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The Clackamas Print Page 7
Wednesday, May 3,1995
The springtime I met the man with
Sterling
those eyes: reflections on dates
Continued from Page 6
by Linda Barr Batdorf
Staff Writer
Springtime re
minds me of the
day I first met the
man of my dreams
who shall forever
remain my hand
some, fancy boy
friend -- my hus
band, Alan. He was
in a dark corner,
hunkered over an ail
ing VCR in the video
department here at
CCC when I first saw
him.
I had graduated the
year before and had
come back to Clackamas
to edit some footage I had
taken for the medical
school up on the hill. An
old
friend,
Gary
Eppelsheimer, was helping
me with the project and in
so doing, introduced me to
my future husband.
“This is Alan Batdorf.
We’re working on a video
project about Portland’s
bridges,” Gary said.
Actually, he could have
been talking about his latest den
tal bridge, because at precisely
that instant, Alan looked up from
repairing the sickly VCR and
looked me right in the eyes.
Time stood still.
Now this was odd, because I
wasn’t an “eye person.” I had a
friend who (believe me, this is
true) would not date a man with
blue eyes. Eyes were her thing.
If the guy had brown eyes, he
was in.
He could look like
Quasimodo and smell like Mr. Ed,
but if the guy had just the right
“eye thing” going, she was pre
pared to have his children, and
plenty of them at that.
It’s said that the eyes are the
windows of the soul. It could be
that since Alan was destined to
walk down the aisle with me on a
rainy Valentine’s Day in 1982,
that it was indeed his soul that
first attracted me to him in the
springtime of 1978, because I just
couldn’t shake the memory of
those eyes.
I had dated other men before
I met Alan, but I had never no
ticed their eyes.
I didn’t notice the eyes of the
insane man who used to send me
envelopes full of hawk feathers.
I always wondered how he got the
feathers. He called me once, and
after telling me that “Bengal ti
gers don’t LIVE in Oregon!” said
he no longer had a hawk.
“I saw a good deal of S.
If I were to die tomorrow,
Africa. It was an overwhelm I would have no regrets in the
ing experience and I learned experiences I’ve had. I still
more than I ever would have crave attention.
had I not gone there, but it was
“I still desire to achieve my
nice to come home,” he added. goals and reach that caliber of
So Patrick Sterling left S. recognition. But I’m pretty sat
Africa and came home. Not isfied.
just back to the United States,
“There’s still tomorrow. It
but back to the area, and once is something I will always be
again, back to CCC.
working towards, but I tend to
“I really believe there is get comfortable in any given
falsity in the old adage ‘you can situation, and I don’t work to
never go back’ because there get past those boundaries. I’m
is truly nothing in the world pretty happy and comfortable
more important than family and with what I’m doing, but I still
friends. I am always drawn crave that recognition.
back to this area because of this
“Those hard core starving
very fact,”
actors in LA
S ter 1i ng
who do the
said.
theater rep
If I were to die tomor circuit de
Cur -
rently, Ster row, I would have no
serve more
ling is
a regrets in the experi
respect than
manager at
me,” he said.
ences I’ve had. I still
Ye a t s y s
Sterling
Cafe crave attention.
suggests that
- Patrick Sterling, student
Mexicano, a
it is impor
restaurant in
tant for as
Lake Os
piring actors
wego. And in his spare time, to keep their tools polished.
he ventures out to the theater
“No matter what you do,
at CCC where he spends time how, when or why, whether it
rehearsing for the spring play, is at the community college
“Betty the Yeti,” in which he level or on Broadway, the ex
will play a logger.
perience in and of itself is ben
Sterling said he was a jock eficial,” Sterling said.
in high school. Sports were his
One day, Sterling hopes to
passion. Until he accepted a open his own restaurant. “I
dare from one of his “jock love this business. I’vebeenin
friends. I auditioned on a dare this business off and on forever.
by some of my jock friends, and I’m going to keep auditioning.
