Opening Night at Pops is a sure sign of spring in Boston, an evening of world-class music, conviviality and celebrations of friendship and life.

It’s been so for 128 years and was so again on Wednesday night — a fitting symbol of Boston’s strength, resilience and community spirit despite the tragic events that took place a few blocks away on April 15.

My grandson Jack joined me at Opening Night this year. He’s nine, a great kid, who’s interested in country music and the framed Night at Pops poster his parents have hung in their living room.

I couldn’t have asked for a better companion. He took in the glories of Symphony Hall, checking out the gold gilt and statuary in the upper balconies as I pointed them out.  I told him that Symphony Hall is one of the world’s most perfect concert halls acoustically and explained he would “get it” once the orchestra began playing.

We’d “prepped” for the concert, listening to Pops CDs in the car on our ride in. Jack sat with me at our table seat in row M and marveled at the people walking by. “It’s a great place to people watch,” I told him. And he agreed.

Our amiable usher told us she plays flute and studies music at Tufts and is looking forward to hearing all the concerts this year, a perk when you work that gig.

Conductor Keith Lockhart bounded on-stage, leading the Pops in its spirited opener, “Hooray for Hollywood,” a stellar start to Lights! Camera! Action! – this season’s theme.

The lively rendition featured a well-edited video backdrop with quick shots from dozens of Hollywood classics from Gone With the Wind and The Little Tramp to contemporary fare like Argo and Shrek.

Other Hollywood music followed including well-orchestrated versions of the title theme from Gone with the Wind, The Days of Wine and Roses and “The Flying Theme”  from E.T. and “Under the Sea” from The Little Mermaid, which Jack immediately recognized.

There were two tunes from Disney’s “Fantasia,” which the Pops will feature in its complete version in concerts later this season.

The second act featured country-super star Vince Gill, an amiable guy who marveled at the thrill he felt when he heard his tunes played by the venerable Boston Pops.

Gill’s wife, Amy Grant, was a classmate of Lockhart’s at Furman University in South Carolina. “I bet Keith wished I’d brought Amy along,” quipped Gill. Lockhart gamely gave a thumbs-up in agreement.

In tribute to the heroes who helped on Marathon Monday, the Pops invited a Mass General Hospital surgeon to conduct its signature finale “Stars and Stripes Forever.” This doc — a music major in college — had run the marathon, then immediately went to work helping to save lives.

All in all, it was a perfect way to end a stellar Opening Night at Pops — one that Jack and I will never forget.

Too much stuff

Enjoyed a lively chat today with actress Kathy St. George, a favorite of mine. She’ll be playing Roz in a production of 9 to 5 The Musical at North Shore Music Theater, opening later this month.
Also enjoyed reconnecting with nationally-known director Kate Whoriskey, a young woman who grew up in our neighborhood with my girls Wendy and Heather. Kate is directing a new play at the Huntington and is excited to be back in the old neighborhood, so to speak – Boston where she attended grad school at the ART.
Despite the name she’s made for herself, Kate remains refreshingly unaffected and thrilled to be doing what she’s doing.
Watch for interviews with both of these theatrical women in coming weeks in the Sun’s new whatdoUwannado section that launches next Thursday, Sept. 13.
Also check out the newly refurbished MRT that opens officially this Thursday with a dedication and ribbon cutting, then in previews for its 33rd season opener Homestead Crossing..can’t wait to enjoy those cushy new seats and the new lobby and box office…great theater for all in Lowell…
Stay tuned for more posts on my blog.
‘Til then, check out a show…..

Tags: Theater

Opening Day at Fenway. It has a certain ring to it, I think, and always has ever since I moved to Massachusetts 36 years ago and became a faithful member of Red Sox Nation.

I’ve never been there on Opening Day. But my grandson Jack will be there today, heading in to the iconic ball park with his cousins Cooper and Camden and their dad, Jack’s Uncle Bobby.

He was more than excited when he got the news yesterday. But there was a little concern, at first at least, about dismissing the boys from school early for the big event.

Do it, I encouraged. They’ll never forget it, and it’s the last day of school before April vacation. How much work will they really miss?

The discussion carried me back a half century ago to a cold spring day in 1962. I was a senior in high school. I’d been accepted to college. All was right with the world, especially since the astronauts were coming to New York City for a ticker tape parade.

These were the original Mercury Seven space men – John Glenn, who’d just orbited the Earth, Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, Deke Slayton and the rest.

