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IN THIS ISSUE

• We come to the end of Ernest Blaschke´s story of wartime Vienna
• Dick Monaghan reminisces about his involvement in amateur theatricals
• Jack Peaker writes about the beginning of the Big Band era
• Barbara Wear tells of an unusual way to get sick leave
• Peter Weatherby contrasts his schooling with today´s education
• Peter Rollo has fond memories of a former home
• Burke Dykes tells the sad story of a broken lawnmower
• Don Henderson and Jack Peaker suggest interesting websites

Ernest Blaschke concludes his story of

LIFE IN VIENNA DURING AND AFTER WW II

A question frequently asked is how come the fate of Austria was so different from that of Germany, when both were divided into four occupation zones, and Vienna, like Berlin, was also divided, even though it was located deep in the Russian occupation zone? Why did the Russians not proceed with the total division of the Austria as they did in Germany, but instead pulled out of the country?

The following reasons were obvious to us who lived in Vienna at the time:

By obtaining a promise of neutrality, the American forces were pushed back westward. The Russians hoped a similar arrangement could be made with Germany.

The Russians were promised and obtained large amounts of money, and dismantled whole factories and shipped them east as "war reparations". Much of the financing seemed to come via the US, which also had an interest in seeing the Russians withdraw further to the east.

The Russians found the occupation of Austria much more difficult and disagreeable than that of East Germany because they had to deal with a hostile non-communist government. When they tried to arrest someone who lived in the Soviet zone, the Austrian police would quickly warn the person to disappear into the western-occupied zone before efforts were made to officially look for him on behalf of the Russians. If the communist party declared a general strike in some factories, the government would often bring in truckloads of strike-breakers to counteract it. In general, the orders of the Russians and the communist party were sabotaged by the local authorities, whereas in East Germany there was a friendly and supportive government at hand to do the bidding of the Russian occupation troops.

It should be stated that the Russians, after suffering greatly under the Germans, and after their heroic efforts to drive the Germans back and "liberate" Austria, honestly believed the local population would elect a communist government. A truly free and democratic election was permitted by the Russians, and resulted in a defeat for the communists, creating a non-communist government and police force with the results described above. In contrast, Czechoslovakia did vote in a communist government, and once voted in, they were stuck with it until Gorbachov´s time.

These have been some recollections of the time when Austria was under Russian occupation.

Dick Monaghan regales us with his

THEATRE REMINISCENCES

You´ve all been very good this evening, eating your peas without trying to hide them under the mashed potatoes, so I´m going to reward you by giving you an advance peek at my as-yet unpublished memoirs about my amateur theatre career. (I could tell you the publication of these was eagerly anticipated on Broadway, but I suppose it´s only fair to note that that was while I was doing the anticipating while walking down Broadway last year.)

First, let´s note the difference between amateur actors and professionals:

A professional actor comes out on the state wearing a costume, wearing make-up, and standing in a carefully designed lighting scheme. He recites words written by others, and through a combination of all this, tells us he is Czar Nicholas II. We may believe him or we may not, but usually we believe him for the most part, and, as Coleridge put it, we "willingly suspend our disbelief" for the rest of the evening.

An amateur actor, under the same conditions, usually doesn´t manage to get the part about Czar Nicholas across. What he ends up telling us is, "Hey! It´s old Ed from the hardware store! Ain´t I somethin´?" The difference can only be measured in astronomical terms. Amateurs, being people like the rest of us, don´t give up their identities easily.

Some things are easier in the professional theatre. By definition, everyone connected with the project is paid, and money means discipline. It´s hard to threaten somebody with unemployment when he´s not being paid in the first place. That means amateur directors do a lot of pleading, sometimes just to get an actor to show up on time and learn the lines, the cues and the blocking (where and when he is to move onstage). Getting amateur actors to read the entire play is usually out of the question, since the only thing they´re interested in is how often and how long they´re onstage. Most of the plays amateur theatres can get away with are so simple-minded it doesn´t matter.

Some things about amateur theatre are inversions of the professional scene. In amateur theatre, you can start out playing big parts and end up cleaning the latrines after you´ve become a member of the board that governs the theatre.

