Last night, about 8pm or so, was the opening curtain for the Maysville (Ky) community players rendition of Annie Get Your Gun. The playhouse is pictured above and was built a million years ago for theater troops who chugged up and down the Ohio River from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati and beyond. It had a honeycomb of dressing rooms under the stage with autographs on walls and production remembrances.
I was conducting from the pit and the opening was very very complicated by an over-directing director. The gist is that the ringmaster was to pop his starter pistol twice, in tempo, and everyone would start to sing and the orchestra would play. So, over microphone setup, I would give him the tempo and say " One two ready shoot shoot..music). It didn't work. His pistol misfired after the first shot. Chaos.
About partway through a struggling first act, the stage manager rushed on with a huge extension cord and an old, huge Philips radio on a rolling stand. Everything stopped.
".....To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as President, I must put the interests of America first. America needs a full-time President and a full-time Congress, particularly at this time with problems we face at home and abroad. To continue to fight through the months ahead for my personal vindication would almost totally absorb the time and attention of both the President and the Congress in a period when our entire focus should be on the great issues of peace abroad and prosperity without inflation at home. Therefore, I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow.Vice President Ford will be sworn in as President at that hour in this office......" That was where I was and what was happening 43 years ago last night.
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