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Requiem En Pace
mood: 
sad
sadThis has been an interesting week, taken altogether. Last weekend was my first holiday weekend since joining this company, and I was looking forward to it. A nice long weekiend spent doing nothing in particular, but punctuated by7 the start of my first business trip for the company. Then Annie called with the news that Bob Lucas Passed away.
Robert Lucas
WEST PEORIA - Robert A. Lucas, 57, of West Peoria died Thursday, May 21, 2009, at Methodist Medical Center in Peoria.
Born Sept. 21, 1951, in Chicago, Ill., son of William and Miriam Keeley Lucas, he married Susan Keller on June 14, 1980, in Peoria. She survives.
Also surviving are his parents, William and Miriam Lucas of Rogers, Ark.; one brother, William (Janet) Lucas of Ply-mouth, Minn.; one nephew; and two nieces.
He was preceded in death by his grandparents.
Robert was self-employed as a private investigator. He formerly was a Peoria Heights police officer.
He received undergraduate and graduate degrees from Bradley University.
Robert was a member of Corn Stock Theatre, Midwest Gun Collectors Association, Peoria Jazz Society, National Rifle Association and River City Regulators Cowboy Shooting Club.
Memorial services will take place at 6 p.m. Sunday, May 24, 2009, at The Wilton Mortuary in Peoria, with visitation two hours prior to services
WEST PEORIA - Robert A. Lucas, 57, of West Peoria died Thursday, May 21, 2009, at Methodist Medical Center in Peoria.
Born Sept. 21, 1951, in Chicago, Ill., son of William and Miriam Keeley Lucas, he married Susan Keller on June 14, 1980, in Peoria. She survives.
Also surviving are his parents, William and Miriam Lucas of Rogers, Ark.; one brother, William (Janet) Lucas of Ply-mouth, Minn.; one nephew; and two nieces.
He was preceded in death by his grandparents.
Robert was self-employed as a private investigator. He formerly was a Peoria Heights police officer.
He received undergraduate and graduate degrees from Bradley University.
Robert was a member of Corn Stock Theatre, Midwest Gun Collectors Association, Peoria Jazz Society, National Rifle Association and River City Regulators Cowboy Shooting Club.
Memorial services will take place at 6 p.m. Sunday, May 24, 2009, at The Wilton Mortuary in Peoria, with visitation two hours prior to services
Bob was an old friend of mine, from when we were both members of Corn Stock theatre. I spent many hours working and playing with Bob. He and his wife Sue were among the special group that met for several years on new Years Eve and watched and ridiculed bad movies together. We did theatre together at a time when Corn Stock was at its height. We worked together to build the Lab School, we drank a lot of beer, took a lot of bows, and read a lot of reviews, both good and bad, together.
Of course, Julie and I went to the funeral and visitation. At the funeral home I managed to say hello to a bunch of friends I have not seen in some time. We talked about old times and about the joy we had once shared in each other's company and in the the very special extended family we had created out of a community theatre. Those were special times in a special place. We had come together and shared the joy that really only comes from working together to live your ideals into reality. There is a kind of class warfare that often develops in community theatres. The Techies against the actors, or the musical theatre crowd opposed to the "pure" theatre types, or the inevitable struggles for power, wherein small people claw their way to the top of what is, ultimately, a very small hill. In our group, we didn't have those struggles. All of us were dedicated to a vision of Theatre as a calling. The focus was on the work. We selected plays that were interesting to do, and which might bring an audience or might not. We dealt with the economic realities by balancing the season between well known works that would sell tickets and less well known works that would be a challenge to do well and would stretch our powers as well as those of the audience. Some of us were more comfortable on stage, others happier to face the challenges of doing good technical theatre, but all of us were perfectly capable of walking into either world. Together we built a school, a place where those who had experience and training could share it with younger or less experienced members, all aimed at creating an extended theatrical family that would last for generations, all dedicated to sharing the joy of live theatre with audiences yet to come, and with artists yet to be. Together we strove mightily to find that moment, when everything came together and for the briefest possible span of time you knew that everything was exactly right, and the audience and the artists had together created a memory that would far outlast the circumstances that created it. It did not come in every show. Hell, it didn't come in most shows, but once in a while it did come.
