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Show mm Page A4 Thursday, May 26, 1983 I'ark City News by Ilick Drough V.v.v.vSw.v.v.v.of aaa fym Bias iB EB Effi m BB BS3 633 CSS3 A free pound of domestic cheese with the purchase of a pound of any FOR THOUGHT Park City Village at the Resort, by the bus H An entire weekend designed for people who enjoy wine and want to learn mrC aUi ' RIDGE 1 r' CALIFORNIA I ffW, PETITE SIRAI.3Sg york creek ocvy 1980 in i - - i -i - - - -- -. j with the purchase of any deli sandwich cheese. FOOD stop, 649-4746 Phone: (801)-566-8833 (801)-649-3911 Victorian Restaurant Shadow Ridge Hotel ark City, Utah You shouldn't drag entertainment news into "Whaddyaknow." Right? Wrong, if the news is about "Return of the Jedi," the conclusion of the "Star Wars" trilogy. Fans have gone to extraordinary lengths to celebrate the release of the picture. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the first person in line for the Tuesday midnight show arrived at the Centre Theatre at 10 a.m. that day. In California, a couple planned to be married by a mail-order minister dressed as Yoda. For our part, can we refuse to give you a Sneak Preview Review of "Jedi?" Of course not. First of all, we give it four-and-a-half stars. George Lucas has crammed more action and special effects into this picutre than ever before. And concerning the major dramatic dilemma dilem-ma (Luke's relationship with Darth Vader), let's just say the plot takes a I twist I'm not sure is consistent with the first two pictures. Nevertheless, I find it affecting. It fits the theme of "Star I Wars," if not the dramatic logic. Mark Hamill is better than ever as Luke, a rapidly maturing Jedi warrior. Han Solo (Harrison Ford) is unfrozen I from his carbon hibernation with his smirk intact. Princess Leia is made to look sexier than ever (when she's forced into a skimpy slave-girl outfit), 1 but she's also tougher. J The picture wraps up a few minor plot threads. This time, it's Han who Isays "I love you," to which Leia replies (of course) "I know." Yoda and Ben Kenobi'make only cameo appearances. But there's a new I despicable villain the corpse-faced Emperor, who is consumed by the dark side even more than Vader himself. !The action climax is a three-ring battle. In just one arena, armadas from the Rebel Alliance and the Empire face off. There are new I outer-space characters, like the giant slug Jabba the Hut and a tribe of Munchkin-like teddy bears. There are stretches of flabby dialogue, and the (definite feeling the picture is there to serve as wrap-up, not an independent entity. I But as an action-filled, heartfelt fairy tale, I can't resist "Jedi." And I don't think you will either. I Travelers' advisories have been issued for all major highways, and motorists should be advised to beware of excessive brightness in the sky from 4 an nhipot tpntativelv irfpntifipH as "the sun." Only cars and trucks equipped with Stan-ray lenses will be allowed over Parley's Summit. The Park City Clean-Up not only beautified the town, but may have uncovered an object of enduring historic importance. Clean-up crews claim that, while moving a pile of rubble, they found a diary written by one of Park City's earliest pioneers, Corky Crockett. The diary supplies a fascinating view of the area in its earliest days. Newsweek is already bidding for the rights to the book. Here are some of the startling revelations in the diary: The first white settlers immediately immediate-ly decided to name the area "Park City." By so doing, they rejected the ancient Indian name, "Ta-Ne Nagaya Osweaga Schelo Nitzche Nahe, Na-ha." In the original tongue, this means "The Park." Early settlers came out to Park Platitudes, banalities, cliches and other trite and true thoughts... The other morning at breakfast in our very own Holiday Inn (to this day when I say The Yarrow, no one knows where I mean) I overheard a conversation conversa-tion between a waitress and a customer. The waitress asked the man if he'd like more coffee or anything else. He was clearly done with his meal. So the man replied, "Nope, I reckon that's about the caboose." It dawned on me that there have been a number of people speaking more colorfully lately. Some are merely parroting well-worn cliches like "Today is the first day of the rest of your life," which means they have been reading bumper stickers and t-shirts and loving-hands-at-home-style samplers. But some are at least fresh to me and I think fun to