It is wrong to criticize amateurs for not taking big chances with difficult plays. If I knew a theatre that passed up the chance to do "Streetcar Named Desire" or "Rozencrants and Guildenstern Are Dead", I would send them a large contribution for sparing us the sight of a dramatic disaster.Which reminds me: I once saw a college production of "Streetcar" where Blanche, who is supposed to be mentally fragile and terribly vulnerable, was played by a Nordic goddess who had apparently just left the ski slopes. Stanley was played by a physical lightweight. He looked as if Blanche could throw him through a wall.

But these are the productions that teach us valuable lessons. Like the amateur production of "Othello", where the lead role was played by a guy who could yell and cry - and that was it. He said "I love you" to Desdemona three times in perfect comedy timing, and the audience laughed, not because it was cruel, but because he asked them to. That was not his intent.

Of course, if you´re going to be a theatre, you have to have a theatre of some sort. We had three during my tenure. The first was the basement dining area of a restaurant, complete with semi-circular banquettes. It was the only theatre in America, I´ll bet, that you entered through a door marked "Restrooms". This was because these valuable facilities were down the same stairs that led to the dining area/theatre.

Since we had no stage or curtain, we were forced to act "in the round," with the audience on all four sides, or "thrust" style, with the onlookers on three sides. Since this cost us seats, we usually opted for the "round".

The second was an abandoned mortuary, and the third was our very own, built-from-the-ground-up theatre. We stayed with the "round" style throughout.

I´ve always thought this was excellent training for student actors, because there´s no place to hide. You have to learn to look about two inches over the audience´s heads, to remain steadfast despite such things as snoring, conversation (including two women exchanging recipes) and, worst of all, a guy who either had a script or had memorized the lines to "The Importance of Being Earnest", which he recited to his girlfriend audibly just in advance of the actors speaking the lines. You have to be able to "make love" to a woman whose husband is sitting across a bale of hay from you and is not amused, and you have to ignore personal remarks from people who think, apparently, that being onstage, you can´t hear them.

Two of us "broke in" a new actor during rehearsals by sitting about a foot from him and scraping our chairs and making rude noises while he was trying to do his lines. We threatened him with mayhem if he "went up" on his lines. Later, his parents thanked us for bringing him out of his psychic shell.

ED. NOTE: Dare we hope we will be allowed to read more before publication?

Jack Peaker, in response to requests from readers of The Sentinel in Guelph, writes about

THE BIG BAND ERA ... WHEN IT ALL BEGAN

Yes, it all started about the time many of us were born. Fletcher Henderson, with Louis Armstrong on trumpet, in the years between 1924 and 1927 recorded songs like "Everybody Loves My Baby" and "How Come You Do Me Like You Do."

Then in chronological order, more or less,

1. Ben Pollock - "Deed I Do", 1926

2. Louis Armstrong - seven hot recordings from 1925 to 1928

3. Paul Whiteman, 1928-1929 - "Louisiana"

4. Red Nichols - "I Got Rhythm", 1930

5. Glen Gray - "Casa Loma Stomp", 1931

6. Charlie Barnet with vocalist Harry Vonzell - "What is Sweeter", 1932

7. Earl Hines - "Rosetta", 1933

8. Dorsey Brothers - "Honey Suckle Rose", 1934

9. Benny Goodman - "Down South Camp Meeting", 1935

And after that, pick any bands you want because the Big Band era was off and running. Some of the above songs were great listening, but it was after this that the Big Band era really got started.

1936 - At that time Benny Goodman´s band became one of the icons of great Big Bands in 1936-1937. Considered more facile than Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw was climbing up the same difficult ladder. He was an acknowledged virtuoso clarinetist with a highly personable style. Other musicians admired him for his instrumental technique.

It was in 1935 that Glenn Miller "found that sound" (as noted in the movie) and began the era of romantic mood music when he composed "Moonlight Serenade", which became his theme song. Up until the present, such romantic ballads are given credit - or blamed for - increasing the birth rate.

