The play stars Holman as Daisy Werthan and Robinson as Hoke Colburn, Daisy’s driver. Derrick Harvey plays Bodie Werthan, Daisy’s son. In 2003, during its run on stage in Lower Lake, the play was sold out and ended with standing ovations every night.

During an interview that will air after the play, Joan Holman said that she had “eight decades of experience on the stage” before she played the part of Miss Daisy.

She got her start as an actress at the age of 7, and stayed involved in the theater throughout her life, even while she was working as a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle for 30 years.

When she retired to Lake County, she was involved in the Ukiah Players Theatre for 10 years before she became involved in the Lake County Repertory Theatre.

About acting, she said, “The character has to come from the actor. I knew Daisy, and I became her.”

Ginger Ingersoll, the producer, said that one of the qualities she liked about the play was that it would give an opportunity for both Holman and Robinson to portray interesting characters.

“Miss Daisy is not a feel good play,” she said. “It’s about a relationship between two unlikely friends – a Jewish woman and an African-American man.”

In the after-play interview, Mary Howe, the play’s director, said that she has been involved in show business since she was 5 years old, growing up in Los Angeles and then studying radio and TV in college. She owned and operated dinner theaters for many years before she moved to Lake County.

Howe said she’s a bookkeeper by trade, and “I’m into detail.” Directing “Miss Daisy” gave her an opportunity to project this story through “one of the best casts I’ve ever had.”

“Driving Miss Daisy” will air as a one-hour play, followed by an hour of interviews and commentary, on Sunday, Nov. 22, at 2 p.m.; Monday, Nov. 23, at 9 p.m.; Tuesday, Nov. 24, at 11 a.m.; and two times on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 26, at 3 p.m. and again at 9 p.m.

Come and meet some of Lake County's talented artists.

Three local authors will sign their books during the event: Martha Steward, “Darby's Story,” from 3 p.m. to 3:55 p.m.; Barbara Sinor, “Addiction,” from 4 p.m. to 4:55 p.m.; and Diane Arruda, “The Ancient One,” from 5 p.m. to 5:55 p.m.

The store will offer 20 percent off the books by the three local authors as well as discounts on local art all day Saturday.

Work by the following artists will be available:

Mary Beth Alteneder – Fine art

Michael Barrish – Music CD

Barbara Jo Bloomquist – Music CD

Kevin Byrnes – Stone art

Donna Crawford – Purses and totes

Nola Duensing – Beaded bookmarks

Andi Gletty – Fine art

Tracy Holmes - Art

Elizabeth Kelly – Purses, etc.

Doug Marble – Intarsia, inlay, art

Mary McMillan – Poetry on CD

Heather Munday – Bead and jewelry art

Sheila O’Hara - Weaving

Holly Payson – Jewelry

Meadowsweet Soaps

Zack Peters – Tie Dye

Andi Phillips – Light cubes

Amanda Rawlings – Bead art

Robert Roberts – Fine art

J. P. Sarlande – Fine art

Stephanie Small – Fine art

Jeri Sofka – Photography

Rebecca Stark – Gourd art

Bernadette Straub – Sculpture

Elizabeth Thiel – Card art

Sandra Wade – Poetry on CD

Karen Winkeller – Card art

Raul Wybo-Gilbert – Photography

Come and celebrate the many talented individuals we have in Lake County. Refreshments will be served.

Wild About Books is located at 14290 Olympic Drive, Clearlake, telephone 707-994-9453.

LAKEPORT – Watercolor artist Diana Liebe will teach a scarf silk painting class at the Lake County Arts Council's Main Street Gallery in Lakeport.

The class will be offered on Monday, Nov. 30, beginning at 9 a.m. will continue until painters finish around 2 p.m.

The fee for the class is $20 and Liebe will supply the scarves and all supplies for you to create your special Christmas gift.

Pre-registration is strongly recommended. To do so, please call the Main Street Gallery at 707-263-1871.

The Main Street Gallery is located at 325 N. Main St. in Lakeport.

Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World

By Jack Weatherford

(NY: Ballantine Books, 1989. 288 pp. $15.00, ISBN-10 0449904962)

Native American Studies/ American History

“Columbus arrived in the New World in 1492, but America has yet to be discovered.” Jack Weatherford’s provocative book “Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World” seeks to change that.

He makes the reader aware that the average American today knows more about ancient Egypt “than we know about the pyramid builders of the Mississippi.”

It comes as a bit of a surprise to realize the truth of his statement, but even here in Lake County where the Pomo have lived for 10,000 years, most folks in Lake County probably could tell you more about the pyramids of ancient Egypt than they could tell you about the Pomo people.

Granted, the Pomo did not build pyramids, but they did build a society that thrived for thousands of years – here in the same place we are living today – not thousands of miles away. As a young nation, not even 400 years old, we have much to learn from our elders.

“Indian Givers” explores what modern society has learned from the native peoples throughout the Americas, even if we have not given them full (or any) credit for the original knowledge.

Some of this will not come as any surprise to the reader – particularly in the area of agriculture. It is well known that many new foods were introduced to the earliest European settlers by the natives, corn and potatoes perhaps being the most well known. The immense diversity of foods may come as a shock, however, as well as their impact, not just on the pilgrims, but around the globe.

In recent years there has been a resurgence of using herbal remedies but the surgical skills of the Aztecs far surpassed simply knowing which bark made good aspirin or could be used to prevent malaria. Weatherford claims that the Aztecs’ obsidian knives would equal the surgical steel of today and is only bettered by the precision of lasers.

The Aztecs knew how to perform a variety of surgeries, from the mundane to brain surgery, although Weatherford acknowledges they most likely had such advanced knowledge because they practiced human sacrifice.

Perhaps the most surprising knowledge Weatherford maintains we gained from the native peoples is in the arena of politics. He argues that the fledgling American government bore more resemblance to the League of the Iroquois than the Greek Senate or English House of Lords and that the Founding Fathers learned the practical potential of liberty from a variety of tribal communities.

Going a step further Weatherford proposes that the first person to suggest that the colonies form a united body of some sort was the Iroquois chief Canassatego in July of 1744, 32 years before the Declaration of Independence.

The scholarship in “Indian Givers” is well documented but not ponderous as to detract form the story telling style of Weatherford. Overall it's an excellent read, and as we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving, it may just inspire you to give thanks for the wealth of knowledge we have gained from the Aztecs, Iroquois and countless other tribal communities whose histories and knowledge ought be remembered.

Geri Williams is a local book fancier.

Mike Wilhelm and Neon perform at a private party. Also shown are Mark Phillips, drums and Patrick Walker, bass. Photo by Mark Smith.

LOWER LAKE – Popular local duo Mike Wilhelm and Neon will play at 2 Goombas in Lower Lake's Tuscan Village on the Friday after Thanksgiving, Nov. 27, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.

The deli and restaurant is located adjacent the post office on Main Street.

Internationally renowned 67-year-old guitarist/vocalist Mike Wilhelm has had a long and varied professional career starting in Los Angeles in the early '60s. In 1964 he was a founding member of the Charlatans, the first of the "psychedelic" San Francisco rock bands who started a movement that swept around the world.

He has played venues from L.A.'s Troubadour to San Francisco's Avalon, Fillmore, Winterland and Cow Palace to both the Bottom Line, New York City and the Bottom Line, Nagoya, Japan. In 1997, the Charlatans were invited to play at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and a video of that performance and accompanying interview are enshrined in the museum's archives.

A mannequin dressed in Wilhelm's Charlatans stage clothing is the centerpiece in the current exhibition entitled Something's Happening Here at San Francisco's Museum of Performance and Design in the War Memorial Building on Van Ness Ave. opposite the City Hall. The exhibition runs through August of next year.

Wilhelm has played in many well known venues in Europe including the Roundhouse, London; the Pavilion, Paris; the Paradiso, Amsterdam and (as a member of Flamin' Groovies) the largest of all, the 20,000 plus capacity Sportspalast in Berlin with headliners the Police. Lake County is indeed fortunate that Wilhelm decided to "retire" here in 1995.

