FALL 1997 - ISSUE NUMBER 38
When the Center Board started the planning process for the Ten Year Celebration, to be held on the summer solstice, we decided it might be fun to produce a skit depicting some of the activities and events the Center's been involved with in the last ten years. Well, great ideas are one thing; follow through is quite another! We managed to pull together a cast who was willing to put in some time on the project. We met at the Inn for potluck, script-writing, and practicing parts. It was one of those things that came together at the last minute&emdash;despite our doubts and fears.
Folks began to gather at the Inn on the afternoon of June 21st, to eat good food, relax, socialize and reminisce about the Center's history. After a morning rain, the sun came out just in time for the celebration. After dinner, the eager audience gathered in chairs in front of the porch, soon to become the stage.
The play, entitled Back in Time, revolved around an anthropologist from the 21st century (played by Patty Fabian) who travelled back in time with the help of a time machine (an old exercise bike hooked up to a time wheel with jumper cables). She would dial a particular year on the wheel, hop on the bike and pedal madly, while Victor McManemy, our resident musician, sang a few verses of The Times They are a-Changin'. Meanwhile the other players were busy setting up a set depicting some event from the past. She visited the beginning of the Neahtawanta Center in 1987, including a scene from Bob and Sally's wedding. Other scenes portrayed activities around the Gulf War (complete with smoke bombs to suggest the Iraqi oil fires), the Faith & Resistance Retreat, the Chlorine Zero Discharge Rally when the International Joint Commission met in Traverse City, and the Neahtawanta Pirate raid on the Parade of Sails during the Governor's convention. In the scene depicting the peace pole planting, the players were pleasantly surprised when the audience spontaneously joined them in the singing of Give Peace a Chance. The last stop for our time-travelling anthropologist was the year 2001, when the local community bank had been formed and the local currency was Bob's Bay Bucks. The audience was invited to participate along the way, and we finished with the whole group joining in for the singing of John Lennon's classic song, Imagine.
It certainly was an enjoyable way of reminiscing and honoring the past. We also pulled out all our old flyers, brochures and articles from the archives and stuck them up all over the walls of the yoga room, and dragged out all the old copies of Synapse and put them in piles around the room.
Many thanks to all of you who were able to come celebrate with us, and to all of our members and friends who supported our work these first ten years&emdash;either financially, or by volunteering time. And a special thanks to the cast of the Neahtawanta Players for their time and energy producing the play: Sally Neal, Grips Krumlauf, Joan D'Argo, Jeff Anderson, Sandi McArthur, Patty Fabian, Bob Russell, Victor McManemy, Phil Thiel, Stephanie Mills, Mary Anne Macy and those from the audience who helped out.