Smatters from the Smiths: To Kill a Mocking Bird

At least once a year we try to make it to Cedar City to the Shakespearean Festival. We usually see one of Shakespeare plays. This year we did not. We saw To Kill a Mocking Bird in the indoor theater. I think every high school or middle school student is required to read the book . When I was a kid I really did not like to read...I don't know why because if I could, I would curl up with a good book and read the day away. From the very first line in the book and the play "When he was nearly thirteen my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow." Harper Lee hooks the reader and play goer on this deceptively simple story of a southern family caught up in a cataclysmic moral crisis and keeps you hanging on until the very last word. Lee's style of making a grown up Scout (Jean Louise Finch) a tomboy of her day and, the story teller. (The women who played Jean Louise in the play did a fantastic job.) This story took me back to my day growing up as Jem, Scout and Dill, a playmate as they venture around their little town in Maycomb. In the first chapter Scout describes the town of Maycomb as a tired slow moving town. "There was no hurry to get anywhere and nowhere to go beyond the boundaries of the small county." Scout says, "Somehow it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer's day. Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frosting of sweat and sweet talcum. People moved slower then, a day was twenty four hours long but seemed longer. There was no hurry because there was no where to go, nothing to buy, and no money to buy it with." The character of Scout is so real you feel it is someone you knew in first or second grade or maybe you yourself. Jem, her brother is four years her senior and is a great big brother and you share in their wonder adventures. They live with their father Atticus, and house keeper Calpurnia. I saw my father in Atticus. Atticus is a loving but not doting father who seems embody the greatest of virtues. He is tolerant, patient, kind, and understanding. He is a lawyer and a tower of integrity. It was a hard time in Maycomb, a time of the depression. It was hard for everyone but especially hard for the poor white and all the blacks. The town was deeply segregated, and a white women Mayella Ewell falsely accuses a black man Tom Robinson of rape. In the eyes of most of the towns people Tom is tried, convicted and awaiting execution. Judge Taylor doesn't feel the same way and appoints Atticus to defend Tom. Atticus knows better then anyone else how his decision will affect...his children, but he explains to Scout who wonders how Atticus can be right if everyone else thinks he's wrong, if he didn't take the case he could never hold his head up in front of his children again. Atticus knows he's fighting a losing battle, but deep inside himself he believes he may lose a battle but win a bigger war. The kids have an obsession with a strange neighbor who never to their knowledge leaves the house except at night when their sleeping, and that is Authur Radley affectionately know as Boo. In the play the young women who plays Mayella plays the part so very well that at the end of the play when all the characters come out to take their final curtain call, you hardly recognize her because her appearance is totally changed! The play will be there until the end of October so if you get the chance I highly recommend it. The acting was superb!!! Or maybe I've wet your appetite to find the book and read it "again" as I did when we returned home. We are going back in October to see Les Miserables. I'm so excited. Les took me to the Capital Theater years ago to see it and I loved it. The music is so beautiful. We love the area around Cedar City, Zions, and Bryce. This year we went to the Coral Pink Sand Dunes and the area around there. It was great.

We stopped on our way at the Thunder bird Cafe. As you can see from the pictures it's a unique place. There's the Highlander right in front.