The Optimist (Abilene, Tex.), Vol. 73, No. 31, Ed. 1, Tuesday, January 14, 1986 Page: 3 of 6
This newspaper is part of the collection entitled: Texas Digital Newspaper Program and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Abilene Christian University Library.
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tuesday an. 14 1986
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y CHUCK RANDOLPH
iwuett writer
KDITOR'S NOTE: Today we
iture the essay-wrttmg skills of
?kutk Randolph an Englishmass
ommumcatton major from Arl
mgton as he observes through ac
outtts of txoo personal experiences
different people m American
iety establish their measures of
imccess. A senior planning to
Jgraduate from ACU in May Chuck
consiaenng junner stuaies in
Tjreattve writing.
JANUARY 1985
Though many of them have long
mce deserted their rnmt. Mr.
Jlihstead feels the need to sweep his
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f hair that still droop from his
fcrehead doing so as he turns his
yilver Suburban into Mrs. Cumm-
iigs muddy driveway the third
route 11.
Mr. Anstead is old.
Not with the sort of age that is
pletely and frustratingly in-
capacitating but rather with years
;t make one s day-to-day ex
igence just a bit more tedious If a
n's life was to be measured by
retail establishment bias we
Mght say Mr. Anstead is at the
augstuiv 5V.
rs. Cummings is poor.
Not with a belly-swelled blank-
(prcssioncd thin-boned Etho-
n kind of poverty that incites
wr sympathy if not our
(Seckbooks but rather with the
&ck-and-white TV no car
iScond-hand clothing Ameripn
nd. In its cultural context her
erty is no less real.
i'Ya know" he begins addressing
as he collects the covered
foam lunch plate and half-
milk carton from their respec-back-seat
containers "no mat-
twhat kinda bad mood I'm in
I leave the house of a mor-
deliver two or three of these
and I'm feeling great. Just
tawwin you're helping."
H'Mr. Anstead is Guaranteed of
ism
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Because that's how many times a
week he stops in at the University
Baptist Church building around
11:30 talks with co-volunteers
gathers hot food cold milk and oc-
casional extras and hand delivers
them to the elderly handicapped
and others what marketers call
"individuals along the lower
parameter of the socio-economic
scale."
These activities are organized
beneath the structural umbrella of
the federally-backed Meals on
Wheels program. I have come with
Mr. Anstead on this cold January
morning to learn more about such
goings-on but what he's really
teaching me is something of
compassion.
We step over puddles through
Texas muck onto the porch. An
old vinyl sofa with packing tape at-
tempting to hide its stuffing in a
number of places sits wet in the
yard. He gently knocks on the
screen doer and announces our ar-
rival. His voice is raspy meek self-
conscious and the following
silence is uncomfortable.
Mrs. Cummings answers the
door in a maroon men's velour
bathrobe. The stains and smell
make me turn my head. She is talk-
ing on the phone and smiles
through desperately crooked teeth.
"Hello Mrs. C" Mr. Anstead
says smiling.
"Hole own" she says into the
receiver. "Thank yee thank yee"
she says to us.
A TV just behind the door an-
nounces the arrival of the annual
"Dillards'White Sale" and in-
forms us that we "do not want to
miss it"
"You doln' OK today?" he asks.
"Shore am allful kind thank
yee...." Her voice trails off
"Alright then we'll sec you next
time" he says. Wc walk away.
"She doesn't like to talk much"
Mr. Anstead says to me os her door
closes behind us "Real nice
though."
While intimate with his "stops"
Mr. Anstead is careful to allow
them to maintain their dignity. He
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is never pushy just an old friend
dropping something off; if more is
sometimes desired he happily ac-
cedes. He is not selling an ideology
wrapped in good deeds. He's simp-
ly doing what comes naturally. If
he were to read this he would be
embarrassed by my romanticizing.
Mr. Anstead has discovered love
or better the conscious act of
loving.
And it's hardly a new discovery
Leo Buscaglia sells books on it.
Jean-Paul Sartre alludes to it in
his existentialist pronouncements
about the a priori. Love's existence
precedes love's essence.
Theologians at Harvard and Yale
study it have nice words for it
agape and unconditional being the
current favorites and are made
uneasy by talk of ivory towers and
ideas finding fruition.
Before these hundreds of years
before a poorly dressed Jew spent
a good three years beating it into
the thick skulls of 12 upwardly
mobile interns.
To say that our problem with
love is often syntactical we er-
ronously look for it as a noun
before we create it as a verb is as
simplistic as it is accurate.
Love comes of loving the
ultimate reward.
Still organizations like Meals on
Wheels have a tough time finding
committed volunteers.
"It's not easy" says Mr.
Anstead backing out of Mrs. Cum-
mings' driveway and continuing
the conversation "You have to
show up. Even though you're only
here once a week. It's easy to get
too busy too preoccupied with
your own life. But if you tell
somebody you're gonna.." he
hesitates and brakes as a carhorn
sounds from behind us. "We-1-1
I'll get us killed yet."
