(Continued from page 8)

Vic & Penny enjoy an ice cream desert.

Then, some of us chose to treat ourselves to some dessert or candy at specialty retail shops, while other lounged about in the park in the middle of the town square. Rumor has it that a few were even thinking about driving back to VSC and hosting an impromptu tech session on how to hotwire a Jensen Healey 541R...

Next on the agenda was a tour of the Woodstock Opera House, which was built in 1889. In addition to being a performing arts venue, this building has served various purposes over the decades, as it housed city offices, the library, and the police & fire departments. We were treated to a tour of this historic building. We started on the ground floor - where everything from its adaptive reuse (which includes hosting functions today) to the coordinated patterns in the carpeting and ceiling plaster were covered. Enthralling. Captivating. Absolutely spellbinding. We then went upstairs to learn about the 400-plus seat restored auditorium, a very comfortable and intimate venue which is also in use today - for civic events, locally produced performances, and shows featuring performers from out-of-town. (Signed photos of some of the well-known performers from yesteryear, e.g., Leon Russell, Corky Seigel, Leo Kottke - who actually performed there that night and the next - are displayed along the walls of the downstairs adjoining Stage Left Café).



No visit to Woodstock would be complete without a tour of the local sites used in the movie Groundhog Day - so we had such a tour. As most of us have seen this movie - in the words of the late, great Yogi Berra - it was Deja vu all over again. I haven't yet seen it...but I will this summer in Grant Park - for free. (If you think that's bad...I saw Jaws for the first time last year. I used to listen to that soundtrack - but my 8-track player broke and I'm still looking for a replacement belt. I don't want to have to resort to sourcing one from c-a C.) Anyway...armed with a Walking Tour tri-fold, we strolled by many of the movie locations (e.g., café, band stand, theater, gas station, "old man's alley", and the sidewalk pavement used in the puddle scene - now marked with a permanent footprint and tribute. Our local tour guides allowed us to clamber up onto the octagon shaped gazebo / band stand in the center of the park in the town square for a group picture. The tour ended with a visit to the large house - the Cherry Tree Inn - as it was known in the movie.

So, late in the afternoon we retreated to the car park where we parked together to depart for the ride home. While not an overnight, full-blown weekend tour as in years past, this one-day driving event was an example of that old axiom "nice things come in small packages"!

Thanks to all who drove (especially in their MGs) - and SPECIAL THANKS to Ric & Nancy for their planning efforts which resulted in all of us having an enjoyable day.
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~~ Doug Clark