It was a no-brainer to my friends and me. We were going in to the city to watch our national heroes in person being deluged in ticker tape, one of the most iconic events that New York City throws to honor heroes and celebrities.

So we cut school —  but it wasn’t a sneaky cut. We told our parents and they gave us the OK. Go on, have fun, enjoy yourselves, it’s a day to remember and celebrate, they said.

So we did. We took the ferry into the city, bought steaming cups of coffee to warm us from the biting cold and joined thousands in a cheering throng that lined the streets. I bought a pennant with the astronauts’ names and a newspaper with Glenn’s and the others’ pictures filling the entire front page, items I still have in my high school yearbook.

It was a day to remember, for sure, and we got to cheer our heroes and see them up close as they rode by in open air convertibles, waving to the crowds.

It was history in the making and we were awash in the thrill of the moment.

But Mr. Samsel didn’t see it that way. The next day he called us to his office, and, as the assistant principal responsible for discipline told us we would be given zeroes for the day and have to serve detention for a week.

My father would have none of it and that night wrote a letter in our defense, pointing out that we’d had permission, the event was historic, and surely in the years to come, we would remember seeing the astronauts much more than any algebra problem or French lesson we had missed in school that day.

I don’t recall the outcome. Mr. Samsel may have erased the zeroes from our records and dismissed us from detention hall duty. Or he may have not. But it doesn’t matter. I graduated, went to college, did well, and, as Dad pointed out, still remember that special day when I saw the astronauts in person far more than a single day’s lessons in the classrooms.

That will be true for Jack and his cousins today, too, I am sure – even if the Red Sox lose.

“What were the olden days like, Grandma and Grandpa?”
It was my favorite question, queried constantly to my beloved grandparents as I grew up in the ’40s and ’50s. They talked of riding streetcars, living in turn of the century (that’s the 19th into the 20th-century) New York and moving to the suburbs – East Orange, N.J. — from the wilds of Brooklyn when my dad was a child in the early part of the 20th century.
Now the tables are turned, and I’m the grandparent, being queried on the “olden days” by my beloved grandson, Jack, who’s 7 1/2. It’s a Q & A project for his second grade class study on “Acton Long Ago.”
I didn’t grow up in Acton, but my answers are probably like a lot of other grandparents, who grew up in my time and are being interviewed for this project.
Back in our “olden days” of the ’40s and ’50s, we played jump rope, hopscotch and kickball. Girls loved playing with dolls and paper dolls and being with friends. Boys loved playing sports and being with friends. We walked to school and came home for lunch. And our TVs — if we had a TV — were tiny and black and white with two or three channels, not hundreds of cable options like we have today.
Computers were far away in some science fiction future we only read about or imagined in comic strips or movies.
But we were still lucky kids, especially when we had grandparents who loved — no adored — us.
And that hasn’t changed in 60, 600 or 6000 years. Grandparents love doting on their grandkids, cherishing them and offering a listening ear without judgement or condemnation.
My grandparents did it for me and my sisters. And I do that now for Jack, Molly and Claire.
How would Grandma and Grandpa Davies react to these three little miracles — their great-great grandchildren and my perfect grands?
I think, first of all, that they’d laugh a bit when they realized their granddaughter is now a grandmother herself. How could that happen, they’d think, recalling my rebellious teen years when they always stood by?
Then, they’d marvel at how funny and smart kids are today — especially Jack, Molly and Claire. And while they wouldn’t be able to fathom computers, the Internet, iPads or remotes, they’d marvel at how far the world has come.
But they’d still take delight that, despite push buttons and multimedia electronics, kids still play dolls, jump rope and play hopscotch and kickball, keeping the “olden days” alive — at least for this generation.

The White Barn Inn in Kennebunk, Maine, was the perfect setting to celebrate the beauty of autumn, good food and new friendships last evening. We’d had the gift certificate for nearly a year — thanks to our daughter and son-in-law’s generous gift last Christmas. But we never seemed to have the time or right clothes to wear through the busy summer months.

But we purposely planned to use it this weekend and now we are happy that we’d put it off for so long.

The first benefit of waiting until the end of a busy holiday weekend is that the cordial inn wasn’t nearly so busy as it would have been if we’d ventured there on Saturday or Sunday night.

We arrived promptly for our 6 p.m. reservation and had a few minute wait while the staff was putting finishing touches on the elegant dining rooms. First plus of the evening – meeting a friendly traveler enjoying his book in the inn’s comfortable reception area.

