For Actors, Fire Fighters, and Fans of Both

Rick and I just returned from five days at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon. I’ve been a member of the festival since 1987 and have missed visiting there only one year in all that time. For some reason, every time we drive into Ashland, I am reminded of the 1978 movie, Same Time Next Year. Amid all that has become so, so familiar in the little town of Ashland and southern Oregon, each year offers differences.

This year, smoke permeated the air, so thick, at times, that it was uncomfortable. Summer blazes in Oregon and Northern California have shrouded the sky that is usually an incredible, cerulean blue, in a blanket of hazy, brownish-grey. Several of the plays, performed at the outdoor Elizabethan Theatre, had to be cancelled or moved to local, indoor venues. We were lucky though and saw The Heart of Robin Hood there on an evening when the winds had whisked the smoke away just enough for the actors to perform safely.

With this in mind, I felt compelled to talk for a moment about heroes – the fire fighters who, while we were lured into another world by the extraordinary talent of actors on the stage, were enduring the heat, the dirt, the exhaustion, and the danger of working to fight such tenacious forest fires. Who is to say talent belongs only on a stage, art studio, or in the pages of a book? To fight fire takes courage, intelligence, and persistence. It’s a special gift too.

So, this is just a little thanks to actors, to fire fighters, both who make our world a better place.