Mimi Le Duck

Closing Night of LeDuck and Dad's Alzheimer's . . .

So its still dark here in Salem, Oregon. Ice melting from the storm, sullen ice, drip drip drip, digging in its pointy heels, clinging to the branches 'til the last drop.

I think of Eartha and Dad, clinging to life until the last drop.

I walk outside. The ten-foot blueblossom tree kneels on the ground under the weight of the ice.
The Baker's Cypress bows in surrender.













A Yukon birch bends at a forty-five degree angle.
The chorus of willows, a curtain call.
I see the branches of the ninebark tree touch the ground; I am doubtful it will recover.

Dad, who has Alzheimer's, yells for me. I come running inside. He's in panic. "Diana! The wells have run dry!" He's learned for the 100th time that the water pressure is low. I tell him that the ice storm wrecked the pump, which will be replaced Monday, and there is plenty of water. He can't remember that; only the anxiety of No Water, imprinted on his brain after years running the native plant nursery. "Diana, the wells have run dry," he says again, and I write down the answer so he can read it, over and over.

Like Eartha, Dad had colon cancer. And also pancreatic cancer. And kidney cancer. Incredibly, he beat them all. But Alzheimer's got him now, and there's no wiggle room out of that one. And yet he hangs on; he has vowed to "fight that big night" until the bitter end.

He was a true conservative. Patriotic. He served in WWII and the Korean War, and was on the deck of the USS Missouri, standing behind McCain, when the "little Japanese men in black suits climbed up the side" and sat down opposite MacArthur and signed the surrender documents.

For his birthday December 3, we gave him a flag flown over the capitol. He pulled it out of the box and was silent for a moment. Then: "I fought many wars for this flag."
They put him in the army corps of engineers in WWII because had filled out a questionnaire that asked: Do you object to serving with Negroes?

Dad wrote he had no objection to serving with anyone, and so he was assigned as an officer to a squadron of black troops who followed the front lines, doing reconstruction. He learned that the belief was that African-Americans would turn and run from battle, and thus were placed behind the front lines. After the war, it dawned on him that while all of his college friends had lost their lives, many at Normandy, he was still alive because of that questionnaire. His friends had objected to "serving with Negroes," but Dad had not, and was relegated to the back with his black troops, and was spared.

He was furious with Eartha when she denounced the war; there were many family arguments over that one. But he mellowed over the years, and by 2006, when Eartha agreed to play Vallet in Mimi LeDuck, he hated to admit he had voted for Bush. He wanted to see Eartha perform, but he was busy losing a kidney, and couldn't leave Salem.

I hear Dad calling. I go inside and spend a few hours with him. Outside, more ice has melted. The old Garry oak in the front yard has broken free of the white stuff. The sun shines through mist, illuminating the moss. I show Dad. "Beautiful," he says. "This beauty is enough to live for."
Suddenly, I feel a pang of homesickness for the urban beauty of New York. I alternate between coasts these days, running Dad's native plant nursery for him until we can decide what to do, and back for stints of writing in New York. The best of both worlds, I think, but I can't seem to write here in Salem, midst the Trilliums and the Alzheimer's.

And so they go, one by one. I remember closing night of LeDuck.

I was exhausted and devastated and sad. Eartha took it all in stride. She said "give me a hug," and I did (she was so very very tiny, like a bird) and then she said "They come and they go, dear, but not your talent. There'll be other shows for you," and asked if she could use "Everything Changes" in her cabaret act. Of course, I said. Of course.




I am unsuccessfully editing this post when I hear Dad calling again. "Diana, the wells are running dry." I'll post, mistakes, bad tenses, and all.

Dad's at the sink, opening and closing the faucet, panicked. I reassure him yet again. Dad, dad, dad.

We come and we go, but there's water in the well, and there'll be other shows.

So I’m iced in on Christmas Day and Marie calls from New Orleans: Eartha Kitt passed away.

And the emails began flooding in from people telling me how Eartha's ethereal rendition of the song “Everything Changes” had moved them.

Our lives overlapped briefly during the production of Mimi LeDuck in the fall of 2006. The show ran for 58 performances, and generally got lousy reviews -- except for Eartha’s performance, which was extraordinary.

Everywhere today, eloquent voices are raised, toasting to memories, and praising her talent, pluck, and humanity. I would like to add a story.

I wrote the song “Everything Changes” for LeDuck after looking in the mirror one morning and for the first time, realizing that my time was, indeed, marching on. Eartha took my words, inhabited them, gave them life, and made them her own. And when they poured out of the depths of her soul, they turned them into the bittersweet cry that all of us who are aging feel, but cannot express.

She took my words and gave them back to me, a song.


My birthday fell during rehearsal. Over the birthday cake, we were conspirators in aging, and when she sang “Everything Changes” that day, it was a gift to me, and for that, I thank her.


The original cast album after the show closed. Despite numerous requests, I never released it. I don’t really know why, Perhaps it’s ghosts, perhaps I’ll figure it out, perhaps I’ll write about what really happened one of these days.

