Interestingly enough, there wasn't a budget for costumes for this western PA production of 'Ali Baba', directed by the talented Lonnie B, (you might recall that's how I ended last week's flashback of the cast of 'Come Blow Your Horn') -- but we definitely had fancy outfits all the same.
After all -- it was for this show, that a Uniontown retiree volunteer helping out my cousin's theatre company took this on as a project -- and, in the process, I met the woman who would become my surrogate grandmother for nearly two decades -- JoAnn Dearth.
As I've said before, this chapter of my life took many twists and turns back in 1992 -- but one of the most unexpectedly amazing things was how JoAnn and I got connected. She was a strong independent woman who was divorced and raising a daughter as a single mother back in the days when that wasn't viewed favorably -- and after a life that included losing her adult daughter Sally to cancer -- she took me in and looked after me in these formative years 0f mine (she always said that she felt Sally "sent" me to her).
JoAnn and her influence on my life will pop up again later in this 1992 album (by the way, she died just a few years ago), but it is always an honor to reflect on her memory -- and to realize that this (an Ali Baba costume fit for a McDonalds -- and for the show) is how we actually met.
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