When I was a child my family didn’t participate in local community activities. I don’t know if that is because there weren’t any, or if they just weren’t interested in that sort of thing. 

My parents moved to California from Kansas and literally moved a house from Los Angeles to Lawndale because that was “out in the country.” As a young child, I remember that we were the only house around for quite a while, and people actually rode their horses around the “neighborhood.”  I remember when sidewalks and streets were put in. And the day we actually got a street sign, we knew we were not in the country anymore! So my guess is, there weren’t many community activities when I was a youngster. It’s likely there were those type of events during my Junior High and High School years, but for whatever reason, we just didn’t attend.  My husband’s family didn’t participate in local activities either but did participate in Air Force activities, being a military family.

When our children were young, we always participated in the local events that they took part in through their school, the library, or the Scouts and such. But we weren’t really interested in other local activities. No reason really. It was just the way we were raised and we didn’t think much about those types of things.

So when we moved to Coarsegold 4 years ago, a truly small town, although there is a local live theater, we weren’t especially interested in it. Not only because we weren’t used to “local entertainment,” but also living so close to Los Angeles / Hollywood before moving, we were used to attending live performances at the Pantages Theater or large arenas, similar to the Hollywood Bowl. We were used to attending concerts or plays featuring Hollywood stars……. not someone local.  (I am so aware of how snooty that sounds.)

This past Sunday, we did attend the local Golden Chain theater because we knew someone who was performing there, in the play “Oklahoma.” And we LOVED it.  The stage isn’t what you would see in Hollywood,  but it didn’t matter. The actors and actresses were amazingly talented, the dancers were fabulous, and the acting was great!  We had seats on the front row, could clearly see their facial expressions and the smallest of gestures, and I was mesmerized.

We came home and right away jumped on the Internet to book our seats for the next performance.

You don’t have to be famous to be good. Or even great.  Intellectually,  I knew that. But this experience really brought that to life for me. Now I am open to all sorts of new experiences… because of this one.

Do you attend local events? Have you always?