Jim & Kaye
Baskin

For Marsha and I, life did not begin with Letters From the Front.  Getting there has been a "long, winding road," and along that road we've encountered our fair share of successes, and many, many failures.  Each time we picked ourselves up out of the dust of one of those failures we could always count on two people to help brush us off, put us back on the trail, and give us two strong shoulders to lean on until we were reasonably sure-footed again.  Those two people were, and are, Jimmy and Kaye Baskin.

Jimmy and Kaye are not theatre people; they live in the "real" world.  But they are Gypsies in their hearts.  And they are our heroes.  Over the years, Marsha and I have watched in awe as this former aircraft mechanic and his high school sweetheart raised five children, put them all through college and retained their natural hair color.   When the small frame house they bought as newlyweds could no longer contain their brood, they simply added on a two story extension - building it by themselves!  It was this total self reliance, this unshakable belief in their own abilities to accomplish whatever they set out to do, that has been such an inspiration to Marsha and I.

Today Jimmy and Kaye are both retired after highly successful careers as executive types, and after spending two years working in Seoul, Korea and in Singapore.   They have journeyed throughout Europe and Asia, including China and Cambodia, and among other things have learned to ride both camels and elephants.  They have become avid RVers and spend weeks at a time touring the country. Their brood has expanded by four daughters-in-law, one son-in-law, and 13 grandchildren.  They have long since moved to a big house that somebody else built, and they always look forward to new challenges.

Jimmy and Kaye retain their adventurous spirit, their open-mindedness, and their acceptance and support of those who walk a different path than their own.  They are still young at heart and they are still sweethearts.  They are the all American couple.  They are our bedrock.

-- Robert Rector