The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, February 7, 1996 - B1 TERRACE “STANDARD. INSIDE - COMMUNITY ‘EVENTS B2 JUST A THOUGHT KATHY FLORITTO A slip of the tongue ORDS MEAN something, Even the Limbaugh scion who is, perhaps, the most famous/infamous college drop-out in America (Rush, to his pals) agrees — so it must be so, By the time most of us are walking upright, we've figured out how to articulate our most urgent needs through the use of words. *“‘Mama, Dadda, cookie and no” are at the top of the communications list and from that point forward, there's just no stopping us. We begin stringing words together and eventually, adverbs and adjectives are added to give emphasis to the pearls of wisdom that we're certain everyone wanls to hear. But we don’t always get it right. Sometimes, when asked a question, we respond too quickly. We use the wrong word or the wrong name and, unintentionaliy, give a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘‘slip of the tongue.’’ There are few occasions when this spells dis- aster — we've all had it happen to us and most of the time, it produces small chuckles, even guifaws from our audience and a red face in us, If we're overly sensitive and unless someone stops us, we spend the next half hour explaining that what we said isn’t what we meant. Like making mountains out of mole hills, we tum potholes into mining shafts.,, For anyone who has ever found themselves holding that particular shovel, bere are a few poignant little statements that should make you feel tons better about your own tiny faux pas... 1. “Smoking kills. If you’re killed, you’ve lost a very important part of your life.” Brooke Shields, in responding to why she should be- come spokesperson for a federal anti-smoking campaign. Wait, there’s more. 2, “I’ve never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body.’’ Winston Bennett, Uni- versity of Kentucky basketball forward. Knee surgery on your nose should be interest- ing, Winston. 3. “I support efforts to limit the terms of mem- bers of Congress, especially members of the House and members of the Senate.'’ Vice- President Dan Quayle, wha else? Mr. Quayle? Sir?...oh, never mind. 4. “Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the Jowest crime rates in the country.”’ Mayor Marion Barry, Washington DC. Big relief to Washingtonians, [’ll bet. 5. ffAre you any relation to your brother Marv?” Leon Wood, New Jersey Nets guard, to Steve Albert, Nets TV commentator. ‘ ‘no’? 6. “'That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass —- and I'm just the one to do it.’ A congressional candidate in Texas. Aman wilh no illusions, 7. MEMBERS AND NON-MEMBERS ONLY, Sign outside Mexico City’s Mandinga Disco i in the Hotel Emporio. Tovgh set of rules 8. Wish — To end all the killing in the world. Hobbies — Hunting and fishing. From personal statistics of California Angel Bryan Harvey, flashed on the scoreboard at Anaheim Stadium.) And II bet he just photographs ‘em. 9, “'The streets are safe in Philadelphia, it’s only the people who make them unsafe,” Frank Rizzo, ex-police chief and mayor of Philadelphia. Gee, Frank... 10. ‘‘After finding no qualified candidates for the position of principal, the schoo] department is extremely pleased to announce the appolnt- ment uf David Steele to the post’’ Philip Streifer, superintendent of schools, Barrington Hey David! Talked to Phil Jately? 11. ‘‘The doctors X-rayed my head and found nothing,’ Baseball kera Dizzy Dean, explaining how he felt after being hit on the head by a bail in the 1934 World Series. Dizzy? Dizzy? Anybody home? COMMUN ITY Opening night draws near A PAINTED macaroni curtain hangs in the kitchen doorway and the living room floor is painted a bright orange and blue. Tacky caniles decorate the room and a bright Mexican blanket is just visible from one of the bedrooms, Yep, it’s the 1970s, and this is the set of Hey, Naked Lady, Ter- race Little Theatre’s newest com- edy which starts (omorrow night, The comedy follows the lives of three struggling actors, a poet, an older man and their landlady. Most of the characters are un- employed, and the oniy actor able to find work is Stan, a wholesome mid-west boy, temporarily work- ing as a female impersonator. He’s played by Andy Roth, who in real life is a courtroom lawyer. This is Roth’s first foray back into theatre after a seven year ab- sence. He was involved in theatre dur- ing high school and university, and credits his experience on Slage with helping him in his carecr choice. While a lawyer and an actor may seem to have little in com- mon at first glance, Roth says the two can be very similar. “A courtroom is very much a theatre,” he says, “Being in the theatre helped me to develop a sixth sense for the audience,’ he explains. That gave him an