He was, like so many older people in Alpine, a living legend. One of my favorite bits of Oscarana, as I called it, concerned Alexander Pantages, famed West Coast theatre entrepreneur. When the great man took his final curtain call in 1936, Oscar wanted to pay homage to a fellow impresario. Either out of respect for this icon or vanity for himself, Oscar was compelled to cover his half-bald head. His neighbor, Millard O’Toole, had butchered a cow that very morning. In a fit of inspiration, Oscar had cut off enough hide to make a toupee. It didn’t match his remaining hair; it didn’t fit his large head; and it wouldn’t stay put—but Oscar wore it anyway. He drove off to Seattle in his Model-A Ford feeling respectable and looking ridiculous. When he bent over Pantages’s coffin, the makeshift hairpiece fell off. Humiliated, Oscar left it there, and all Alpine assumed that the famed impresario was spending eternity with a little bit of local lore. At eighty-two, Oscar had long since become completely bald.
What do You think about The Alpine Christmas (2012)?
