Jumping on "The Band Wagon"

A recent Facebook quiz on how many movie musicals you’ve seen revealed that while I have seen a fair number of musicals (including “Head,” a 1968 psychedelic adventure and comedy film musical starring The Monkees) I am woefully behind in my viewing of movie musicals from the 1930's, 40's and 50's.

Mr. Rip, on the other hand, has seen a number of those old musicals and is now on a mission to help me to catch up.  To that end, he has started to DVR any old musicals that happen to be rerun on TV.  And that is how I came to be watching The Band Wagon, a thoroughly enjoyable 1953 MGM musical directed by Vincent Minnelli and starring Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse, on TV this past Sunday afternoon.

I thought it was a bonus that it actually has a plot, but Mr. Rip is not as impressed with the story as I am.  Well, look, it’s not exactly Shakespeare but it was a tongue-in-cheek tale about putting on a show which I think should be appreciated by anyone who has ever been involved in creating theater, on any level, anywhere.  For instance, they want to recruit Charisse’s character, who is a classical dancer, for the show they’re putting on.  When Astaire is watching her perform in a ballet, his first comment is “Oh, my, she’s tall,” which would be exactly what a male dancer might think about when looking at a potential dance partner. 

If there is a heaven for dancers, Astaire and Charisse are two of the featured performers there.  They were perfection on the dance floor, and on the fake-looking city street where they broke into a dance while on a walk.  In fact it reminded Mr. Rip and me of the first time we took a walk together – dressed all in white, and breaking into a fully choreographed ballroom dance right there on the street.  I jest, of course.  We don’t actually remember our first walk but it might have been at Fallingwater in which case, given the hilly wooded terrain there, I would have been concentrating on walking without falling, not dancing.  Besides, I wouldn’t be caught dead in white pants.

Astaire acted his role with a natural enthusiasm, and was a serviceable singer.  Charisse on the other hand, could not be accused of being an actress, and her few snippets of songs were dubbed.  She did however have some the longest, shapeliest gams you’ve ever seen, a tiny waist, and wore one stunningly beautiful dress after another.

It seemed like every single member of the cast couldn’t do something that was required of a performer in a movie musical, except for plucky bona fide triple-threat Nanette Fabray.  The only real singer in the show, she also acted and danced well, sometimes all at the same time.  She really didn’t look all that much different than when she played Bonnie Franklin’s Mom on One Day at a Time a couple of decades later

I personally thought the musical highlight of the show was the iconic That’s Entertainment, but Mr. Rip wanted me to tell you that Triplets is actually worth the price of admission.

Now I am eagerly awaiting the next winner in the Mr. Rip Old Musical Roulette, but if he doesn’t find anything we can always just watch Dirty Dancing again.

Sharon in a Castle (in Sharon)

Mr. Rip and I just returned from a Castle Escape Romance weekend getaway at the Buhl Mansion in Sharon, PA.  Did this ever live up to its name!  We stayed in a castle, we escaped from our daily routines for 48 glorious hours, and it was very romantic.  In fact, I am so relaxed after this experience, I almost forgot to write this blog.

So right there sitting just outside the Sharon, PA business district sits this majestic mansion which was once owned by the Buhl family.  In a stroke of re-use genius, the Winner family bought the place and turned it into the fanciest Bed and Breakfast you've ever seen, complete with a full service spa in the basement.

Upon arriving before we even checked into our room, we were escorted to the spa, where a team of enthusiastic staff members were waiting for us.  They offered us champagne and mimosas or water infused with cucumbers and lemon, and showed us where the sauna, steam room and monsoon showers were.  

Then they did our facials.  I swear, my face was practically dancing with pleasure during this procedure.  Mr. Rip reminded me that we had facials on our honeymoon more than a decade ago, but I obviously forgot the feeling.  While my first thought was that a facial would be a great way to start every single day, I realized that would just be crazy.  However, a weekly facial has now been added to my list of things I'd do if I ever won the lottery.

