When did my love for Shakespeare begin? Ah, there’s a rub. Did this love have no beginning and thus no end? Let’s hope! Shakespeare has been ever new for nearly forever — almost 400 years since the printing of the First Folio in 1623, an expensive large-format collection of 36 plays, half of which had never been printed. The Sonnets appeared, somewhat mysteriously, in 1609, and the first editions were promptly banned and rounded up. They didn’t see print again for another 100 years. The first play bearing an author’s name appeared in 1598, and “William Shakespeare” burst into print for the first time in 1593 with the classical narrative poem Venus and Adonis, dedicated as ‘the first heir of my invention’ to the celebrated 3rd Earl of Southampton, Henry Wriothesley.

I remember a deck of Author playing cards we had as very young children: James Fenimore Cooper, William Wordsworth, William Shakespeare and many others, each sporting a grave portrait of the long-dead mug, none longer-dead than the great Bard himself. I’m guessing that name & pic were on one side, and notable work on the other, because I’ve retained a pretty permanent association between James Fenimore Cooper and The Last of the Mohicans ever since.

I’m also guessing a perfunctory reading of Julius Caesar probably came in junior high, but magic didn’t strike till the summer before my senior year of high school. I was chosen to attend a ‘Fellowship of Christian Athletes’ conference in the beautiful town of Ashland, Oregon, home of the magnificent Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The conference itself was actually pretty radical. We had evening entertainment from Paul and Paula (“Hey Hey, Paula”) and a keynote address from Brian Sternberg, three-time world record holder in the pole vault who had suffered a complete body paralysis injury from a trampoline accident as a 19-year old college sophomore six years before. His delivery was riveting and immensely inspiring to me. I was most impressed that I could not detect a single drop of self-pity, and I still marvel at that.

We got on-field coaching from college football coaches including John Ralston, head coach at Stanford and later the NFL’s Denver Broncos. And I had breakfast with legendary UCLA basketball coach Johnny Wooden, who was sitting alone in the cafeteria. He told me how he always coaches the boys to keep their hands up while in the key, so the hands have a shorter distance to travel when grabbing a rebound. I of course asked about ‘Lew’ (Alcindor) who became the NBA great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I also made friends with three kids from other schools whom I would play against on the football field come fall.

No conference highlight came close to the thrill awaiting me when I chose to play hooky from the programmed entertainment. I snuck out on a balmy evening and walked downtown to a performance of Twelfth Night in the outdoor Elizabethan theater of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and was transported into realms I knew not existed. I’m sure I still had a smile on my face when I began high school English that fall with Robert Thomas. He had somehow foiled with my older brother Roger a few years before and I felt like he was waiting for me: “So Widmer, I see you parked near the door. Is that so you can get out of class quicker?” I said, “No, it’s so I can get seated quicker to begin class.” We got along famously after that and I can still feel the tingle of excited anticipation each time he would smilingly draw his hand near his mouth to feign a confidential whisper. He would then drop some subliminally sexual reference from Hamlet that invariably had to do with the great chaos that lay just beneath the “thin veneer of civilization.” I only wish I could write better to write a better tribute Mr. Thomas!