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Show Wednesday, July 5, 2000 A-14 Sunday in the Park By Teri Orr The Park Record Workshop Wall TYmimmiz or S Specialty Lean how to paint designer finishes: antique glazing, suede texture, faux linen, stippling rag rolling, faux marbles, etc. call for further questions Certified teacher-20 yrs. experience References available Session 1 July 11-13 10a.m. -5p.m. (all supplies provided) or Session z July 13 & 14 5p.m.-10p.m. July 15 10a.m.-5p.m. (all supplies provided) Pre-registration required $50 non-refundable deposit $350 balance due Call Plain Jane s Design Company 435-649-0708 0 Celebrating the station creation -4 Jay said it best, "it was 20 years ago today, Sargent Feulner taught the band to play " It was a class reunion without any of the class distinctions. distinc-tions. KPCW turned out a roli call of "the way we were" for its 20-year celebration. And as founding radio station board member, Jay Meehan, has lived out and proved some of the best ideas really are scribbled on the back of a cocktail napkin. 1 swear the whole event of the signing on was not that long ago. But w hen I saw the photos of the cast of characters then and I looked around the room and saw them now, well, we've grown older together and there's some comfort in that. Blair and Susan were beaming like a couple of newlyweds Sunday night and I remember when they were just that. They had come together after their respective first marriages had dissolved. I knew both of them in their lives before the together part. Susan lived down the street from me in a house just like mine. Her two daughters and one son took turns babysitting my son and daughter. Blair, I knew separately sepa-rately from his hanging around the old eight-page Park Record. He had unceremoniously left or been left by the Salt Lake tribune. He was working then part-time part-time in radio and part time at the Wasatch Wave, a sister paper . of the old Record. Debby Travis (who is Debby by any other name, and came from the midwest to attend) was running the newly combined Chamber of Commerce Convention Bureau and with the Visitors and she was dating Lloyd Stevens who had recently, with partners, redone the New Park Hotel as the Claimjumper. The bar, entered from the walk-down staircase, was called the Down Under and was the unofficial annex of City Hal!. 1 know that's where Katherine Janka (now Reynolds married to Roy and living and teaching in South Carolina) and 1 formed our public relations company on, you guessed it, the back of a cocktail napkin, katherine would go on to become The Shaft, a weekly radio show that featured news of your friends OK. it was. pure gossip. Two Ton Tillie, early radio gourmand, was also there, but in no way does she now or did she ever weigh even a piece of a ton. Sydney Reed parlayed her radio show into a series of successful local cookbooks. cook-books. It was also at the Down Under, I remember, where Deborah with the difficult to pronounce Polish last name, decided she could change her name and picked one from her favorite movie. That's how she became Deborah Cassidy. As the programming director for the fledgling radio station she was looking look-ing to create more direction and attract listeners of all ages. At least that's how she talked me into being the Story Lady on Saturday mornings for a while. She would play classical music behind my voice-over of well known'children's tales. She was there Sunday with her husband, former morning disc jockey, Mike Philips. Bob Toy, Glenn Steigmeier voices and faces of the past mingled around during (he celebration. BUI Coleman, founding board member who had tried to take the station into the television age, was there. Deborah and Blair wearing those blazers and trying to be talking heads was a short-lived experiment. experi-ment. Which, if we're going to be honest here, was how most of what we were doing always felt like it too could be a short-lived experiment. But the Park City Players survived moving from the Kimball Art Center into the renovation of the Egyptian Theater that same year. The Newspaper bought The Park Record and they merged and it worked out pretty well. It was such a "can-do" time. Tina Lewis, who was a city council person then, thought she could take a run-down historic building up at the resort, have it moved and turn it into a library. And by god, she did a national award-winning job of it. Helen Alvarez, fellow coun cil member thought a town with "park" in its name ought to have a decent playground play-ground for children of all ages. We have Helen's vision to thank, for our beautiful beauti-ful park todav. iwMi Missing from Sunday's roll call was then City Manager Arlene Loble. under whose encouraging eye the whole thing took place. (She is embroiled in a city crisis in her city manager job in Oregon.) But through it all, the thread that told us of our collective progress and regress was the audio we became addicted to, morning after morning. We depended on the radio to get it right and get it right away. Even when I w as the editor of this paper, there was no delusion we were ever "beating Blair." On occasion we managed a scoop or two. that's about it. The radio was the heavyweight, which is why we lost Rick Brough and Chris Eisenbetg, fine journalists, from print to electronic media. They joined a family of broadcasters who have created a station that has defined a community for two decades. And that voice, what we call in theater. Voice Of God, the disembodied dis-embodied authority, has consistently been the man with the mail order minster license, who left print media to try his hand at a new thing. His own thing. But he let it be our thing. Blair, for two decades you've been true to yourself and you've given 'em hell. That makes you a real hero in my book. Every day, even Sunday in the Park... Teri Orr, former editor of The Park Record, is currently cur-rently director of the Park City Performing Arts