And the retired chief engineer of a starship. As I recall, he and Geordie were having a lot of fun talking about warp engines.

I had the great privilege of meeting Theodore Bikel in summer of 1962. He sang a concert to a capacity audience (3,100) in the brand new Seattle Center Opera House during the Seattle World's Fair. A most enjoyable and entertaining concert. Just he and his guitar. Like his records, particular his live concert record, "Bravo Bikel," he sang songs in many languages, often humorously introduced, and with brief sub-titles when needed. He mentioned that it was nice to be out doing concerts again, having recently escaped from a long run of nightly performances of "The Sound of Music," as he put it, "surrounded by twenty nuns and seven children."

He described how he decided to take up the guitar. At one time, he had a roommate who played the guitar. When the roommate went away, he left no forwarding address—but he did leave his guitar. "That's worse than leaving a woman behind," Bikel said. "A woman can follow. But a guitar can't. So I kept it!"

I got the word that for a couple of hours the following day he would be at Campus Music and Gallery, a record store in the University District (my stomping ground), to autograph record albums. Nancy Quensé and I both arrived before 2:00 p.m., the appointed time, along with a couple of other people, and there was Bikel, sitting in front of the counter by a big stack of his records waiting to start autographing them.

It seems, however, that someone goofed and the word hadn't got out. Jim Bates, the store owner, apologized profusely about the mix-up. But Bikel was cool. He actually seemed relieved to be able to just relax and sit and chat with us. So for about two hours, a half dozen of us sat around in front of the counter and gabbed with him. A few people wandered into the shop to browse, and looked curiously at this clump of people sitting and talking in front of the counter.

Asked about his prodigious skill with languages, Bikel said that he was born in Vienna into a Jewish family, and that by the age of three he was used to switching easily between three languages, Hebrew, Yiddish, and German. With this early start, he seemed to be able to pick up languages easily, and soon learned English and French. He could speak several other languages fluently and could get along in a number of others.

He commented that the new theaters, such as the Opera House and the Playhouse were going to be a real boon to Seattle. Because of its previous lack of really desirable venues, Seattle had a reputation for not been all that attractive to many performers, but the word had already got around about the new performance halls, so people would be far more eager to come here.

A very charming and friendly man.

Don Firth