This was followed by my first-ever manicure. I simply don't do my nails, mostly because it takes approximately 61/2 days for the nail polish to dry enough to resume everyday activities.  This turned out to be true even when in the hands of a professional, who told me that this was often the case with good strong healthy nails like mine. All I know is when I showed Mr. Rip where the polish smudged on my middle finger, it looked like I was making an obscene gesture.

The staff was as attentive in the rest of the house as they were in the spa. They parked the car, brought the luggage up to the room, performed a turn-down service on the bed when you were out for dinner, and put a newspaper under your door every morning.  They basically attended to your every need. Each of the 10 guest rooms was spacious, and equipped with jacuzzi tubs and other amenities like a working gas fireplace in ours. 

 

On the second day, we had our massages.  Peggy, my masseuse and new best friend, found every trouble spot on my troubled back, and worked on those spots without ever insulting my back by calling it a "mess" or a "disaster." I'm actually hiring Peggy as my personal masseuse with my future imaginary lottery winnings.

In the afternoon, there was a wedding taking place on the grounds.  I love weddings.  I decided to go down and hang out to watch the ceremony from just enough of a distance that I wouldn't be accused of actually crashing the wedding.  I met and had a nice visit with Steve, the former mayor of nearby Mercer, who was performing the wedding and who had a little time on his hands while they were waiting for the groom's daughters to arrive (which they finally did, 30 minutes late). I left before the ceremony was over to lessen the impression that I was stalking a stranger's wedding.

I didn't mention the food yet, but there was breakfast every morning, lunch the second day, a tea service and champagne reception every afternoon, and a welcome basket of fruit, cheese and champagne in the room that they replenished daily.  They were constantly trying to give us champagne, most of which was complimentary.  We made the mistake of making dinner reservations the second night, and they overfed us as well.  The simple fact is that I can't eat the way I used to, and I'm still trying to digest all that food.

On Sunday we headed home for our own little "castle" in Franklin Park. We had an extra day off for what Mr. Rip called a "staycation" but I might have called "errands." We needed to pick up a few things like groceries and nail polish remover.

Hamburgers and Cinnamon Doughnuts - Those Winky's Days

The other day someone asked me about my very first job.  With a wave of nostalgia I proudly responded, “When I was a teenager I worked at Winky's Drive-In Restaurant in Swissvale.”

The late, great Winky’s was a plucky little player in the Western Pennsylvania fast food world for 20 shining years from 1962 to 1982.   Winky’s strategy for success was all about diversification.  In an era when McDonald’s did hamburgers, Kentucky Fried Chicken did fried chicken, and Arby’s did roast beef, Winky’s did it all. Their claim to fame was that they breaded the fresh chicken and cooked it in a deep fryer, and sliced the roast beef themselves.  However, the piéce de resistance of Winky's menu was definitely the made-from-scratch cinnamon doughnut, and the milkshakes were pretty great too.

I started at Winky's when I was a junior in high school.  Inexplicably they kept me on after my first day on the job when I splattered the first four milkshakes I attempted to make all over the counter and the walls, but what I lacked in coordination I made up for with my eager and pleasant customer service and the fact that I could be relied upon to show up for work when I was scheduled to do so.  My stock rose even more when I turned 18, which made me eligible to “work the machines” – that is, slice the roast beef, work the deep fryer, and make the all-important doughnuts.  Believe or not, I managed to learn to do all of this without serious injuring myself, and I stayed for the next seven years returning every summer when I was in college.

While the company slogan “Winky's Makes You Happy to Be Hungry” was probably an overstatement Winky's definitely made me happy to be a teenager with a part-time job.  I absolutely loved working there. 

I was making a little money of my own for the first time in my life.  I religiously put half my earnings in the bank for college and used the rest for spending money that was all my own.  After nearly two years the money I had saved paid for one semester of college, but hey, it was something.