A white BMW swerves quickly
past stealing the subject with its
interruption
"Number four is next" he says
after a moment "That'll be Mr.
Perez."
He strokes his gray hairs and
smiles.
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JULY 1885
From the outside looking in it is
not the sort of group I would like.
Too entertaining.
Too animated.
Too loud.
Too conspicious against the
background provided by large col-
onial picture windows of the
velvet-bent-cloaked back nine and
the manicured pool-encasing
shrubbery with streaks of in-
viting blue seeping through and oc-
casional gainer-practicing
adolescents in mid-arch popping
above. But there I am anyway.
The environment is serene
conservative.
The lunch group is not.
Six in oil on noon break from
Stanley ZarifTs weekend im-
provisational workshop for Texas
actors we are:
A local real estate baroness
turned actress whose name
which won't be mentioned here
because "I get a lot of inaccunite
press" she told me I could have
read in the "Around Town" col-
umn of that morning's Dallas Mor-
ning News had I an aptitude for
such and had not overslept thus
missing it and the accompanying
breakfast. Her membership has
brought us to the Dallas Country
Club and she consequently and
thankfully is picking up the tab
Denise Moses an ac-
tresscomic friend of ZarifTs from
New York who is in town for an
engagement at a placecalled The
Bath House. You might sec her oc-
casionally late nights on "An Even-
ing at the Improv."
Mauricio Bustamante also a
friend of ZarifTs who experienced
brief stardom as a child on Spanish
television and now lives in New
York. He has "come to
improvise."
Don Barber a nice guy of
whom I know nothing
Myself embarrassed because
our waiter is the shorter-haired ver-
sion of a guy I knew in high school
(he made an accurate stab at my
name a gesture I couldn't return)
and because I'm afraid he'll
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stcrotype me as I 'stereotype all
people who cat lunch at country
clubs as perpetuating a Great
Gatsbian value system.
And Stanley Zariff a New
York acting coach and casting
director who is himself an actor.
His latest credits I am told in-
clude "Dynasty" and "All My
Children."
I present them to you this way
by credits because that is the way
they were introduced to me; that is
the way people in the entertain-
ment industry introduce each
other.
None of these are household
names; yet in industry terms they
enjoy moderate degrees of success.
We are an ordinary lunch group.
Trying hard having fun.
.Showing only the parts of
ourselves with which we are
comfortable.
Thinking about what witty bits
we will contribute when our time
comes to speak and no longer
"listen."
Defining ourselves by
association
"I was having dinner with
Kathleen Turner" says one "and
you know I hate name dropping
but it is part of the business."
The business has a lot to hate
about it: the necessary networking
the erratic employment picture the
hype the created credibility the
cut-throat competition the lack of
security the apathetic agents the
general cheesiness of certain
elements and simply the priorities
it espouses. You know: "Acting is
my life."
A not-so-surprising paradox ex-
ists in the fact that the people most
susceptible to the temptations of
ego-feeding careers arc the very
ones who often pursue them and
usually those most capable of
success.
Page design by Key Pay ton
Photo by Brian Chism
$$$
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"There are no half-hearters in
Hollywood" goes a common
motivational catch-phrase.
It is not difficult to see why ac-
tors are admittedly an insecure
lot. There are no promises that
your life's work will ever lead to
anything beyond "Our Town" at a
community theater. The career
that demands your all may never
pay off.
And here here is where the
"moderate" success of those at my
table just may be to our advantage.
Somewhere along the line we
may learn I think we will Have to
learn it to preserve our own stabili-
ty that the desperate drive to be
somebody success as a goal
rather than a vehicle is a self-
defeating prophecy. The motiva-
tion of me is an empty one.
In many ways my luncheon
group members may be among the
fortunate ones. While we are in-
volved in our arts are making a
contribution are eking out an ex-
istence doing what we enjoy we
still have the potential of maintain-
ing balance I believe Perhaps if
we are truly fortunate we will
never sec an Oscar or an Emmy or
a Tony. Wc will discern along the
way that our individual value
depends on what is within not on
what we set on the mantel or have
in the bank.
Our dreams won't devour us I
hope.
And the less fortunate?
"My husband knew when he
married me" says one Dallas ac-
tress I know "that the business
would be more important to me
than him. It's all I've ever had that
is really and solely mine... just
mine."
As for my five lunch partners I'd
like to have lunch with them again
in 20 years even if it is at a coun-
try club.
v
IHHRHHHMHHKE
" ' liBHfcHi!aj'Saiyiwli!
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The Optimist (Abilene, Tex.), Vol. 73, No. 31, Ed. 1, Tuesday, January 14, 1986, newspaper, January 14, 1986; Abilene, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth92029/m1/3/?q=%22%22~1: accessed July 15, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Abilene Christian University Library.