Wednesday, Oct. 27

Up at 7:30, and did a treadmill session and resistance exercises after breakfast. After getting ready for the day, I spent the rest of the morning at my computer upstairs, putting together a resume' and other materials for our county's literacy council.



At 1 p.m., Mother and I went to a local coffee shop to have lunch with our friends. We spent two hours visiting with them. Before we got in our cars to leave, one of our friends, who lives in our town, handed me a bag of rubber stamps that she no longer uses. We are glad to have these for making cards for Caring Hands Hospice.



When we got back home at 3 p.m., Hubbie and I ran errands....to a grocery store and the WDCS. But before we went to the stores, we drove by the college where a fire broke out in the dining hall yesterday. We had to park quite a way from the building and walk across campus, because the road to the dining hall, and the parking lots near the building, were blocked off, and yellow tape surrounded the area.



A couple of fire trucks, and an ambulance, were on the scene. Firemen were on a fire truck ladder, pouring water onto the building, where, we were told, flames had started up again. Firemen fought the fire all night last night, and plan to remain on scene through tonight.



We learned today that the fire may have been the result of arson, because staff found a waste can on fire in the men's room yesterday, and then discovered a fire in the linen closet of the dining hall. They managed to put out the fire in the men's room, but the one in the closet was already too far gone...that's the one that eventually consumed the dining hall.



We were interested in seeing the building, which is ruined, but our reason for visiting that part of the campus was to see if a play was still going to be held tonight in the theater that adjoins the building that housed the dining hall. It was still scheduled.

After a supper of low-fat, low-sodium ham, baked sweet potatoes, and hominy cooked with bell pepper and cheese, we all got ready to go to the play.

We arrived at the theater just before 8 p.m. curtain time. There was a hint of smoke in the theater, though the director of the play said they'd worked all day to eliminate it.

The play was very good. It followed three white girls and three black girls from childhood, through teen years, into young adulthood, and finally into middle age, as they tried to deal with not only their relationships with each other, but with the turbulent years between 1956 and 1992. The young women did an outstanding job of carrying the audience through these emotional times. You could hear a pin drop during the scene that dealt with the hanging of the brother of one of the black girls, and during the scene of a bruised and battered black girl who had been raped. The girls who played those roles literally wept as they acted their parts, and the audience was swept up in sympathy.

The play lasted two hours, so we were back home shortly after 10 p.m.