I met people I didn’t already know at Winky's.  This may sound strange, but I had attended St. Anselm’s from the time I entered kindergarten, and most of the people I knew I had known essentially all my life.  I met kids who attended Swissvale High School at Winky's and some of them weren’t even Catholic, if you can believe it.

I learned about maintaining a good work ethic at Winky's.  For a couple of summers I was routinely scheduled to do weekend prep at the restaurant, which means I arrived at 4 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday mornings, and worked there alone making the all-important doughnuts and preparing other food from 4 a.m. to 6 a.m. until the restaurant opened and some co-workers (including the shift manager) arrived.

My father did not think it was safe for a 19-year-old girl to be at the restaurant by herself at those hours because it wasn’t.  Refusing a shift on your job wasn’t an option, so every Saturday and Sunday after working all week Dad got up at 3:30 a.m. to drive me to Winky's and stayed there with me until the restaurant opened, telling me stories of his life and drinking coffee while I worked.   He wouldn’t let me complain about getting up so early (“This is your job!”) and he never complained either.

It was more than just work, though. Winky's became a place where I socialized.  I’m not sure why my co-workers and had so much fun serving fast food together, but we did.  I made friends there and we had all kinds of adventures together, in and out of work. Of course, I was scheduled to work every weekend either in the evening or starting at 4 a.m. for seven of my teenage years, so if I didn’t socialize at work I wouldn’t have socialized at all.

What's My Password? Don't Ask Me!

Remember when Password was a beloved game show first hosted by Allen Ludden?  Two teams made up of a contestant and a celebrity competed against each other, and the object was to get your teammate to guess the "password" using just one word as a clue.  In the past, passwords were also verbal words or phrases that allowed you entry into the neighborhood clubhouse or the local speakeasy.

Ah, those were the days!

Nowadays you need 16 or 17 passwords just to get through your day, in order to connect to the electronics to which we are now tethered. Passwords are recommended just to access your smartphone or computer and required for just about anything online, including your personal e-mail accounts.

I was game at first. I realized that passwords were there for my own good - providing security against those nefarious hackers out there whose purpose in life is to screw up ours. I struggle to understand their motivation. Some of them are just modern day cyber-thugs out to steal your identity and your money.  But more often than not they are just out to crash our computers with viruses and mess with our heads for the sport of it.  They do it because they can.  

The computer powers-that-be always warned us against using obvious passwords like your name or birthday or "1234" or "ABCD."  So I came up with a password that was meaningful only to me, and used it on every account.

Now that is no longer sufficient.  It is recommended that you use different passwords for every account, and it is especially important that you not use the same passwords that you use for your e-mail account anywhere else.  It is advisable that you periodically change your passwords on any given account, and actually required by some programs.  Some online entities now require passwords with particular requirements like "Your password must contain no less than 6 and no more 8 characters, and must include at least one of each of the following: a letter, a numeral, both uppercase and lower characters and a symbol."

Just to add to the fun, some sites now require you to take a test in order to gain access. These "CAPTCHA" (which stands for Completely Automated Public Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart) require you to type in a word or series of characters that appear in a distorted fashion that cannot be read by computers.  I'm not sure what it says about me that sometimes these distorted characters cannot be read by me either.

Yes, it's all gotten too complicated for me, I'm afraid.  I have simply run out of meaningful-only-to-me number-letter-symbol combinations to use as passwords. I confess that occasionally I will stare for several seconds at a log-in screen that I use on a daily basis to recall which of my many passwords will gain me the precious access I seek. And forget about trying to remember the passwords I use infrequently.  When I'm in a more philosophical mood, I like to ponder the great mystery of it all -namely, if I can't remember my passwords, how can hackers and computers figure out what they are?

Mr. Rip in his infinite wisdom has solved this problem by using one of those programs where you can store passwords (there really is an app for everything).   I may do the same thing some day, but first I would have to come up with another new and unique password just to get into the password keeper program.