Small talk evolved. “We’re from Massachusetts,” we said. “I’m from Chicago,”  he noted. But “Chicago” really turned out to be Lake Forest, the lovely North Shore Lake Michigan town where we’d enjoyed the first year of our marriage 45 years ago. So we talked about the places we remembered there, told him about places to visit with his wife in Maine – their first trip to our favorite coastal state. Good feelings and a new friendship, if only for 15 minutes.

We shook hands, wished him happy leaf-peeping, then scurried in to the comfortable dining room, with its fabulous tableaux of fall colors displayed behind glass – orange pumpkins, golden gourds, purple, wheat and yellow mums all displayed artfully on shabby chic wrought iron pieces and worn wooden benches. I’d love to be able to make such an arrangement, I thought. But mine would be just piles of pumpkins and pots of flowers, not an aesthetically pleasing work of art. The array, though, made us happy, again, that we’d put off our dinner until fall.

And then there was the blueberry martini. I’m not one to drink cocktails, staying true to my chardonnay or pinot noir inklings. But last night, for fun, I ordered a martini, infused with blueberry and vanilla vodkas with three perfect berries floating in the glass. It smelled luscious from the moment the server placed it before me. Blueberry cobbler in a glass with a bit of a kick. Aunt Marge’s martini was never like this. Oh, yum.

Dinner followed – 4 perfect oysters, each infused with a different sauce – béarnaise, caramel popcorn, seaweed wrapped and one more I can’t remember but know was different and delicious.

Then silky smooth corn chowder infused with basil oil, the perfect intermezzo, followed by a fabulous beef tenderloin, cooked to medium rare tenderness and served in pools of pureed parsnips, I think.

The plate was perfection, except for that one lone nub of cauliflower that looked a bit forlorn on the plate and seemed lacking in flavor, almost as if it had been boiled to over-doneness. Maybe roasted cauliflower would have been a better choice, or even a few roasted root vegetables – sweet potatoes, red onion, butternut squash, turnip, parsnips — to add a shot of color to the plate. But why quibble with near perfection, especially since the meat was done to my liking.

We both had tenderloin and kept shaking our heads in disbelief that we were eating the whole thing, especially since one would have been more than enough for us both to share.

On to dessert – first a little taste of a jellied something or other – actually like a sophisticated raspberry gelatin in Bavarian cream. served in a tiny cordial glass.  That would have been plenty, I thought, full from my tenderloin. But no, a beautiful flourless chocolate cake arrived, accompanied by a lovely scoop of mint ice cream, drizzled with some caramel sauce and joined by a couple of tiny chocolate truffles. A chocoholic’s delight, I  wished I had more room for it.

And on the sweets came – a pedestal of petit fours including a tasty pecan morsel and another tiered chocolate one. My, my, I thought, this is one of the most fabulous meals I’ve ever encountered. We even received a sweet send-off with the check – three tiny muffins to cap the evening. I ate one and brought the other two home for morning breakfast, as if I ever would want to eat again after this gustatory encounter.

But it wasn’t only the food that made last night special. It was our servers Annika (I hope I am spelling her name correctly) and Ruby, who made the evening an event we will never forget. Annika is from Poland and talked amiably about her time here working in the U.S.

Ruby, a local girl from nearby Sanford, added a friendly casual touch to our evening, one we had not encountered on other visits here. A Jennifer Garner look-alike, she has big plans and ambitions to go in to this business. She is learning it from the ground up, having worked already in housekeeping and dishwashing at the inn and now on the dining room’s serving staff.  She is a natural and should go far with her friendliness and pleasant nature. We wish her well. Annika, too. They made the evening comfortable and comforting, not a bit stuffy as we’d occasionally felt on earlier visits.

And our next door table neighbors – the Brunos from Westford at the inn to celebrate their 30th anniversary – added to the  connections we made last night as we shared stories with them. Their sister teaches and lives in Acton. And it turns out our daughter knows her. One other reason last night was special.

Still basking in the glow of our autumn night at the White Barn Inn, we came home, fell into the soft covers and dreamt of perfection — food, flowers, service and new friendships that all added  up to a night to remember.

It’s the end of July, which means one thing around here – the Lowell Folk Festival.

It’s been that way for 25 years, a great record, for sure, for one of the region’s premier events. And it’s free and always will be, organizers pledge.

I was working at the Sun 25 years ago, and no one paid much heed to the first Festival, brought here by the National Council for Traditional Arts as the National Folk Festival, an event that moved to various cities every two or three years.

