Saturday, Oct. 23rd

This Saturday was “my” Saturday, so after my morning run with Jim (6.5 miles), I bundled Mer into the car and headed southwest. Mer had a good time trying to guess where we were going, but never figured it out. We ended up at The Barn Restaurant in Smithville, a little over an hour away. My friend and colleague Phil had suggested I try it, so here we were.

The restaurant really is a converted barn. The barn had been built in the 1930s and was converted over to a restaurant in the 1980s. We got there right at noon, and yet still beat the rush. We were shown to a table very quickly, upstairs in the old loft. It was fun to look around and see the beams and construction of the place.

The food looked good and it was cheap. Mer and I both got soup and bread bar access, and Mer added in the salad bar while I added in “Barn fries,” which turned out to be good potato slivers. The soup bar had four soups (of which I was concerned solely with the excellent chili), but the bread bar turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. I was expecting rolls and such, but there were just a few loaves of sliced bread. I’ll know better next time. Still, the chili was maybe the best I had ever had. Yum.

After lunch, we wandered around the grounds. There is a man-made pond with very aggressive and hungry ducks and geese which we watched, and we circumnavigated the pond. Then we checked out the several small stores on the property. By far our favorite was a toy store – it was crammed full of cool games and unusual toys and lots of Playmobil. We both approved.

We had been pretty stuffed from lunch, but between the walk and the drive home, we had about two hours to digest. So, I decided to swing by the Gurnish home and see if they wanted to go to Strickland’s for custard. Nate and Rachel were home and were game, so they woke Jack up from his nap, and we all headed over to Strickland’s for ice cream. The special flavor of the day was peanut butter cup (which I got) and banana (which Mer got). I love hanging out with the Gurnishes – they love to laugh, and Nate is very blunt in a funny way. Add ice cream to the mix and it is a good time.

Mer and I then headed home, and we settled in for a movie. A teacher at school had lent me several of Terry Gillian’s films, so I introduced Mer to the film Brazil. She liked the dystopian nature of the film, and although she had thought it very weird at first, ended up liking it as a story. I had not seen it in about twenty years, so I had forgotten most of it. It was good to see it again, in a screwed-up-society sort of way. After the film, we headed to bed after a good and pleasant day.

Friday, Oct. 22nd

After school on this Friday (ten days ago or so), Mer and I went to Akron to meet fellow CVCA worker Brandon and his wife Jen. We met for dinner at the Barley House; Brandon and Jen had never been, and so were curious. Mer and I like the Barley House food; the ambiance is so-so since it is a sports bar and often noisy. On this night, a radio station was hosting trivia games, Jeopardy-style. This grabbed Mer’s attention for a short while, but she ignored it once Brandon and Jen showed up.

We had a nice time. Brandon is in charge of CVCA’s theater program, so we chatted a lot about theater. Jen is expecting (and may have had her baby today), so we talked some about that as well. We laughed a lot (especially when Jen recommended we watch a funny country video about the singer’s grandmother getting drunk and taking her clothes off, because Jen had seen the end of it at her own grandmother’s. That did happen at the very end of the video. In the meantime, a lot of not-so-grandmotherly types seemed to have the same problem. We were highly amused that Jen had not seen the beginning).

After supper, Mer and I headed over to the new home of Actors’ Summit Theater, which is now in downtown Akron, in the Mason-built, six-story Greystone Building. The theater used to be in Hudson, but the landlord raised the rent quite high, so they relocated. They certainly upgraded. The building is beautiful (CVCA has had three proms in the building), and they now have a ton of space. There is a full lobby, with a bar. The bathrooms are huge and luxurious. The theater director now has an office (with a view on the sixth floor), and the theater space itself is quite large. The stage is a thrust, with seats on three sides. Each section holds about fifty to sixty people, so the theater seats around 150 total. It is very impressive.

We were there to see a stage adaptation of a Mark Twain story called A Murder, a Mystery, and a Marriage. The adaptation made it into a bluegrass musical, with a small band. The story centers on a young couple who wants to get married, but is stopped by a wealthy uncle who promises to leave his fortune to the girl if she does not marry the boy. Word gets out, and an evil, mysterious stranger shows up to woo the girl. He kills the uncle, frames the boy, and almost marries the girl before he is discovered and all is saved. It was a corny plot, and Mark Twain had a lot of fun with it. There was even a narrator of the story who would tell us what was going on and what was about to happen. It was well done. I like Twain a lot, so I was ready to enjoy myself going in. It was not hard – there were numerous good lines, and the mysterious stranger was played by an actor I am fond of, and he played it way “over the top” with a ridiculous accent, an evil laugh, and even a cape. It was very funny. The entire play was smile-worthy, and was laugh-out-loud funny at several points (usually with the villain). Mer and I are really looking forward to more productions there, which should be easy since we got season tickets for Actors’ Summit again this year.