We Need Masks!

Often in times of death and despair, the better angles of our nature emerge. This video is such a story. Meet Shar McGlynn who is frantically sewing face masks for hospice nurses and the local hospital. She has been inspired by the way those nurses took care of her husband, Tim McGlynn, as he came to the end of his life.

More to the story. I sent this video to Shar Sunday evening. She sent it to the hospice nurses and a few friends on Monday morning. By noon, look what happened:

My phone has been ringing.  Our local news paper is running an article. Will send to you when it comes out. A woman has offered to be the central location for donations and distribution of materials. And several other places have called wanting masks. Who knew this would cause such a ripple effect.

On The Lighter Side

My recent book, Mister This Is Going On Your Permanent Record; Confessions Of A Smartass In The Slow Reading Group, has a story of a major screwup in a high school drama class:

1956, Berkeley High School

Drama class. I was working with a partner on a scene from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof  by Tennessee       Williams. She was Maggie and I was Brick. Tempers were flaring. The scene called for her to smash a vase. During rehearsal the day before our performance in front of the whole class, we had no vase.

So on the way home I stopped at the Goodwill Store and bought an old vase for 25 cents. Came the big scene, and she threw the vase on the floor. The vase pulverized into about a million pieces. My next line, which I dutifully said was, “That’s OK, Maggie. I can glue it back together.”

The class was laughing so hard, you’d think we were doing a  Jackie Gleason routine from the Honeymooners. We still got an ‘A.’

My friend, Paul Good, was reading the story over the weekend to his wife, Susannah Baldwin and could not control his laughter. She videotaped the whole thing. Bet you can’t watch this without laughing like hell.