Saturday 9

Saturday 9: Theme from Peyton Place ("Wonderful Season of Love")

Unfamiliar with this week's song? Hear it here.

1) Spring, summer, fall or winter: which season do you consider most wonderful? I'm a fan of fall.

2) Crazy Sam learned this song when she played flute in the high school orchestra. Did you participate in many after-school activities? I wrote for the school paper and was a member of Spanish Club as a freshman and sophomore. Then when I got to my junior year I quit them both. I realized how little I really had in common with my rah-rah classmates. I really didn't enjoy high school very much.

3) The flautist next to her in the orchestra was Jeanne Pepitone. After a little Facebook spying, Sam learned that Jeanne is now Jeanne Moran, a nurse with a husband and a daughter. Sam shot her a "friend request." Do you keep up with your high school classmates? Only my oldest friend. I've known her since kindergarten. Though interestingly, we weren't close at all during high school. She put the "rah" in rah-rah back in those days. She loved high school!

4) When she performed with the school orchestra, Sam was required to wear gray slacks and a black sweater. What are you wearing right now, as you answer these questions? Jeans and a coral sweater.

5) Sam was especially dedicated to the school orchestra because she had a crush on Mr. Hanley, the school's musical director. He was the dark/thin/sensitive type. Tell us about a teacher you remember, and why he or she stands out. My high school English teacher had a wild mass of black hair and was (gasp!) Jewish. You have no idea how exotic that made him in my white-bread little town. He also really loved Shakespeare, and helped me see it as vibrant, relevant and sexy. He left that high school after just two or three years and, last I heard, is teaching drama at an Ivy League university. I was lucky to have him.

6) Because Sam was so crazy about Mr. Hanley, she was desperate to attend his band camp. Her parents wouldn't allow it unless she could pay her own way, and so she didn't get to go. Were your parents strict or permissive? If you have children yourself, what's your parenting style? My mom handled the day-to-day discipline and she was pretty lenient. My dad would swoop in when something made him mad, and since he was motivated by anger, he always handled it badly.

7) Sam liked Fridays because her favorite food, fried rice, was served in the school cafeteria. When you eat Chinese food, do you use chopsticks or a fork? I just had shrimp fried rice for lunch on Thursday. It was yummy, of course. And I used a fork.

8) When Sam was a little girl, a new box of Crayolas could get her pulse racing. Now she loves her Sharpies. Do you enjoy shopping for school/office supplies? Not especially. Though I do have a particular fondness for post-it notes.

9) Do you have any plush toys? Or did you give them all up when you left childhood? I still have my beloved Lassie dog, my mainstay when I was a little girl, and a polar bear my mother gave me for Christmas a few years ago. (She sponsored a polar bear in my honor from the World Wildlife Fund.)