After the funeral, we all gathered for a short time in the school we had built together. While sitting there I had some long conversations with old friends, and I began to notice something. One old friend commented that the theatre was never as full as it had been when we were there, and most shows sold out. Another observed that the technical standards had fallen, and no one really knew how to do anything that was technically challenging. Someone else told me that they were no longer teaching classes at the lab school. A different friend told me the story of a terrible rift that had formed when some members had conspired against others in order to "oust" a different group. Some faces in the crowd I recognized avoided me, as I had apparently chosen to speak with the wrong people first. Each of these sad exchanges ended with some version of "it's just not the same Corn Stock, and that is why I left." Several people observed that only Bob could have drawn some of the people present to be in the same room together, even momentarily.
You really cannot go home again. How could people who were drawn together by the love of theatre develop such animosity? It seemed painfully obvious to me that there might be a connection between your technical standards slipping and the fact that you were no longer teaching technical theatre skills. The truth is, I was not there and cannot begin to guess at the details, but I have a fair idea of the general shape of the decline. When I was there, the place seemed filled with love, of theatre and of each other. There are always those who cannot share in that kind of love, and so convince themselves that the whole thing is silly. And so they find themselves making fun of those who share in the love, and they find other outsiders to share their stories with. Eventually, they become a group, bound together not by love, but by shared cynicism and animosity. Such a group has no positive focus, no place to direct their energies apart from the desire to prove themselves superior to those they hate. If they ever for a moment stop attacking the group they perceive as having rejected them, they might discover that they have no reason to be together, and that would leave them alone in the dark.
So, I went to Peoria to say goodbye to an old friend, and I found myself sitting in the shining clean ruins of a facility I helped to build saying goodbye to two. So, Requiem en Pace Bob Lucas and CST. The world will never again see your like, and is a much sadder place because of that.
.
After the funeral, we all gathered for a short time in the school we had built together. While sitting there I had some long conversations with old friends, and I began to notice something. One old friend commented that the theatre was never as full as it had been when we were there, and most shows sold out. Another observed that the technical standards had fallen, and no one really knew how to do anything that was technically challenging. Someone else told me that they were no longer teaching classes at the lab school. A different friend told me the story of a terrible rift that had formed when some members had conspired against others in order to "oust" a different group. Some faces in the crowd I recognized avoided me, as I had apparently chosen to speak with the wrong people first. Each of these sad exchanges ended with some version of "it's just not the same Corn Stock, and that is why I left." Several people observed that only Bob could have drawn some of the people present to be in the same room together, even momentarily.
You really cannot go home again. How could people who were drawn together by the love of theatre develop such animosity? It seemed painfully obvious to me that there might be a connection between your technical standards slipping and the fact that you were no longer teaching technical theatre skills. The truth is, I was not there and cannot begin to guess at the details, but I have a fair idea of the general shape of the decline. When I was there, the place seemed filled with love, of theatre and of each other. There are always those who cannot share in that kind of love, and so convince themselves that the whole thing is silly. And so they find themselves making fun of those who share in the love, and they find other outsiders to share their stories with. Eventually, they become a group, bound together not by love, but by shared cynicism and animosity. Such a group has no positive focus, no place to direct their energies apart from the desire to prove themselves superior to those they hate. If they ever for a moment stop attacking the group they perceive as having rejected them, they might discover that they have no reason to be together, and that would leave them alone in the dark.
So, I went to Peoria to say goodbye to an old friend, and I found myself sitting in the shining clean ruins of a facility I helped to build saying goodbye to two. So, Requiem en Pace Bob Lucas and CST. The world will never again see your like, and is a much sadder place because of that.
.
confused
Multiple Choice 
I finally got tired this week of waiting for the scifi channel, so I made arrangements to have Dish Network come out this morning and install. I was really looking forward to having all the new channels, as well as the lower costs associated with this. Basic cable is nearly twice what dish network costs for less than half the channels. Julie called after they left. Apparently you can't see the sky well enough from any part of our house to get satellite reception. 
Franken is just a really funny guy. 