advantage when Speaking in court. In tum being a lawyer has helped him improve his acting skills, he says. “It’s helped build up my presentation skills,” says Roth. The focus and concentration he’s learned in the courtroom are also skills that are needed on stage, This is the first comedy which CONFRONTATION — Jody, played by Robin Hollett, tries to explain to her ‘andlady, played by Greer Kaiser, who the strange man in the dumpy bathrabe is. It's Stan, the female impersonator, played by Andy Rath. Hey Naked Lady opens Thursday night. Roth has acted in, and he’s hav- ing a lot of fun with his character. Although the audience won't see his character Stan in drag, they still get to enjoy his embar- rassment over this unusual role for an actor, Throughout the play Stan tries to aim for a higher goal — that of acting in a diaper commercial. “He’s hoping ta put away the lipstick, mascara and slinky dresses for diapers,'’ says Roth, But the play isn’t ali laughs. “There's a lot of emotional range in this play,’ says Roth. There are some very poignant and touching scenes.” Roth is looking forward to opening night — the actors have been rchearsing since October. But he has some mixed feelings now that the end is almost in sight. He doesn’t want to let go of the play he, the other actors, and the technical crew and director, have created together. **You gel really close to people when you're working on a play together,”’ he says. “There have been a lot of magic momenis.... ’'m not look- | ing forward to saying goodbye,” Record low and high temps IF JANUARY was July we would have been at the beach or watering the garden. That's because there was a sunshine record set — 104.4 hours, about 20 minutes more than the previous mark. But with those crystal blue skies came very cold tempera- tures, reports Terrace airport weatherman Andy Schmiedel. ‘During the harsh cold snap, blustery outflow winds domi- nated and five each of daily minimum, low maximums and low mean daily temperature records were broken,”’ he said. The temperatures were low enough to pul down January as the coldest onc in almost a quarter century and good enough to tie for the third coldest in the 41 years of weather recording keeping at the airport, But what’s really surprising is that January also set records for daily precipitation. “In fact it took only 10 days of measurable precipitation to bring us above the normal by 19 per cent,’’ said Schmicdel. On two of those days, Jan. 1 and Jan. 7, more than 40mm of rain or snow fell, Even more strange was a three-day stretch from Jan, 10 to Jan. 12 when there were record highs set. The temperature ranges sur- prised Schmiedel because of their wild variation. “One of the warm days the temperature was 6.9 degrees,”’ he said. ‘“The mean tempera- ture for the month was -9.5.”’ Mean is the figure taken from the average high and low marks for the month. All in all, the January cold ’ temperatures were 10 to 15 de- grees below average. Reach out and zap someone LAST MONTH didn’t just set weather records. It probably also set records for static elec- tricity. No matter where you went, you probably got zapped. Your car door, the filing cabi- net, another person... there wasn’t much that was safe to touch. January’s cold spell brought on the perfect conditions for the build up of static elec- tricity, “It’s was a direct result of the cold, dry air we were hav- ing,’’ said Phil Bialobzyski, an instructor at Northwest Com- munity College. The cold, dry weather of the last few weeks meant there was a lot less water vapour in the air than there is normally. At the beginning of the cold snap there was still plenty of water vapour in the air. But the cold, dry spell lasted for an unusually long time. That then created a build-up of static electricity. ‘‘Water vapour acts as an electrical buffer,’ explained Bialobzyski. It conducts and disperses electrical charges in the air. With no water vapour, there is a build-up of pockets of static electricity, or electrical charges. As we walk through a room, we pass through pockets of this charged air. IT’S THAT AWFUL FEELING, when you're about-to touch a door knob, or some other metal ob- ject, and you just know you're going to get zapped, That feeling was pratty common during the cold spell, said Phil Bialobzyski, an instructor at Northwest Community College. ‘‘When we touch something the build-up of charge on us gets neutralized,’’ said Bialob- zyski. That’s the spark you feel. Those ‘sparks’ gct worse if you wear rubber soled shoes, explained Bialobzyski, “Rubber is an insulator,’? he said. ‘If. you wear rubber soled shoes you’re going to build up. more of a static charge.’’ Or more of a poten- tial spark-a-bility. So put away the rubber boolies during the next cold spell; try those metal cork bools instead.