But meanwhile, it is clear to me that thousands of her fans want to hear this song. The partial clips on YouTube have over 60,000 hits. It would be downright mean if I stubbornly refused to release it.

So I’ll get it up on iTunes and other download stores as soon as possible (keep checking) and will have a limited number of CD’s duplicated.

Email me at dianahansenyoung@gmail.com if you want to be notified when it’s available.

Aloha, Eartha.

Rest In Peace.

and fills the room as the stock market tanks again.

My cell phone rings; I've cleverly forwarded the Salem nursery phone to my cell phone so I can do dad's native plant business while in New York. I put the TV on mute.

It's a government public works office who ordered several thousand plants for a restoration project six months ago. They are calling to cancel the order. Drastic budget cuts, they say. We have no money. We have to cut programs, or benefits. So, I ask, what about these plants? What about the labor? What about our contract? So sorry, they say; refer to the cancellation clause.

Six major mitigation and wetland restoration jobs put on hold, or canceled, in the past 3 days. This thing is gathering speed, barreling downhill on us.

I'm good and angry as I watch the images on the muted TV screen. Now, I'm disgusted with both candidates, congress, the president, King Henry. Where's the leadership? I hear empty rhetoric. I don't hear a plan. Everyone gets vague when they try to explain exactly how these bailouts are supposed to work.

So tell me, Barak and John and George and Henry: Tell me exactly what to say to the guys here at the nursery if I have to I lay them off next week? They've been with Dad for 15 years.

Give me the words.

are angry that I've been gone. They pout and ignore me. I get out the catnip and Whiska treats and they are all furring and purring.


I don't tell them about Paco, the Salem Cat. Remember that old song? About the sailor with a cat in every port?

So there's an old outhouse in one corner of the nursery. I decide it has to go. I give George the task of getting rid of it. He puts it on Craig's list: FREE OUTHOUSE, and while he waits to be deluged with eager takers, he decides to move it closer to the front gate.

So he uses a principle of his profession, namely physics: Give me a fulcrum and a place to stand and I can move the world, he says, and by golly, he gets the thing levered up and pipes under it and rolls it downhill to the front of the nursery.

But now it's smack dab in the front -- it's the first thing customers see as they drive in.

"We have to move it," I say, but two customers drive up.

"We need two vine maples," the driver says.

"What are you doing with that outhouse?" the passenger says.

George tells them he's on the way to deliver it to the capitol steps to leave for our congressman who's busy voting for the bailout.

"No, really," they say, looking at each other. "How much do you want for it."

Now, I don't care how bad the economy is, I can't sell an outhouse in that condition and face myself in the mirror in the morning.

I tell them it's free, but explain that there's a slight problem. It hasn't been used in many months, on account of the fact that the company who was supposed to come and clean it went bankrupt, and consequently it's still fully loaded (packed, and dried). (Which is why we put the yellow crime tape around it).

"Perfect," they say. "We need an outhouse." They look at each other. "For the farm."

They can hardly load it into the back of their pickup, they are laughing so hard. They buy two vine maples and tie them next to their bijoux and merrily drive away.

I have a sneaking suspicion that their intended use for the outhouse for the farm. So what? It's a good day when you can make someone happy by giving them something for free.

Decrepit, hobbling, bent over, oh regret! for the pickaxing. Playing in mud is fun; but there's got to be a morning after. . .

More rain. Nothing can revive the dead junipers.



Fairly spectacular, I think. They arrived as bare roots in the spring from a nursery in Montana. Blue powdery mildew billowed out of the box when we took out the plants. We tried, however, potted them up, 100 juniperus communis, nursed them tenderly, but alas, they are deader than a doornail. Off to the compost pile and be done with it.

Have not written for so long, it feels strange, and maybe good, to write again. Better than watching debate reruns on CNN? You betcha.

Paco the Vole-Catcher lurks by a birdhouse high in a tree, hoping that some hapless bird won't notice his gaudy coat, surveying the ground for Vole movement.


It rains all day. I listen to the honking from the low clouds as I take a pick axe and dig a trench around part of the house for a rain garden to catch the roof runoff. I carry rocks, one at a time, and line the trench with big ones, then smaller, then river rock, then tumbled rock on top, and plant juncus along the side.

Dad rolled around the house last night in his wheelchair. He snagged the cookie jar, ate every cookie, and wrote a note on a manila folder, which he tapes on the lid with duct tape : "Keep This Full, Please! Signed, The Night Crawler."

Oh my aching back. Oh my blisters. Oh chain gang. Oh rocks. Time to hang up the pick axe, and feed Paco.

In the cat food bowl, a surprise for me: a mangled vole. I flush it, clean the bowl (cat, not toilet) and fill it up (kibbles). Where is he? Kitty, kitty? Out hunting.

I am mud. It seeps through my gloves. My fingernails are packed with dirt. I am soaking wet and filthy. My garden clogs are caked with red clay. I slip them off by the door. The rain stops. The clouds part; the sky is empty. There is no quacking. The birds are down for the night.

It's dusk, and the frogs take up the silence.