My cousin Glenda is a dynamo and she is directing the musical Hairspray at Danville Area Community College just across the state line in Illinois. I’ll be heading down on Thursday morning to Attica, where I will meet up with my cousin Susie and we’ll go over to the matinee that day. Then I’ll come home Friday morning.

Up to now, the college has done plays under Glenda’s guidance and this is the first musical. Musicals, I have learned, take way more time and preparation and money than do plays. And then there are the performances which last a couple of hours; it makes me think of cooking a holiday meal – all that work and then chomp, chomp, chomp and it’s over. Ironically, Glenda has also worked as a caterer.(She is so good that she was coaxed out of cooking-retirement by the promise of a LARGE donation to the musical’s budget to cater one gathering.)

Now I’m the kind of person who would want to bronze the food and the actors. I mean, think of people eating the Mona Lisa . . .