You will remember these romantic ballads that followed in quick succession after 1935: "Tenderly", "Marie" (Tommy Dorsey´s biggest seller), "A Lot Like Being in Love", "In the Mood", "In the Mood for Love" (Frank Sinatra named an album after this one), "I´m Getting Sentimental Over You" (Tommy Dorsey´s theme song), "It Had To Be You", "I´ll Never Smile Again" (composed by Toronto´s Ruth Lowe), "At Last", "Who´s Sorry Now", "It´s Been a Long, Long Time", "Because of You", "Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime" (Dean Martin did it best), "I Had the Craziest Dream" (Helen Forrest named her book after this one).

I´m sorry if I have omitted your favourite romantic ballad.

Barbara Wear tells of a clever ploy:

SICK LEAVE

I urgently needed a few days off work, but I knew the boss would not allow me to take leave. I thought that maybe if I acted crazy he would tell me to take a few days off, so I hung upside-down from the ceiling and made funny noises.

My co-worker asked me what I was doing.

I told her that I was pretending to be a light bulb, so that the boss might think I was crazy and give me a few days off.

A few minutes later the boss came into the office and asked, "What in the name of good GOD are you doing?"

I told him I was a light bulb.

He said, "You are clearly stressed out. Go home and recuperate for a couple of days."

I jumped down and walked out of the office. When my co-worker followed me, the boss asked her, "... And where do you think you´re going?"

She said, "I´m going home too. I can´t work in the dark."

Peter Weatherby contrasts his schooling with the comments in

YOU MIGHT BE A SCHOOL EMPLOYEE IF ...

Reading the observations in "You Might be a School Employee if..." in the 25th Newsletter made me alternately laugh and shake my head in disbelief.

I attended a secondary school, the equivalent of high school in the U.S.A., in Ramsgate, Kent, on the southeastern coast of England. It was named Chatham House County School. I was there from about the age of ten to 16, the school-leaving age in those days (1936-1942).

There was no co-education in Britain then. Any curiosity we had about girls had to be satisfied by watching them leave their own school, Clarendon House, in the afternoon at the same time we did. We wore school uniforms - green blazers, they wore brown. I rode a bicycle to and from school in fair weather or foul, a distance of about three miles from Broadstairs, where I lived. There was no school transportation, nor did many of the parents have cars. They probably wouldn´t have chauffered us to school even if they had.

The school crest on my blazer pocket was a pelican feeding her young with her blood. The pelican in Christian art is a symbol of charity, also an emblem of Jesus Christ, by "whose blood we are healed." Quite an ideal for schoolboys to live up to - the spirit of sacrifice, charity and selflessness. I wish I could say I lived up to that lofty ideal in my later years.

We attended school prayers every morning in the gym. Catholics and Jews were excused and waited outside. I didn´t know that at the time - I didn´t even know what a Catholic or a Jew was, or how they differed from Church of England.

The class divisions were called "forms" - third form, fourth form, etc. We were also divided into "houses" named after old school boys - Thomas´s, Thornton´s, Searle´s, etc. I was in Thomas´s, with a pink stripe in my tie to denote the fact. We´d meet in our "house" each day to discuss matters of interest and upcoming sporting events. There was much inter-house rivalry.

Our teachers were all male; they were known as "masters" and we called them "sir." The headmaster was a man of the cloth. His name was the Rev. Basil Vernon Frederick Brackenbury, and we regarded him with the same awe with which a raw recruit might regard his commanding general.

Discipline at Chatham House was absolute. Any talking or noise in the classroom was completely forbidden. Any sign of disrespect for a master, which was extremely rare, was instantly followed by a dressing-down, or if more serious, by a visit to the heamaster´s room. If Rev. B. V. F. Brackenbury raised one eyebrow above the other when he looked at you, you were in deep trouble. He had the authority to cane a troublesome boy. I only remember that happening once, and the whole school talked about it in hushed, shocked whispers. The masters were allowed some physical discipline too. I doubt whether any of the boys so disciplined suffered deep-seated emotional trauma to their fragile egos as a result.