I didn’t  go to the first one, since I was working on a food story on a local banker who was a gourmet cook. I can’t remember the banker’s name, but I recall doing the interview at his house, as he cooked seafood for a pasta sauce and we briefly discussed the festival taking place downtown. Little else.

Some talk in the newsroom the following Monday, but little else. The next year, the Globe picked up on the Festival and visitors to Lowell were spotted toting copies of the Globe Calendar section around, using it as their guide. That created a firestorm in the newsroom, and the following year, we did our own guide, with lots of laboring over cover art, schedules, maps and menus.

I somehow inherited the crafter profiles, something I’ve done for years. Most years, I didn’t cover the fest, just came and soaked up the ambiance, music and food. Got to know a lot of the food folk, too, since we’d always do a story the Wednesday before that concentrated on one of the groups, their recipes and the hard work that went in to getting it all together.

A few memories stand out. One year, early on, I volunteered as a musician escort – that meant I was the person assigned to herd my assigned musician to his appointed stages on Friday night and Saturday, when he was performing. I shelled out more of my own money for orange popsicles for the guy. But the topper came when he asked if I could find him a little female companionship for the night. I didn’t realize the title “musician escort” meant finding him an escort and wasn’t about to head to Appleton or Middlesex Street to locate a girl for him. End of that job, thanks very much.

Another highlight was always the high-stepping parade with former LNHP superintendant George Price at the helm. Loved the excitement he always generated with his trademark umbrella.

Other highlights: Audrey Ambrosino’s wedding to Gregg Lamping a few years ago the night before the Festival started, with the venerable Joe Wilson serving as clergy; the fun-filled opening night party, hosted by Mike Kuenzler, that’s become one of the most coveted tickets in town and always serves as a great spot to hob-nob and catch up with folks, and the food, of course, that glorious food.

Glad the whole downtown now embraces the Folk Festival, with activities on every street corner, sales at the shops and the bars throbbing with their own musical energy.

Last year was my last year as a Sun staffer covering the festival. I retired a week later. But they asked me to write the crafter profiles again this year in the Steppin’ Out special section, coming out on Thursday and serving as the definitive guide to the festival. And I’ll be back again, covering Friday night’s opening for the paper – hope the heat, humidity and rain hold off this year.

It will be fun to see people, especially Audrey Ambrosino and Gregg Lamping. They’ll join Jack Baldwin and me on Thursday at 11:15 on WCAP-AM to reminisce about past Fests and what this one holds.

And it will be great, once more, to celebrate the Lowell Folk Festival with  the folk of Lowell. Hope it goes on for another 25 years and 125 years after that…

I’m in a funk and I don’t know why.

After all, it’s summer and there’s beauty all around me – gorgeous gardens; warm, sunny days; time spent with loved ones enjoying relaxing activities with little to worry or care about; silly movies, lobster rolls and ice cream; beaches, sand castles,   picnics, festivals, fireworks and more.

But I still have a sense of foreboding, and it usually hits me around mid-July, half way between Memorial Day and Labor Day, when summer clothes go on clearance, stores start advertising early back-to-school sales and the days get noticeably shorter each sunrise and sunset.

I love summer and all that it offers. And I felt so invigorated on its first day in June as I savored all of its promise. But the promise turns at times to disappointment, frustration, even fear and anger during these so-called idyllic days. Trouble can lurk around the corner, bees sting, knees get scraped, mosquitoes bite. Ouch!

So what’t the cure to my midsummer malaise? Trying to look on the bright side of life by keeping busy, weeding the garden, writing a story, venting to friends. All this helps and makes me realize that, while it’s mid-July and summer’s now entering its second half  and racing towards the finish, good days still lie ahead before we face autumn’s brilliant colors and falling leaves and winter’s snow, cold and ice.

And, while I don’t want to wish my life away, I know that looking ahead, six months from now, it will be January, the days will get longer, spring catalogues will be in the mail and I will again have the promise of summer approaching in the future, instead of looking it squarely and watching it disappear before my eyes.

Anyone lucky enough to be blessed with grandkids – hereafter called the  Grands – knows there’s nothing quite like it.

You’ve had your kids and now you get to enjoy their kids without the hassles of clothing, feeding and educating them – unless you choose to help out on your terms.

It’s great to cuddle them, read to them, play with them and babysit them, when you get a chance. But hands-down, the best part of being a grandparent is enjoying your offspring’s offspring one-on-one.