share. '"This guy is so dumb, that to count to 21 he has to take his clothes off." Or the San Francisco version "This guy is so dumb he thinks AIDS is a diet candy." Or how 'bout this one for those of you who work with boards and committees commit-tees "God so loved the world, that he didn't send a committee." "Good sailors were never made on smooth seas." "Water seeks it own level." My own mother used to favor, "That stands about as much chance as a City in time-shre waffon trains. They had to make the trip in a week, because the Conestoga went back to another family after Saturday. . Many colorful tales are told of the pioneers who ventured out West. Take the grisly story of the Donner Party Crockett's diary tells of . the Feulner Party. Trapped in the Rockies during a bad winter, members of this expedition began to refuse to pay each other's bar tabs; In their mighty migrations northward, north-ward, the vast buffalo herds often used the SnyderviUe Basin as a rest stop. This meant that Park City was badly in need of a Pioneer Clean-Up Day. Settlers formed lines and passed the dried dung in a "buffalo chip brigade," piling it up to form what we now call Parley's Summit. History does not record the name of the council woman who planned the chip brigade. But the Indians referred to her as "Bubbly Elk Woman." The siege of the Alamo Bar is one of the early events of city history recorded in the diary. After the city imposed a beer tax, 109 residents, including Corky Crockett himself, barricaded themselves in the bar. The town marshall and a small army of Mexican constables stormed the Alamo. The defenders were arrested to the last man on DUI charges and shipped to Coalville. Experts from the Park City High history department say the diary is genuine, since it was written on 8V' x U" slabs of dried rawhide. But there are a few minor problems, like the fact the diary was typed, double-spaced, with the Sharon Fleck Copy Service logo on the corner of each page. Here's some advice for the board at Park City Performances, or any struggling nonprofit organization: Try to establish a legal residence in Marin County, California. The place is rolling in dough, according to an article in "The Nation." It all starts with the late Beryl Buck, who stipulated in her will that $7 million of stock she owned in the Belridge Oil Company should be given to nonprofit or charitable outfits in ber beloved Marin County. After her death, however, Belridge was bought up by Shell Oil. Suddenly her stock zoomed in value to $100 million. In one year, said the article, Marin County got more money than the Rockefeller Fund spent in the whole world. At this point, it's getting harder to find worthy nonprofit recipients of the money. Marin County is not exactly a ghetto. It's better known as the hot-tub capital of the world. One grant, amounting to $26,895, went to finance a slide show, brochure, and "needs assessment" for an energy, conservation group. How much KPCW radio time could that buy? Jimmy Carter was right. Life is not fair. The people at The Newspaper have other talents besides journalism. For instance, our ace adman, Jim Finegan, recently was hired to do the voice-over for a public service spot sponsored by the Salt Lake Police Department. (The theme can be paraphrased a "He's an ordinary guy, but when you need him, he's a cop.") Unfortunately, the ad has been consigned to late-night television. We've spotted it on the air at about 1 by Teri Gomes snowball in bell." I interpreted that to mean I probably couldn't stay out til 3 a.m. or wear the mini skirt, or borrow the car. She made her point. My grandfather used to say, "Judge a man by his actions not by his words." It has often served me well to remember his saying. In the seventies everything was a slogan. Little banners with timeworn cliches and more often pieces of song lyrics were silkscreened or batiked onto banners and sold at every street festival. And certainly even today no one wears a t-shirt that does not proclaim some advertisement, or location or banal saying. (My favorite t-shirt story is a couple in California who came to a crazy-costume crazy-costume party. Katy wore a t-shirt as part of her costume that said "I am a brick." Her husband Tom, had a shirt which proclaimed him, "A brick layer." It'll take a minute...) When I first came to Park City, I did a story on Fraser Buck, author of Treasure Mountain Home. He was in his eighties then, but with a sharp' memory and a keen sense of humor. He