Today's Feature

Opal’s Baby.

Stone’s Throw Theatre, Carthage, Mo. is proud to present OPAL’S BABY written by John Patrick, directed by Carole Lenger with Betsy Fleischaker as Assistant Director and produced by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc. Additional funding is provided by Missouri Arts Council and Schmidt and Associates.

Performances will be at Stone’s Throw Dinner Theatre, 796 South Stone Lane, Carthage, Mo. on Feb. 5-7 and 13-15, 2009. Reservations can be made by calling Betty Bell at 417-358-7268 or the theatre at 417-358-9665 or on line at bbell23@ecarthage.com.

Opal Kronkie at her tumbledown home on the edge of the city dump, spends time with her neighbors, family, friends and enemies. Warmharted Opal does her best to make everybody happy and looks to her own future, which puts a whole new twist on motherhood. Betty Bell (returns as Opal), Shanti Navarre (as Rosie), Bill Welsh (as Norman), Pete Schlau (as Spencer), Pam White Schaffer (as Granny) and Ceciley Hubbard (as Verna), and Cartole Lenger (in her directoral debut) as Director. Pam and Ceciley are newcomers toStone’s Throw.

Mornin'

From what I’ve read, retirement ain’t what it used ta be. They say a lotta folks just keep on goin’, and goin’ and goin’.

By the year 2050, there are supposed ta be over twice as many over the age of 65 livin’ in the U.S. as there are now.

They say that the big business types are tryin’ ta figure out what this enlarged mass of maturity will be buyin’ and what their eatin’ habits and such will be.

‘Course there may be some adjustment in the size a print in newspapers and maybe the numbers on telephones, but more likely I’d reckon, there will be some new technology to obscure most ailments.

Women seem ta be noticeably outlivin’ the men folk and difference seems ta be increasin’. I won’t make any speculation on that statistic at all.

This is some fact, but mostly, Just Jake Talkin’.

CLICK and CLACK

TALK CARS

by Tom & Ray Magliozzi

Dear Tom and Ray:

I live in India, and have a question about my father’s car (he lives in Dubai). He bought a new Peugeot 307 in May. It’s a lovely car, but about a month ago we had an accident. A car came up from behind and hit our car in the left rear corner. There is no noise coming from the wheel that hit the curb, no vibration, and the alignment looks fine. It’s as if nothing had happened. My question is, could there be any damage that has no symptoms? Should we go to the repair shop even if nothing seems wrong? - Aniket

TOM: It’s a good question, Aniket. In a sense, you’re right. If you’re experiencing no symptoms at all, it’s unlikely that anything major is going to fall off. But the answer to you general question is: Yes, there COULD be damage that you can’t detect.

RAY: Right. I mean, look at my brother. He looks perfectly normal. Well, not really. OK, I withdraw that analogy, Aniket.

TOM: You say that the alignment looks fine. But if the alignment were off by a little bit, there’s no way you’d be able to tell that with the naked eye. You wouldn’t know the alignment was off until you noticed that your right rear tire was all chewed up or was wearing out irregularly in a couple thousand miles.

RAY: Right. It’s possible that a control arm or trailing arm, or some other rear suspension component, got bent a little bit in the impact, and that’s something you’d want to know before you ruined your tires or needed to make another emergency maneuver.

TOM: So I would take it to a mechanic, tell him what happened and ask him to have a look. And if he says everything looks fine, then you can forget all about it.