SAYS WHO?

17 February 2020

It was a "Says You" weekend.  I have talked about the radio show before.  It is self-described as "a public word game show of bluff and bluster, words and whimsy."  It is based in the Boston area, but travels around to various other places during the year.  Walt and I have been fans for many years.  For about three or four years, we flew to So. California to see shows broadcast there.  Each event that you go to is two shows recorded for later broadcast.  I think one year in So. California, we went to 3 different places where they were recording.

Later, they also came to San Francisco and I think we went to the SF recordings five or six years.  They usually come around the time of my birthday, so it becomes a birthday gift.  We didn't go last year because it was during our "whatever it was"es and neither Walt nor I could drive.  But as soon as it was announced  that they would return to SF again this year, Walt immediately bought tickets...then they announced they would also perform in Sacramento, so he bought tickets for that as well.

The San Francisco show was Thursday and Walt dropped me off at Herbst Theater while he went to park the car.  The two parking lots at city center, where the symphony hall, opera house, and War Memorial Performing Arts Center (where the UN Charter was signed) have become ridiculously priced -- $25 for one garage and $20 for the other.  But Walt dropped me off at the door to the theater and I decided to use my walker instead of my cane (such a good idea!) and he went off to try to find a good place to park.

We were very early and I was able to get a chair at a table where I could sit and watch the other early birds arrive.

A guy on the other side of the lobby looked at me with recognition, came over and said "Bev?"  He held out his hand and said "Dave." 

Now I must explain that I have horrible facial recognition.  Walt can come across an adult that used to be on his little league team when the kid was 10 and he can recognize them as an adult.  I spent months agonizing over "where have I seen that guy," a man I saw around town but couldn't recognize until I went into the stationery store where I always shopped and saw him behind the counter.  Out of location, I could not recognize him.

But I have been involved in so many things in Davis that a lot of people recognize me, people I don't really know all that well.  When I was working for the Secretariat, I had people come in all the time and greet me and I didn't have a clue who they were.  I got very good at responding like I recognized them and then creating a conversation, hoping to say something  that would elicit a bit of information that would give me a clue who I was talking to.  Divorce is so prevalent that I never asked about their spouses but might ask how their family was. 

Dave asked where Walt was, so I assumed he knew me from Davis and we talked about the traffic Walt and I encountered on the way to SF and how we were also going to Sacramento.  He said he'd see us there.  I assumed he was another Says You fan.  He asked, by name, where Walt was and I said he was parking the car.  As Dave left to go back to his group (people I also didn't recognize), Walt was arriving and Dave turned, pointed at him and looked at me.  So he recognized Walt.

We went to our seats and when they introduced the cast and moderator, there was Dave.  He was Dave Zobel, co-script writer for the show, as well as its moderator.  At least I thought was Dave.  My vision isn't that great and I didn't clearly recognize his face, but I thought I recognized his tie. 

I may have poor facial recognition, but I know I have never met or talked with Dave Zobel before.  Once I knew who he probably was, I figured he had read a Facebook entry I had written about going to see the show and checked my FB  profile so he had seen my photo as well as Walt's. (A couple of years ago, I was wished happy birthday from the stage because someone read it in a FB post).  But Dave was a lovely man. I had not seen him as moderator before and thought he was one of the best of the moderators who have taken on the role of "the beloved Richard Sher," who died a few years ago.

I was disappointed that there were only two of the "regular" panelists on the show, Carolyn Faye Fox and Barry Nolan.  Murray Horwitz (the guy who started Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me) is a frequent guest panelist so I sort of knew him, but the other three panelists were strangers to me, though one of them is also a member of the Flying Walendas.  I missed Tony Kahn, my favorite panelist, for whom I had done some typing for his radio show, Morning Stories, several years ago.

We enjoyed the show and were happy to be returning the next day, to McClatchy High School in Sacramento.  We had front row seats and enjoyed it as much as we had the shows the day before.  I hope that they will now add Sacramento to their touring schedule in the future. And I was happy that Dave talked with me after the show because, in honesty, I was not 100% sure that this was the Dave who had talked with me the day before.

The most fun thing was that we found Stephan and Chris in the audience.  Going back to my problems with facial recognition, Walt brought this large bearded greyish-haired guy over to me in the lobby and said "remember HIM??"  I did my usual "pretend I know you" conversation and when he returned to his brother who was also in the lobby, I asked Walt who he was.  Chris Johnson, he said.  Chris is the youngest son of Walt's good friend (and former boss) Dave, who lives in Oregon.  We knew the kids when they were little.  Jeri and Stephan played together as young kids.

Stephan (on the left) was the ring bearer at our wedding 54 years ago.  He's  taller now.  But how great to see them.  I saw them several years ago at their father's 70th birthday party, but there is no way I would have recognized either of them if I passed them on the street.

It was really a fun two days.  On Sunday I had the day to reflect on how much I'd enjoyed the previous two days; Walt went back to SF to see an opera.