Sunday In Camden County

Began a quick morning with Molasses Pancakes and two Peter Pan children's records. We had the Hansel & Gretel/Thumbelina/Blinky album as kids in the 80's. The first two are fairly accurate condensed versions of the fairy tales. The third is the sweet story of a little lighthouse ship who thinks he has no friends, until there's a huge storm, and the boats need his beam more than ever.

For some reason, the copy I picked up at a yard sale also has a Peter Pan Bugs Bunny disc. Bugs attempts to fix Porky's TV in the first story. The second has Bugs be the first rabbit on the moon. In the final segment, Bugs takes over Elmer's concert in a short riff on "Baton Bunny."

Headed to work after Bugs ended. I wish I didn't. We were even more mobbed than yesterday. There was no Eagles game for people to rush home to. They played (very well) on Thursday night. The only things I managed to finish today were mopping the bathrooms and shelving some perishable items. I was either stuck in a register, or outside trying to round up carts that were mostly inside holding groceries. The continuing blahh, damp, cloudy weather didn't help.

Went straight on the computer for a writing session when I got in. Hank, Leia, and everyone from the Cottages has lined up for the Boat Pageant. The Ghost, with a Return of the Jedi theme (besides the obvious reference, it was the blockbuster movie of the summer of '83), and the Falcon, made over into a pirate ship, are among the major entries. But the others are more interested in keeping an eye on the tropical-themed entry from Empire Industries, a sleek silver yacht called the Death Star...

I was so worn out when I finished, I was barely up to leftovers and my cast album for the 1944 musical Bloomer Girl. Though this isn't well-known today, I've sort of gotten a soft spot for it over the years, thanks to its fun cast recording. Celeste Holm is Evelina, the fictional niece of real-life suffragette and abolitionist Dolly Bloomer, has fallen in love with a handsome slave owner. She won't marry him until he frees his slave (Dooley Wilson). Their romance is further complicated by the start of the Civil War and by Evelina having taken up wearing her aunt's comfortable creation, bloomers.

Although the ballad "Right as the Rain" was the hit at the time, my favorite numbers are for dancer Joan McCracken ("T'Morra, T'Morra," "I Was Never Born"), Celeste Holm and the chorus ("It Was Good Enough for Grandma," and Dooley Wilson as the slave who knows he has the same rights to freedom as anyone else ("The Eagle and Me"). Considering that the show's racial and gender underpinnings are even stronger nowadays, this might actually be ripe for a revival, even just off-Broadway. (There's apparently an hour-long TV version with Barbara Cook as Evelina. I may have to look that up sometime.)