Dateline:  New York City

Former Senator Howard Metzenbaum died last week.  Two Oakwoodites remember chatting with him when The Dayton Daily News hosted a celebration for their former employee, Mike Peters,  on the occasion of his receiving his second Pulitzer Prize. The Senator had come from Cleveland for the occasion.

When the winner,  his second time, of the Iditarod Dog Sled race across Alaska to Nome was announced last weekend the members of the Miami Valley Hunt thought of their fellow subscriber, Don Montgomery of Lima.  Years ago Don raced in the Iditarod twice!  All the more senior MVH’ers remember Don’s accounts of carrying his ‘team’ of sled dogs (many from his local Humane Society kennels) and his sled, and his extraneous equipment – from Ohio to Alaska.  On his first attempt  he completed half the race, but, if memory is correct, Don did complete his second race.  That in itself, was a victory!

Last Wednesday evening Wright State Univ. Department of Music presented a Concert Night.  The first half of the program rivaled anything heard at Lincoln Center this winter!  The Chamber Orchestra is fabulous! The first soloist was Aaron Schmid, playing the clarinet in Mozart’s Concerto for Clarinet. Aaron is a graduate student pursuing a Master of Music degree at WSU.   Tchaikovsky’s Concerto for Violin featured Jeehoon Chung.  Jeehoon is a Junior at WSU.  He was born in South Korea and began studying the violin when  8.  He came to Wright State after graduating from high school in S. Korea.  He’s now a Junior…and  his performance brought-down-the-house!   Cheers and whoops went on and on.  And then Steffin Johnson took his place at the piano.  Steffin began playing at 4.  He attended Stivers High School for the Arts…he played Liszt that Listz could not have beaten!  It was a delight to chat with him following the concert.

A seat-mate introduced himself. He was Don Geels. “My daughter, Rebecca, is first violin…she’s the one helping set up the piano…she’s a grad student…she’s a terrific violinist but she doesn’t love music like I do…I practice my violin and piano every day now that I’m retired…started the violin when I was in my sixties and was told it was futile to think I could learn this late in life…but I don’t care…I listen to Dayton Public Radio all day…”  Georgie Woessner take note!

Following intermission the Symphony Orchestra took the stage – with many players from the Chamber Orchestra.  Alex Chio was the soloist for Grieg’s Concerto.  His family, at least a dozen, were a delight to watch.  They presented him with flowers following his solo.  

A Marimba was wheeled out onto the stage and  casually-clad young man with a huge mop of hair and a ‘cool’ manner picked up his four ‘sticks’.  His name was Luke Dull – and his performance was far from the definition of his last name!

Quite a few Oakwood-ites attended performances of ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’  at the Dayton Playhouse in Wegerzyn Park because…Oakwood’s super-versatile-talented…Pam McGinnis played ‘Martha’ in the production.  The Gridley and McGinnis families certainly enhanced the audience.  In fact, Pam’s Mother, Charis Gridley, said she was the ‘stage door Mother’ ‘cause she’d seen the play twice. Mother-In-Law, Weezie,  went with son/husband Carlo on opening night..”It’s fantastic but it’s such ‘heavy’ drama that I don’t think I could put myself through it again so soon…”

Chuck Larkowski, professor at WSU, plays ‘George’ and he’s ‘perfectly’ cast. Matt Beisner and Amy Brooks play the younger couple and they  too are really tops. Hope you all saw the show.

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