I am recalling a first encounter and a personal Turning Point that began 20 years ago this week.
Writing a fresh batch of fundraising letters, I was reminded of millions of dollars of Vermont arts money I’ve wrangled over 33 years, mounting auctions, staging Pete and Arlo concerts, cooking falafel dinners – Hey, I once wore a sandwich board around downtown Burlington, trying to save my sinking ship after booking Smokey Robinson, Trisha Brown dancers, and Harry Belafonte, opposite the 1986 World Series between the Mets and the long-simmering Red Sox. Belafonte’s band even tuned in the game on their Walkmans on stage.
But of all my fundraising adventures none is more memorable than my wedding to Bess O’Brien.
Let’s face it – how many women are there that would let me slide a fundraising pitch into our wedding invitations? But Miss O’Brien and I met due to distressed funding at her terrific Middlebury theater company. I was up to my neck running Catamount Arts and producing Circus Smirkus. Bess showed up in cowboy boots to share her money woes. I said "what the heck – the more the merrier" and offered to take on her company. She thought about it but soon decided to throw in the towel. Then I offered her my job. You run Catamount – I’ll make movies. Bess accepted, but my board turned me down – funny thing about boards.
So, I did some horse trading.
"If I can’t hire Bess and begin making films, I want to start a radio station."
Board member eyeballs bulged in unison. "What?" they said.
"The FCC announced an available frequency for Danville; a friend says she’ll let me erect a tower in her corn field; and a Cape Cod radio engineer slipped into town last week to conduct a feasibility study."
"What?" Board members just kept asking the same question.
Anyway, Bess got the job – to produce my first dramatic film, "High Water." I agreed to stay on as Catamount director and said I’d halt plans to start a radio station.
Three years later, we married – and raised thirty four hundred non-profit movie dollars in lieu of gifts at our wedding. Problem is, we still need a set of tumblers and a toaster.
And then there was our zero-budget honeymoon, stuck in a promotional time share next to the landing strip on Block Island. But that’s another story.