In the 1980s, oil prices dropped dramatically [https://www.fdic.gov/bank/historical/history/291_336.pdf] causing a major economic downturn in the state of Texas. I was living in Texas (Austin) at that time and in 1988 there was a slew of bank failures. This did not trickle down to the arts, it slammed the arts. I lost the majority of my piano students (probably because they were paying for the lessons with their discretionary income and they no longer had any discretionary income), my gig at the Holiday Inn had diminished to playing on holidays only, and the only work I had lined up for the summer was music directing one melodrama.
I don’t know where I’d heard about this or how I got the idea, but sometime at the beginning of 1988 I had submitted the extensive application to work as a Federal employee at Wolf Trap Performing Arts Park. I was hired to work backstage just a few days before they wanted me to begin. They brought me in after the season had begun; my first day was Sunday, June 19. My friends who were producing the melodrama were very understanding of my withdrawing from their project and my mother was happy to have me come live at her house in Hagerstown, Maryland, commuting distance from the Park in Vienna, Virginia.
I was the oldest person working in the particular area to which I was assigned; all of the others working in this same area were college students. We were all hired as official Park Rangers (GS-3s), but we were not issued uniforms because the performing artists didn’t like having backstage people dressed in Park Ranger uniforms.
The number of encounters I had and the stories I could tell about this one summer could probably fill a book. This article will give you an idea of what a stellar summer this was: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1988/04/28/wolf-traps-summer-fare/f3ea5d4c-5efd-45b3-b51a-db82407de232/
The summer of 1988 was a turning point in my career. I had always planned to move to New York City, even keeping my cats indoors to prepare them for apartment living, but I had no specific date in mind. I knew that I would know when I was ready and I was ready after my summer at Wolf Trap.
