R.I.P. Nora Hickey

 I'm a little late with this one. She passed away in 2016.

As Aint Eller said, "Pick 'at banjo to pieces, Sam"

I don't know if I was ever more surprised in my life than when I saw Nora Hickey playing the banjo in Oklahoma. I thought I knew her quite well, but I could never picture her with a banjo. If you told me she was a master cellist or a flute virtuoso, or even that she played the bagpipes, I would believe it in an instant. She was a talented woman, to be sure. She was as brilliant as anyone I've ever known, and my friend, although I never saw her again after high school.

But a banjo? I just never thought of her as the corn-stalk-chewin', bluegrass-pickin' type.

She was full of surprises.

Nora and I acted together in The Bald Soprano at the interscholastic Theater Day competition, along with Florence Meleo ('67), Ron Nyhan, Don Marshall and Mary Knauf. Ron Nyhan directed. This whole event was really on the down-low. Did any of you even know that Bishop Kearney put on Ionesco's The Bald Soprano?

Brother Heathwood thought that Theater Day was beneath his pay grade, or something, so he pawned it off on Nyhan, who did a great job. The six of us had a blast preparing for that show.

We wowed 'em at Theater Day. While the other schools did plays like Peter Pan, we performed this French classic of controlled gibberish from the Theater of the Absurd. The judges absolutely loved us!