way down the country roads of her and my youth. She would tell me stories the whole way. She would talk about Grandpa, and Marion Whitelsey, and sometimes even Old Man Merle. "That's who started the farm." she would say. And it would go on like that. The beautiful cold, crisp day, and the sound of Grams voice mixed with the little oxygen puffs...
At this moment, three days before Halloween, there is a very confused maple tree outside my window here in Burbank. It's sort of half turned to yellow, but still has all of it's leaves. I think it's confused by the three weeks of 90 degree days we have endured this California October. My neighbors have put up this really cool pumpkin display with a giant spider web, but the whole thing is made of plastic. It's fire season in California and the terrible burning brush fires that happen all to frequently, smell nothing like the burning leaves of Western New York. I haven't carved a pumpkin this year. I did find out recently that you can now order Merle Farm Syrup on the internet, but I don't see the point. I miss Grandma. I miss the foliage tour. I guess I'll go over to Starbucks, order a Venti Caramel Apple Cider and see if I can get a cup with ice... Yep, California October.

15 Years - 6/10/08

I am really supposed to count from the point of diagnosis, which would be February 1993. That is the official way to delineate a cancer survivor. You count from the day you find out that you have cancer. Kathy, the leader of my cancer support group at St. Jude says, "If you live through the day you find out, then you are a cancer survivor." And she is right, of course. For some reason, I have never done it that way. I have always counted from the day of my biggest surgery, June 15, 1993. By June of that year, I had been in the hospital for a very long time, and then a day or two before my big surgery they let me out for an afternoon. Looking back, I think this might have been in case the surgery had gone bad and I didn't make it through. Let Dave have a nice final experience outside the hospital. This never occurred to me at the time but it seems kind of obvious in retrospect. My Mom and Dad helped me to the rental car and we headed over to Balboa Park. This was my request. I had lived for the better part of 5 months in my various hospital rooms and I wanted some outside time. I think maybe Balboa Park came to mind, because that was the place that had originally brought me to San Diego. The Old Globe Theater is located within the park grounds, and acting there had been my introduction to America's Finest City, as it is called. Also, the Park is right in the middle of San Diego and it wouldn't be all that far a drive for us. (in case I got sick and needed to head back)Once we reached the park, I asked Mom and Dad to take me to the "Tree of Life" as I called it then. (and still do) It's a huge Magnolia tree that sits in the park not far from the San Diego Junior Theater. It's actually located directly in front of a little fast food place we dubbed the "Gag Shack" back when I was acting at The Old Globe. When I say this tree is huge, I mean huge! Children have always loved to climb all over it, and it could, in those days, accommodate 5 to 25 of them at a time! I say, in those days, because they have since built a fence around the tree to protect it, and no one climbs on it anymore, although it does seem to be a favorite subject of drawing classes.
Personally, I had always just liked being in this tree's presence. Back when I was healthy, I would take a book and read in its shade with my back up against its sprawling trunk. Or I would sit a little way across the park and just watch the wind in it's branches. It was a comforting place. A tranquil, happy place, and even if it was only in my subconscious at the time, it was where I wanted to spend maybe my last afternoon. And so I did. My Dad was off parking the car, and getting us something to drink from the gag shack. Mom and I found a park bench with a good vantage point on the tree. She talked to me quietly while I tried to focus on what she was saying. My Dad eventually joined us, and the three of us just sat there watching the children play on the broad shoulders of that old tree.

It was all right there at that moment. Old, steady timeless life with happy laughing young life draped all over it. The tree and the children. The children and the tree. And, of course, the two people that had given me life. And, of course, me. It was all right there, and it was all good.

June 15, 2008 makes 15 years since that big surgery. 15 years that I have counted myself cancer free and a cancer survivor. 15 years with so many all good moments that I can't even count them. I am extremely healthy, now, and there is a pretty good prospect for 15 more years for me, and then 15 more, and maybe even 15 more.

I sincerely hope those years happen for me, but it doesn't really matter, because I learned something that day 15 years ago. That day with my Mom and Dad, and the impending surgery, and the rental car, and the the gag shack and the park bench, and the laughing children and the tree of life. I learned that it is all right here for us, all the time, and it's all good.

Here's to 15 years!

David Grant Wright

It pays to have friends... 4/21/08

It's almost time to open the house. (let the audience in) Kathy, Maria, Katie, Glen and I have just about finished the preparations for this With Flying Colors performance and the only thing we really have left to do is the lighting. It's not going well. Tonight's performance is in a brand new theater. So new in fact, that no one else has ever performed in it. We are the first to realize that they have put their ambient lights in the spotlight slots and their spot lights in the ambient slots. (not that the spotlights actually face the stage, but this is another issue) The house seats are lit beautifully. In fact, the only really dark spot in the entire room is, indeed, the stage where I am about to sit and read my play aloud for the next hour and fifteen minutes.

I have my bedstand snake neck lamp from home in my hands and Kathy has her and Wes's desktop snake neck lamp from their house in her hands. Katie is sitting patiently in my performance chair while we try to light her. Katie is 12 so this truly takes patience on her part. We are trying to keep the lamps low so that they don't get in the audiences sight lines. but because of this angle, Katie is looking like she should be in a Vincent Price movie. Which is not exactly the effect I am looking for in this piece. The lamps also make giant shadows on the back wall which I fear might become more interesting than my performance if we can't find an angle whereby they disappear. Did I mention that it's not going well?

Mike shows up. "You guys have got some really bad shadows going on the wall back there," he says. "Thanks." Kathy and I say in unison as our snake neck lamps continue to orbit around the now nearly blinded Katie. "I've got my light kit in the car, let me go get it..." says Mike.

Kathy says, "Mike, we don't have time, we are letting in the audience in 5 minutes!" "This will only take two minutes." he responds. "OK," Kathy says putting down her lamp. "You've got two minutes." And she meant it.

Mike is out to his car, back with the lights and the light stands, and the stage is perfectly lit at the 1 minute 58 second mark. Mike says, "Told ya, two minutes." Maria finishes taping off the back rows and we open the house.

Kathy gave me a great introduction. We had a very nice turn out and I think the show went well. It's always hard for me to gage when I'm doing With Flying Colors, but they were nice and responsive, laughed in nearly all the appropriate places and clapped at the end. What more could I ask!!?

I realized when it was all over that the evening could have been a bit of a disaster. Say, for instance, my friend with the light kit hadn't shown up right when we needed him. When I was younger I would get very upset and worried about moments like that, but living this life of mine has taught me that most stuff works out for me in the end. I think that's how I survived cancer, how I remain an actor, how I have a web site and how I stay happy. Friends. I seriously count on my friends, and I have a friend for everything...