If this sounds a bit like Dickens´ Dotheboys Hall in "Nicholas Nickleby", it was nowhere near that dreadful place. Our masters were mostly fair and patient with us, and used the tool of sarcasm to single us out, with snickers of amusement from our fellow pupils. Our French master, Mr. Hall, once observed, "If Weatherby would care to stop staring out of the window, we will resume our studies." I was crushed for days by that remark. But mostly I liked our masters, and tried to do my best for them. In some cases there was a kind of hero-worship. I thought our English master, Mr. Goodram ("Tufty" we called him in private, due to the small amount of hair on his head) was a fine teacher. Our masters, long-suffering employees as they were, probably poorly paid and working many extra hours correcting papers and preparing lessons, were dedicated to their craft.

In the first few forms we took English, geography, history (most of it colored by national chauvinism), and French. Later, in the fifth and sixth forms, we were allowed an elective, such as Spanish or German, or in my case, art.

There was little or no interaction between school and parents, no P.T.A., no parent-teacher consultations, no visits by parents. We were sent to school to be educated, and by thunder, that´s what we had better do. If we had complaints about the school, we didn´t dare voice them to our parents, because they would have come down on us harder than the masters did.

I "graduated" from school at 16, though it wasn´t called graduation in England, nor was there any majestic and solemn ceremony to mark it, as there is in the U.S.A. I look back on my schooldays with a mixture of nostalgia and gratitude for the efforts of those men, my teachers and mentors, to prepare me for the world beyond school.

No doubt things have changed in English schools since those days. I just hope that no teacher now holds the belief that "people should have a government permit before being allowed to reproduce."

Peter Rollo writes: Before we moved to Perth, we lived in the beautiful township of Albany, which is situated south of Perth about five hours by road. We lived in a small orchard on an acre of land. We called the place "Pineacres" because it was surrounded by pine trees. We lived on this property for just on twenty years, and loved every minute of it. The following words help you to understand how I felt about our home and property:

PINEACRES

Sometime in your life will come a day
When the urge will be strong to get away
From the modern world of trouble and strife,
Where the air you breathe can be cut with a knife,
And you´ve had your fill of restless nights,
Of traffic jams and flashing lights,
And the endless days that come and go
With little reward and naught to show.
You must find a retreat where you can unwind,
A place where you can gain peace of mind;
Somewhere to go to be among friends.
There are some who would say, "Find the rainbow´s end."
But a place does exist and for all to see,
It´s know as "Pineacres" near the sea.

So come to Pineacres, for it´s here you will find
A house that´s in tune with the buildings of time.
For there´s no other place that´s made by a man,
That one could compare with the "grand Master´s plan."
It´s a small piece of Eden in this promised land.
For peace and contentment can seldom be found
In the mortar and bricks of a city or town.
In this mercenary world where greed is the key,
They are places of torment for you and me,
But an hour in the bliss of this beautiful land
Can revive and enrich the faith of most men.
You might travel this world, over land and sea.
But you will always remember Pineacres by the sea.

Burke Dykes tells the sad story o

THE BROKEN LAWNMOWER

When our lawnmower broke and wouldn´t run, my wife kept hinting to me that I should get it fixed. But somehow I always had something else to take care of first, the truck, the car, playing golf - always something more important to me.

Finally she thought of a clever way to make her point. When I arrived home one day, I found her seated in the tall grass, busily snipping away with a tiny pair of sewing scissors. I watched silently for a short time and then went into the house. I was gone only a minute, and when I came out again I handed her a toothbrush.

I said, "When you finish cutting the grass, you might as well sweep the driveway."

The doctors say I will walk again, but I will always have a limp.

Moral to this story: Marriage is a relationship in which one person is always right, and the other is the husband.

THIS WEEK´S WEBSITES

Don Henderson suggests an oldie but goodie. He warns that if you are working, you should not forward it to your co-workers because the rest of the day will be useless to the company:

http://www.hurtwood.demon.co.uk/Fun/copter.swf

~~~~~

Jack Peaker suggests this scientific url: http://www.sciencedaily.com/

For people who have read Tony Hillerman´s stories of policing on an Indian reservation:

http://www.umsl.edu/~smueller/photo.htm

And from the show "Britain Has Got Talent":

? http://youtube.com/watch?v=1k08yxu57NA&mode=related&search=

The mystery of government is not how it works but how to make it stop. - P. J. O´Rourke