1996 has been the year of the play for the Soldan family. We saw 5 professional productions and were involved with four more. That is about one play for every 6 weeks! It all began with a cabin fever trip during MTU’s spring break. We all needed to get away for a while, so we decided to take a 4 day trip to Manhattan. Our purpose was to do some sight seeing, but mostly to attend some Broadway plays. We saw Miss Saigon, Cats, and The Phantom of the Opera. We also visited some excellent museums, took a ride on the Staten Island Ferry, and enjoyed some good food.

Steve performed in two plays later that spring. He played one of the leads in The Secret Garden, and danced and performed in the Superior School of Dance’s Eden Café. Both were so well received, that the company was asked to do an additional performance later that summer.

During the school year, Steve participated as a team member of the High School Bowl team, for Houghton High School. As the school year went by, they kept coming home with wins, and by golly if they didn’t win the UP championship! This won them an invitation to the state championship in Port Huron, and dog goned if they didn’t take the state class C/D championship. They returned from that match to a hero’s welcome. Two fire departments and about 10 cars full of well wishers met them about 5 miles out of town, and horns and sirens blaring, escorted the champs to the High School, where a reception was awaiting them. Winning the state championship entitled them to attend the National competition in New Orleans, so a fund-raiser was organized that raised most of the money for their trip. The team won two out of four national matches, and had to be content to be mere state champions.

Steve applied to work on trail crew at the Philmont Scout Ranch in northern New Mexico, and was fortunate enough to be chosen. Trail crew participants work on trail maintenance for 18 days, and in turn receive a free 10 day trek wherever they want to go on the Ranch. We drove Steve to Chicago to put him on the Amtrak, decided to come a day early to be sure we wouldn’t miss the train, and stayed at the Congress Hotel. Wouldn’t you know that Showboat was showing right across the street from our hotel. Alice and Steve got tickets and saw the show while Ted relaxed in the hotel room. Everyone was happy. The next day we got to the station in plenty of time, but Alice was concerned about Steve taking such a long train trip alone. He wore his Class A scout uniform at the station, and by the time the train left, he had connected with 5 other scouts that were heading for Philmont. Mom relaxed a bit.

While Steve was at Philmont, Ted and Alice got the cover on the greenhouse, and got it planted. It wasn’t until mid June that the plants got in, but it was great for a start. Shortly after the greenhouse was functioning, we started work on an addition to our house. We decided to make it 18 x 24 feet, extend it south of the house, and put a full basement under the addition for laundry facilities and storage. While we were at it, we also decided to put a double roof on the house, and install vinyl siding on the whole thing. As we write this letter in mid December, the project is still in progress. We’ve had two people working full time on it since the beginning, plus Ted works on it as much as he can. Progress has been slow, but it is really starting to take shape.

Also during the Summer, Ted’s mid life crisis continued with his purchase of a 1976 Honda 360 motorcycle. He purchased the bike from a student that was leaving the university. It required some work to get it roadworthy again, but once it was tuned up, Ted rode it to work most nice days this summer and Fall.

After Steve returned from Philmont, tanned and muscular, he spent only a few days at home, and then headed off to Camp Hiawatha to help with their summer program. Shortly after he returned from camp, he began brush up rehearsals for the Eden Café and Secret Garden. Following the performances, he was off to Indiana for the National Order of the Arrow Conference (NOAC), and Ted left for Colorado with troop 208 scouts for an 8 day hike in the Weimanuche Wilderness Area of the San Juan Mountains.

After such a busy summer, we were almost grateful for school to get started and resumption of a normal routine. Ha! No sooner did the school year start than did rehearsals begin for the Calumet Player’s production of Brigadoon. Since Steve was gone for try-outs for this play, we figured we were off the hook for once, but it wasn’t to be. Alice worked on the set crew painting backdrops (background scenery) during the summer. The players also asked her to usher for every performance, and Ted and Steve to run the "fly loft" for the play, and they agreed to do it. The fly loft is a small platform about 20 feet above the stage that has around 30 sets of ropes that control the flys, or backdrops for the play. The fly loft guys are responsible for raising and lowering these flys at the right time. While modern theaters have electric motors to do this work, the Calumet Theater uses ropes that are counterbalanced with sandbags to do the job. Neither Steve nor Ted had run the fly before, and both enjoyed it.

Steve planned and executed his Eagle Scout Project this Fall. He decided to do something to benefit the Calumet Players. His idea was to organize the costumes the players store in a building across the street from the theater. Most of the costumes that have been donated to the players over the years have been stored in the costume rooms without much regard for organization. Steve proposed to accomplish this organization. Once the proposal was approved, he went to work. Several weekends before the day of the project, he organized small groups of people to do some remodeling of the storage facilities. The day of the project, over 20 people showed up and worked hard all day sorting, marking, and hanging up costumes under Steve’s direction. Despite all efforts, the project was not completed at the end of the day, so Steve and a small number of volunteers returned for several weekends until it was finished to his satisfaction. The president of the players praised the project in a recent issue of their newsletter. Steve still has a few details to attend to before he is awarded the rank of Eagle Scout.

During the peak of the fall colors this year, Ted took a 1 hour flight in a private plane. The instructor was a senior student in the Electrical Engineering Department at MTU. He had Ted sit in the pilot’s seat, take off the plane, and navigate to the homestead in Elo, where a couple of pictures were taken. Then there was a short lesson and a quick return to the airport.

This winter the whole family is involved with The MTU Fine Arts Department production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Steve has two parts, Siward, and the bleeding captain. His many years of dance and fencing training have helped him prepare for these parts. Alice is assistant stage manager, and Ted is in charge of special effects. Rehearsals have been going on for several weeks as of this writing, and the performance is scheduled for late January and early February.

Due to scheduling problems between high school and the German class Steve is taking at MTU this year, he was unable to take high school band. Instead he has joined with several of his friends to form a band in which he plays trumpet. They practice one or two times per week, and their music is coming right along.