LETTERS FROM HOME: TOO FAR GONE TO TURN BACK

September 8, 1994

Dear David,

I'm writing from Ashland, Ore., home of the famous Shakespeare festival. DC went out for coffee this morning and returned an hour later with tickets to "Oleanna" and "The Tempest." Guess we're staying, at least until 11 p.m.

This seems to happen quite often. Once we set out for San Francisco and wound up slamming the slots in Reno. This time we were just going up the coast a way to the Smith River, which I had remembered as a wild thing of beauty. Still beautiful, but California once again needs rain. Too tame.

We pushed north into Oregon toward the Rogue River. More like it. Runs cold and hard out of the mountains. Better for riding than swimming, though. We drove on, too far gone to turn back.

So here we are in the town that Shakespeare built. Elizabethan banners hang in the streets, and an air of cultured civility permeates the place. The festival runs from mid-February until the end of October, so little else is on the public mind. There is a newspaper, however, the Ashland Daily Tidings.

We wonder aloud how all this came about. After all, the town had only a state college and 17,000 residents. Yet smack in the middle are three sumptuous theaters and all the accoutrements -- fine restaurants and boutiques. One shop offers rentals in Europe.

DC wonders whether Cape Girardeau ever could become such a cultural mecca, and I immediately think of riverboat gambling and the difficulty of passing a school bond measure. But DC thinks Ashland and Cape must be connected somehow. Once when she was here before and was wearing her Riverfest T-shirt, someone came up and asked if she was from Cape Girardeau. Like Shakespeare, she finds signs in the clouds.

I don't know. I'm sitting at a picnic bench in Lithia Park, hailing distance from the theaters. The trees are leafy, the stream rightfully babbly, and the dirt beneath my feet has been freshly raked.

DC has just returned with a Dijon and smoked cheddar baguette and more coffee. It's beginning to feel a bit unreal until a scavenger comes by and rearranges the trash can. He ate someone's leftovers. Words alone cramp the stomach.

After "Oleanna," a David Mamet play about political correctness and the ambiguities of communication between the sexes, "The Tempest" promises to be a healing balm full of spells and enchantments.

Then we will hie ourselves home from the Bard's town, rolling past the Rogue in the dark, once there to sleep, perchance to dream of signs and Daily Tidings.

Love, Sam

~Sam Blackwell is a staff writer on leave of absence, currently living in Garberville, Calif.