Vocalist/percussionist Neon is blessed with a voice described by Wilhelm as "blue velvet." It is an apt description but it does not begin to capture the emotion she puts into her renditions of blues classics. To see and hear her perform is to become her fan. She has also had a long career and before deciding to settle in Lake County was lead singer with the well known Native American band the Troublemakers featuring harmonicist, actor and activist Gary Farmer.

The two have developed a musical chemistry that captivates the attention of the audience, a seamless melding of Wilhelm's unique fingerstyle guitar and barrelhouse baritone interwoven with Neon's beautiful, evocative voice and adept percussion rhythms plus their vocal riffs and harmonies which make their performances equal more than the sum of their parts. Their music runs the gamut from blues to Americana and folk to rock.

If you cannot make their Nov. 27 performance they will play again the following week on Dec. 4 at the same time and place. They will also appear on Monday, Dec. 21, with the Bottle Rock Blues & Rhythm Band at the Blue Wing Saloon & Cafe in Upper Lake from 6:30 p.m. until 9 p.m. on the occasion of Blue Wing proprietor Bernie Butcher's birthday.

For further information and live performance videos visit www.youtube.com/TheMonkeybeat or Google "Mike Wilhelm."

Clear Lake Performing Arts' (CLPA) Fall Symphony Concert will take place at the Marge Alakszay Center at Clear Lake High School on Lange in Lakeport at 3 p.m.

These will include the “Academic Festival Overture” by Johannes Brahms who wrote it as a musical “thank you” to the University of Breslau which had awarded him an honorary degree the previous year.

Told that the university expected a tribute composition in return, Brahms – known for his curmudgeonly sense of humor – created a potpourri of student drinking songs intricately tied together in a carefully planned piece that calls for one of the largest musical ensembles of any of his compositions.

The joke, as it turned out, was on Brahms, when the overture became one of his best-known and most loved works.

Brahms' good friend Anton Dvorák composed another of Parkinson's choices for the Fall Symphony Concert. “The Slavonic Dance No. 8” is one of a series of pieces originally written for piano for four hands but later arranged for orchestra. The music reflects the rhythms and melodic shapes of the Czech folk music of Dvorák's native land, and became a hit shortly after they were performed.

Another contemporary of Brahms and Dvorák was French composer Camille Saint-Saens who turned to the bible as inspiration for one of his best-known works, the opera “Samson and Delilah.” Parkinson has selected the “Danse Bacchanale” from the third act as another piece from this period.

Saint Saens introduced portions of the opera to various audiences, but it was the eve of the Franco-Prussian war, and he could generate little interest. However, at the urging of Franz Liszt a German translation was introduced in the Wiemar republic to great acclaim and later in the U.S. and the rest of Europe to enthusiastic audiences. The opera, and the “Baachanale” in particular, remain standards in most opera companies.

For his fourth selection Parkinson rolls the calendar back to 1807, when Ludwig van Beethoven took the play written three years earlier by Heinrich Joseph von Collins and decided to set it to music. “The Coriolan” was a tragedy in the classic sense, with its main character a military man intent upon invading and destroying Rome with his army until, at the last minute, he finally heeds the pleadings of his mother and halts at the city's gate. Left with no way out he kills himself.

Beethoven set the theme to memorable music, specifically “The Coriolan Overture” with its structures and themes generally following the play closely.

The concert is presented by Clear Lake Performing Arts, the Lake County music support group that also funds the CLPA Youth Orchestra. These young musicians also take part in the program with a brief presentation under the direction of Wes Follett, that takes place just after the intermission.

The full orchestra then presents its rendition of of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, sometimes called the “Destiny” or “Fate” Symphony. When he wrote it in 1808 Beethoven said that the signature rhythm (three short punctuations followed by one long) represented “fate knocking at the door” and in World War II it became the United States' musical declaration of “V for Victory,” with the three dots and a dash being the letter “V” in Morse code. “The Fifth” is perhaps Beethoven's most recognizable and popular work.

Admission is $20 for the general public and $15 for CLPA members.

Memberships in the nonprofit organization will be available at the door. However, with admission available at that day's performance the membership may be purchased at the reduced rate. As always, young people under 18 are admitted free of charge.

For more information contact Connel Murray, 707-277-7076.