Center. But through it all, the thread that told us of our collective progress and regress was the audio we became addicted addict-ed to, morning after morning. " Teri Orr Core Samples O Independence days The stick of dynamite with fuse a-cracklin' and sparks a-spewin" rolled around the floor of the moving pickup. Put-Put had figured he could save some time by lighting the stick and tossing it out the window. He had, however, forgot to tell Ernie to roll down the window and the resulting carom brought us, dear readers, to this current state. Put-Put and Ernie, due, partly, to a brief run-in with a Heber Avenue full of bicycle racers, were running a bit late for their 6 a.m. dynamite reveille appointment atop Masonic Hill. This holiday volun-teerism volun-teerism was old-hat to our heroes. They were the essence of community involvement, had been there and done that many times over. Which meant, of course, that the problem of a live stick of dynamite bouncing around the cab of their truck w as something they could handle. Deftly, well, maybe somewhat By Jay Meehan n deftly, they parked the truck and tossed the stick. The boom resounded throughout the hills and thus began another dynamite reveille announcing yet another Park City Independence Day cele bration. Although Park City nMBMHMMM has recently, and with some disquietude, taken pride in the fact that they celebrate Independence Day on the Fourth of July even when it falls on a Sunday, if memory serves, that has not always been the case. A most auspicious example occurred during the summer of 1971 when Park City celebrated the holiday hol-iday on Monday, the fifth of July. Dynamite, in one form or another, exploded throughout the day. This was a time when sectarian strife and tribal animosities simmered just below the surface. Longhairs and rednecks laughed at each other when they weren't glaring. The newcomers to town, attracted, in the main, by the relatively new ski resorts dotting the landscape were not finding much of a welcome mat put out by the locals. Self-styled hipsters bedecked in the trappings of a blue-collar intelligentsia arrived in droves, if nol VW vans, and many of those indigenous to the local mining culture were not all that excited. The banter developed an edge. "Hey, are you a boy or girl?1 was an often-used greeting, as was "Hey, are you Cro-Magnon or Neanderthal?' It was a time much different from today. The Vietnam War, President Richard Nixon, Vice President Spiro Agncw, and the Pentagon Papers filled the headlines. Jim Morrison of "The Doors' rock group died in Paris a few days previous and Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong would blow his own funeral dirge the next day. Golfer Lee Trevino and Oakland Athletic pitcher Vida Blue were winning everything in sight. Twenty-nine years later Trevino is still winning. The more things change, etc. Back then we all had opinions, we all knew much more than we do today. Funny how that works. The other guy just didn't quite get it; at least his picture wasn't as clear as ours. For some reason, longhaired, long-haired, scantily-clad, dope-smoking, draft resisters had problems relating to buzz-shorn, love-it-or-leave-it, my-country-right-or-wrong rednecks. Left to its own devices, this situation might have remained static for years. That wasn't to be the case, however, as an intervening variable, in the form of an airborne water balloon, decided to bring things to a head. The balloon, launched inaccurately by a newcomer, splattered about the head and shoulders of a native Park City housewife and that's all an excuse the locals needed. The game was afoot. The battle was joined. The fray was entered. Fists and noses met. Vigilante groups were formed and pickup truck posses chased down sandal-clad bohemians. Self-styled Christians squared off against self-styled existentialists. Off-duty Off-duty gendarmes pounded roundly upon the enemy. What was at stake? Independence, f i Independence, of B For some reason, long-haired, cou- j l: . The on-duty con SUdllUiy-UldU, Ullfjti-Slliuiuiiy, Uldll stabulary had a more resistors had problems relating to buzz-shorn, buzz-shorn, love-it-or-leave-it, my-country-right-or-wrong rednecks. " Jay Meehan difficult time partici pating in the fun. To them was relegaJed the duties of cordoning cordon-ing off the town so others didn't join in what was now offi cially termed a From my perch, securely locked inside the Horse Saloon, it certainly was a riot. I did taps," after all. "riot.' Crazy know how to turn on the Backup law enforcement units bearing the logos of the Highway Patrol, the County Sheriff, and the Jeep Patrol soon arrived to aid their out-manned brothers in Park City. Roadblocks were set up on highways 248 and 224 and the Guardsman Pass. The ever-vigilant "working "work-ing press" came as a horde from down in the valley and it wasn't long before all vacant barstools were secured. A line had been drawn in the proverbial sand. There would be no more business as usual. With a few notable exceptions, everyone knew whom their friends, and enemies, were. Both sides were forced to communicate, although, at first, decibel limits and finger gestures ruled the day. A "summit" was held at Bob and Darlene Dean's "Alamo Saloon" the next afternoon. The "Mo" was the watering hole of choice for most newcomers and was a logical spot to iron out the cultural wrinkles laid bare by the episodes of the previous day. "Independence," obviously, was going to come at a price. If a community was to be forged from whan the Salt Lake Tribune termed "Park City's Hippie War" then a "loosening-up" of the townsfolk and a "ton-ing-down" of the newcomers would need to take place. And, thanks to the healing effects of time and a sense of humor on both sides, it did. In fact, when you look at the total community today, it is the "old hippies" and the "old miners" who appear to have the tightest bond. Other than "independence" and "dynamite," that is. i i i |