I recently made a quick weekend trip to Colorado to check up on the activities of my grandchildren – Ian, Nora, and Claire McCance. My daughter Sara and her husband Jim McCance live in Fort Collins; it is always a treat to go visit them.
Each time I visit Colorado I am impressed with the difference between that area and ours in western Pennsylvania. Driving north from the Denver airport the Wyoming slogan “Big Sky” seems particularly appropriate. You feel as if you are in the center of a hemisphere with the entire sky visible to you in every direction, a sky that always seems to be filled with a grand variety of clouds.
This time Sara also pointed out an eagle soaring in great circles above us, and a large prairie dog village with a resident standing at attention and staring into the sun at nearly every hole. And of course, dominating everything to the west were the snow-capped Rockies, with Long’s Peak reaching for the sky.
It is indeed a different world, and one that I enjoy, despite my preference for our hills and valleys. The landscape seems to have an influence on the folks who live there. The broad, flat prairie and the extensive highway network make it easy for them to travel long distances even for short errands. And something in the natural environment seems to foster innovation and the willingness to try new things.
Nora, who is now thirteen, plays goalie for a highly competitive soccer team that competes in a league that includes cities all along the Front Range, as far south as Colorado Springs, one hundred and thirty miles from Fort Collins. This weekend’s game was in Aurora, seventy miles away.
The Aurora sports complex is impressive and typical of the area’s commitment to youth sports. Nora’s team played on one of four identical artificial turf soccer fields that have just been added to thirty existing fields of different sizes for different games. This time the Fort Collins team was overmatched and lost 3 to 1, despite a good performance in goal by Nora.
In addition to his interest in playing trumpet in the Rocky Mountain High School Jazz Band, sixteen-year-old Ian has developed an equivalent interest in dramatics. This started two years ago when one of his friends encouraged him to try out for a high school performance of “Lord of the Flies”.
Since then he has had parts in a community production of “Fiddler on the Roof” and another high school play, “Alice in Wonderland”. This Fall’s high school play was “Charley’s Aunt”; his role was Sir Francis Chesny, a retired British Army officer.
When I first learned he had this part, I mistakenly thought it was in the musical version, “Where’s Charley?”, and was worried that he would have to sing a difficult song, “Lovelier than Ever”. Fortunately, this was the original show, with no requirement for singing.
“Charley’s Aunt” was originally produced in London in 1893 and is now recognized as a classic Victorian comedy. Sir Francis is an interesting character, a generation older than all the other characters in the play, with the exception of “Charley’s Aunt”. The play director suggested that Ian play him with a war-related injury that forces him to walk with a pronounced limp and a cane. He carried that off masterfully.
I continue to be impressed with the quality of today’s students’ performances, both musically and dramatically. The sets for “Charley’s Aunt” were outstanding, as were all of the actors and actresses. This, of course, appears to be true everywhere, as high schools choose to produce difficult, highly sophisticated plays.
Originally, I was a little concerned about coming to Colorado to see Ian and Nora perform, fearing that ten-year-old Claire would feel slighted. Not to worry – she came home from school on Friday with two P.R.I.D.E. awards. These are given to outstanding students at her Elementary School each month; receiving two is a real exception.
Award number one was for “P”, positive attitude. Her teacher praised her for being “a good model for all of us”. “I”, for “Insist on Safety”, was more of a surprise. It apparently was recognition of her habit of returning the food tray from the preschool lunch room each day.
In addition, Friday was the day she appeared on TTV, the weekly elementary school channel on which two students broadcast the weather, announcements, and birthday recognitions for the current week. She certainly has the presence of a network TV anchor. Her partner, believe it or not, was a young man named Charlie Mingus. And to cap it all off, she announced that she has been selected to be part of the Fort Collins School District Choir. Her selection was based on her audition rendition of “Our Country ‘Tis of Thee”.
Claire is a classic third child, with the low key optimistic personality of her mother, herself a third child. She and her siblings are a marvelous legacy for the efforts of their parents; we are proud of all of them.