When it’s just you and a Grand, it’s often magic, especially since there’s no sibling rivalry, jealousy or guilt that often accompanies group sessions with the Grands.

Today, I had a great one-on-one with my youngest Grand, Claire, adorable and chatty at three years and three months. It was a day for Claire, Grammy and Pa, since the rest of the family was off to the Red Sox to watch Grampy Matthews throw out the first pitch at venerable Fenway Park.

 Claire loved the idea of taking off with me when I picked her up bright and early.  Her bag was packed, and we were off to the Acton Farmers Market first for fresh veggies and crafts at the amiable place.

She held my hand and looked around, smiling and saying hi to people. She loved the craft area, making two cut-out ladybugs from construction paper and glue. Then we picked green beans and zucchini for dinner and headed on home to show Pa our treasures.

Teatime followed in front of the TV as we watched the Red Sox start their fourth, and final, onslaught of the Orioles at Fenway. No sign of Grampy, but Claire cheered nonetheless, sipping water “tea”  laced with sugar and enjoying the scene.

We then packed a picnic and head to NARA Park for a swim. Hot and steamy on a warm July day, it was fun nonetheless to dig in the sand and reconnect with Vin Wallack, an Acton friend, who shared her umbrella to ward off the sun.

Home again, snacks, watercolor painting on the front lawn, seeing Dad on TV next to the Orioles bullpen, a tubby and, finally, eight hours later, John, Heather, Jack and Molly were back with tales of being out on the field, meeting Wally, the Green Monster mascot, facepainting, free food and a couple of game balls for Jack.

But Claire showed off her ladybugs and said she’d had fun, even though she may have been a bit jealous that she missed the game after seeing the pictures.

But for Grammy, at least, it was another not-to-be-forgotten day with a Grand. Sweet, memorable, with lots to savor and recall as they get older and decide it’s no lonfwe cool to hang out with Grammy after all….

Chick flicks are mindless, I know. But sometimes mindless is good and makes you think a bit, too, when you least expect it.

That’s what happened the past two afternoons, sitting in cinemas in Lowell and Burlington watching the chick flicks Midnight in Paris and Larry Crowne with my daughter, Wendy.

She and I both love movies. And we also love watching them on the big screen TV at home. But going to the movies is a ritual we love to revive each time we get together, recalling the halcyon days of her (and my) youth when we’d stage movie marathons when she came home from college each spring.

The fare this summer is sparse, for sure, until a couple more open in August. But we both enjoyed our choices this time, even if critics haven’t been generous with their praise.

Midnight in Paris is Woody Allen’s latest, starring Owen Wilson as a depressed Hollywood screenwriter, engaged to Inez, ably played by Rachel McAdam. They’re in Paris on her parents’ dime, enjoying the scenery, dining and wine. Then  he decides he’d like to ditch all their future Malibu beach house frivolity and move here, settling in like Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein and Picasso did in the ’20s to pursue art by day and party by night.

Then, voila!, one dark night strolling Paris’ magical streets, he’s picked up by partiers in a vintage car and transported back to the golden age. Cole Porter plays on the piano, Scott and Zelda hold court and Hemingway weighs in on everything from writing to wooing women.

Young Gil (Wilson) is hooked and travels back a few more times in this delightful confection of a flick. A bit far-fetched but it drives home the point that it’s best to live in the present, no matter how beguiling the past. Loved the scenery, the music and the quirky characters that Allen brings back to recall the Roaring ’20s in Paris.

Larry Crowne is another frou-frou piece but pretty to look at despite its predictability. Hanks’ character, Larry, is a do-gooder at the U-Mart, where he’s carved a career as a perfect employee after 20 years in the Navy. Only problem, he never went to, let alone, finished college. And it’s a black mark against him, as he gets the ax from the higher-ups.

He signs up at the local community college for speech, economics and English comp. Naturally, the speech teacher Julia Roberts, tart, tangy and hell-bent to cancel her classes for low enrollment is a dazzler. She’s dealing with a sluggard husband, a former teacher and writer, now turned blogger (what does that say about us?), who peruses porn sites while she supports the household. .

One thing leads to another, of course, in this predicatable, yet entertaining, comedy. And, needless to say, teacher and student evenutally connect and, asclosing credits attest, will live happily everafter.

Corny? Sure. But entertaing? Absolutely.

And that’s why I always love a good chick flick on a hot or rainy summer afternoon. Sheer escape and nothing else. And isn’t that what summer is all about?