In the 1950's, television killed Vaudeville, or at least the live stage version. Vaudeville acts moved to TV on Ed Sullivan or Milton Berle. Uncle Miltie was closer to the cleaner elements of Burlesque, but with a lot of Vaudeville acts thrown in.
Well Vaudeville seems to be pretty much gone these days. Even the recent brief attempt at a TV revival, staring the capable and talented Mya Rudolph and Martin Short in "Mya and Marty," didn't catch on, but Vaudeville is still alive on the Senior Citizen Circuit.
Yes right here in Villa San Ramon, we are regularly treated to harmonizing trios, tap dancers, and even me doing my old ventriloquist act. Last Saturday afternoon we had a bird act. The parrot riding the bicycle reminded me of the old Ken Murray movie "Bill and Coo," which featured a variety of trained birds and animals. That short film seemed to be on TV every day during the 1950's.
The bird trainers adopted most of their birds and taught them to do these tricks, but the woman giving the demonstration said they wouldn't do anything they didn't want to do. She said they have around 30 birds. It's nice to know they gave these birds a good, permanent home, but now the birds are supporting their adopters.
Today's entertainment is a film compilation of musical numbers from the 40's and 50's – Judy Garland singing "Over the Rainbow," Dean Martin, "That's Amore," Andy Williams "Moon River," Oh, the nostalgia!
I left early to finish this blog. I can watch those clips on YouTube if I really want to see them again. I will be 74 in three days, but I'm not ready for the old age home yet, not here and not in Maine, no matter how nice they are.
So now I'm looking for houses for sale in Maine, online of course. I found one I liked and called a broker about it, but he tried to calm me down to wait until next spring. My brother and sister-in-law are trying to talk me out of rushing into something too soon too. I wouldn't move to Maine in the winter anyway, so I'll wait here and try to find a nice small house to move to in the Spring.
Maybe I should have kept my house here, but there were predictions of a housing crash like we had in 2008. I was able to get a good price for my house in May and if the housing crash does happen again, I will be in a better financial position to buy another one.