I was cast as Lysander in
“The LA scene is question
Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer able, if I get my big, lucky
Night’s Dream.”
break. If I get a break, I’ 11 take
“I was hooked. Now I au advantage of it from there,” he
dition as often as I can,” he said.
Until then, you can find
said.
While Sterling still hopes Sterling in our own theater, pre
to find the big break someday, paring for his latest show, Betty
he said he is content with the. the Yeti, which will run May 18
successful acting career he’s al to 20 and June 2 to 4 in the
McLoughlin Theater.
ready had.
-__________ 5 9
Gee, what did he do? Keep
yanking them out of his deceased
pet? Where was he getting them?
Did he have a hole in his pillow
or had he mugged a wandering
sapsucker? This in itself was a
bit unnerving. Andjust what was
it about big bird feathers that he
thought I would find appealing?
It certainly wasn’t the smell.
I didn’t notice the eyes of the
man in the theater department
who used to sing at the top of his
lungs to any old tune that hap
pened to belch its way out of the
radio, either.
He wanted our friendship to
escalate and I was hesitant to hurt
his feelings and say a resounding
“no!” until one day when we were
returning from a program at a re
tirement home and he insisted on
singing every song from here to
Oak Grove and back at a decibel
level that Pavarroti himself has
not yet achieved.
When he leaned over the
back seat to sing directly into the
back of my head to the tune of The
Commodore’s “You’re ONCE,
TWICE, THREEE times a lay-
DEE,” I am somewhat ashamed
to admit that I switched the radio
off before he could get to the
“THREEE.”
There he was, bellowing out
his merciless tune, suddenly left
with no Lionel Richie to do his
back-up vocals.
Since I seemed to attract men
with obvious mental problems, it
was no surprise that another
“gentleman” playing two socks
short of a pair would want my
phone number.
Had I looked into his eyes, I
never would have gone to a movie
with him, and I never would have
had to walk home from Damascus
to Estacada after said lunatic tried
to slip something into my 7-Up.
The same loon called me the
next day — after I had walked 13
miles in the middle of the night -
- and asked me if I wanted to go
to another show with him.
Good grief. I should have
suggested that he and Mr. Hawk
Feathers go together and see “One
Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”
Many of my dates in the early
70’s were similar. I came to con
sider the distinct possibility that
all men were deeply disturbed.
I was just an innocent little
“potata from Estacada...,” what
did I know of the heart of a true
creepizoid?
In fact, most of my dates pre
Alan were so deranged that I
wrote a play including many di
rect quotes from some of them,
and it was produced here at CCC.
A little old lady sitting in
front of me during the opening
night said, “gosh, these charac
ters are a little unbelievable...”
She took the words right out of
my mouth.
I remember the heartaches
and hassles of dating “way back
then,” with all of the inherent
bumbling and teenage awkward
ness.
One of my friends here at
CCC was Colleen O’Hara. I re
call the vision of my friend stand
ing outside, between the build
ings, looking aimlessly about as
if searching for someone.
With the heart and soul of a
writer, she has always been quite
the poetic type.
So when I asked her what she
was doing and she replied, “wait
ing for Mr. Right,” I stared at her
for a moment or two and went to
my next class. I didn’t find out
until much later that she was re
ferring to her science teacher Mr.
Wright.
It seemed as logical a place
to meet Mr. Right. After all, I met
mine here. Not only did he sweep
me off my feet and save me from
the loony-toons of the world, but
after 16 years, I still love to look
into those eyes.
BATÏODAL ASTRODORY DAY
The Haggart Observatory,
in conjunction with
The John Inskeep Environmental
Learning Center
will host its third annual National Astronomy Day.
Saturday May, 6
10 a.m. until 5 p.m.
The day’s events will include: Hands-on
exhibits, including crater building, lens and mirror demon
strations, models of the solar system as well as models of
American spacecraft, and much more.
Admission is Free
For more information, call ext. 2351