High Noon on Alan's Italy

Ya know the famous scene from the great movie High Noon, with Gary Cooper, with the theme song playing in the background during the last few minutes before the clock struck high noon. For those of you who may have only seen this movie, oh perhaps 20 times, and don't remember (I have seen the movie, I would say at least 500 times - mostly because my mother loved this movie and very often it was the only movie on Million Dollar Movie during the 50's and 60's when I was growing up(on Million Dollar Movie the movie of the week played each day at I think 7:30)), the character played by Cooper, Will Kane, the sheriff of this town, is scheduled to meet a train off of which will step the criminal he put behind behind bars, and now is out of prison and with his 3 cohorts waiting, has vowed revenge. No one in the town will help him, so he must face these 4 killers alone. After trying in vain to gather up a group of town citizens to help him, he is now alone in his office with his head down on his desk, exhausted after a furious fight with his deputy(played by Lloyd Bridges of Sea Hunt Fame), waiting for the clock to tick out the final seconds. As it does the music, which is great, is playing with the cadence which hightens the suspense until at exactly high noon, the train whistle marks the climactic moment. By now you are wondering what the heck this has to do with Alan's Italy Show # 28. Well last night I was privileged to have Professor Eve D'Ambra, an expert on Ancient Roman History, to help me explain the various elements of the Roman Forum, and casually with perhaps 15 minutes to go until air time, decided to show her the presentation I had put together. On the very first slide, I indicate her professorship at Vasser College, which, of course, was spelled wrong. It should have been Vassar. So with the clock ticking down the final minutes, tick, tick, tick, and High Noon playing in the background (in my head of course), I tried frantically to change that only slide in 2 places, the actual presentation and the ending montage that is played to conclude the show. I have to create a new slide by going into my word processing program, select the image that accompanies the text, copy it, place it into the album, and then place the same slide into the ending montage at the exact location, tick, tick, tick. All this with Eve, her husband, Franc Palaia (one of my favorite guests, whom you probably remember), and their daughter, Lily, sitting close by, Ellen preparing her part, and the screen of the computer already altered for the presentation of the show. Let me say that prior to this moment each week, I have spent hours getting ready and go through at least 3 or 4 dry runs, just to see it everything works. Nobody knew this but I felt like crying, and was hoping she would say to me, don't worry no one will ever notice the "e" instead of the "a". Well she didn't and rightly so, because, as I agreed, for this show, really everything had to be perfect. So picture the music, the clock ticking down the seconds, tick, tick, tick, the killer coming off the train, getting his guns, asking if everything is ready, and Kane feeling quite nervous knowing he would now have to face the 4 killers alone. At first I couldn't figure out what was going on, because I was too nervous; I never like to work under pressure, and even in college started to study for a test weeks in advance, not like those famous last minute cram sessions made so popular by, well, just about every other college student I ever knew, ya know the one the last hours on speed or tons of coffee trying to stay awake. I usually watched TV the last day before and even now do that the day of the show.Eventually I did it (Just as Will Kane killed the outlaws (helped by his wife, played by Grace Kelly)), somehow, someway, and the show was very successful with Eve doing an amazing job of explaining my favorite location in Rome. Her expertise was obvious, and even if no one got anything out of this, I surely loved the hour of pure joy. Eve will be back in 3 weeks to do a show on Roman Portrait Busts, and I just cannot wait. Nest week and the week after will be my long awaited double show on Orvieto, my favorite and one of the prettiest hill towns in Italy. Me alone and no matter how screwed up I made it (I hope not of course), the show WIll go on. So thanks a bunch to long deceased Gary Copper and the composer of that famous song that my mom and I loved, High Noon.