said if I hadn't gotten all the information I needed for the story to come back and he'd "Set me wide." I never wanted to be straight anyway... "Bout that same time I was over in Heber one day (or as is more often said, here, I was over to Heber) and I heard' a.m. on a Thursday morning. If you're a night-owl, be sure to stay up. And now for all you aspiring actors, here's a few words of wisdom from that great young actor, Mr. T. In a newspaper interview, the hulking black person said he had no desire to play Shakespeare because "I don't talk in that kind of broken English." The roles he wants? Mr. T. would like to play Charlton Heston-type roles, such as Moses, Ben-Hur, or a black doctor in a Southern town who finds a cure for cancer. - Unusual hobbies: Vicki Street, a broadcaster for Salt Lake's Channel 20, recalled a bizarre lady she once booked on a talk show. The woman, she told Deseret News interviewer, made little green and pink animals out of gum she chewed. If the lady didn't have enough gum, she went to restaurants and peeled gum from under the tables. Street said she checked later on the woman and found she had died of abscessed gums. So maybe masticated mammals isn't the thing for you! How about minutiae? According to an AP report, Lowell Davis, 83 years old, of Savannah, ' Missouri, has jotted down the name of everyone he can remember meeting in his entire life. His notes, so far, cover 69 pages and contain 3,487 names. In Park City, it's hard enough to remember who you met last week ! You ever get the feeling that Utah-does Utah-does not include the entire realm of human experience dept: The following appeared in the classified ad section of "The New Republic." Headlined "Author's Query," it reads, "Men, I'm conducting research on the long-term impact of circumcision, particularly on men who experienced the operation as a child, but after infancy. Write: Dr. J.R. Robertson." We cannot say so long without a passing look at the political scene. First it appears we may be nearing the last chapter in the sage of "Governor Matheson's Beard." According to a newspaper report this weekend, Matheson will shave off the foilage in a few days. He was encouraged by his wife Norma, who has called the beard "scroungy," "scuzzy," and "grody to the max." In Chicago, defeated mayoral candidate candi-date Bernard Epton is setting new records for political candor. Epton has refused to play the hypocritical role of the nice loser who feels sad, but not bitter. No, we think Bernard is definitely bitter. In a recent press report, Epton said the campaign was a bad experience, and that he is confused and bitter about attacks that were made on him during the campaign. The 61-year-old millionaire million-aire lawyer doesn't know what to do with himself anymore, but he said, "I don't see myself fighting for the public good any longer." And in another major political defeat Wallace Bingham Sr. has lost his seat in the Dietrich, Idaho School Board. He was defeated by his son, Wallace Bingham Jr. The father received two votes from the Lilliputian voting district, but his son passed him by receiving five votes as a write-in. "I thought it was a little stinky," said Bingham Sr. a woman telling another how her friend had just buzzed through a sale. "Why, she moved through that room like a hot knife through butter." Certainly one saying making the rounds of late is an interpretation from the Spanish. It comes out "Living well is the best revenge.? It took me a while to key in on that one. But when my girl friend was recently suffering from a painful break-up and looking for ways to "get even with the jerk," someone passed this on to her. Why do something to make yourself look bad? Do your best and live well and be happy and that should make the schmuck miserable. I could relate. Park City is a town of one-liners and gossip mongers. As the saying goes, "If you haven't heard a rumor by noon, start one." Or, "If you don't like the weather wait five minutes and it will change." My favorite local quote was rumored to have been said by Stein Eriksen after a perfect bluebird day. "Just another average day in paradise." para-dise." Ain't it the truth... "Button up your over-qniote," is a favorite of my favorite columnist Herb Caen. For those of us who work with words every day it certainly, strikes vein. And, of course, be careful of those rumors, bad feelings, and evil deeds you may do. You know what they say,: "What goes around, comes around." i 5- il 3 |