Now before i really begin this post, i want everyone to know, i am not and have never considered myself a knowledgeable person concerning classical music.

i like a lot of it, have a whole bunch of records and CDs of it, but i am, at the heart of things, a good ole Tennessee small town boy, and i often wonder how i got so into music of all kinds, like a lot but master of none.

My first recollection of classical music, besides “Fantasia,” which i never really appreciated until i met Maureen, came from Uncle Pipey. James Orr, son of Rockwood’s (East Tennessee) Presbyterian minister, went to Cumberland University in Lebanon, received his engineering degree and the hand of another Cumberland student, Evelyn Prichard, mother’s oldest sister.

The Orr’s eventually ended up in White Oak and then Red Bank on the north side of Chattanooga. So as far back as i can remember, the Jewell’s of Lebanon would travel to Chattanooga  for the weekend about every other month and the Orr’s would return the favor traveling to Lebanon, roughly on the alternate month.

When Uncle Pipey, so named because assembling and fixing pipe organs was his hobby and he was good at it being an engineer and all, Aunt Evelyn, and Nancy and Johnny moved across the street in White Oak to Red Bank, they had a music center in the corner of the living room next to the front door. i was approaching teenhood, and Nancy and Johnny had reached it. So that record player in the corner had a lot of 45-RPM records being played when we were there.

But occasionally, the wire recording machine on top of the record player would be playing classical music and opera. These wire recordings, predecessors to the reel-to-reel tapes i guess, were Uncle Pipey’s. i recall thinking this stuff was in no way as good as rock ‘n roll and being impressed with how erudite Uncle Pipey must be to like that stuff.

Up until my freshman year at Vanderbilt, that was pretty much my exposure to classical music. i listened to and loved rock ‘n roll. i also became a huge fan of the blues, listening to late night blues on WLAC radio long after i was supposed to be asleep. i disdained country music, like most i disdain today. Now i like the old country music, especially bluegrass but find the new country too commercial. As noted, classical music was not a blip on my radar screen.

Then Cy Fraser and i ended up in the same fraternity. Cy, among others, was the guy who taught me how to fit in at Vanderbilt. My white socks disappeared except for athletics. My wardrobe changed from Levis to blue and tan slacks in the warmer months, and gray wool slacks in colder times. White and light blue Gant button down collared shirts with that useless hanger thingy in the back at the top of the pleats were de riguer except when short-sleeve madras button downs were worn when it was warm. They too sported button down collars. Cordovan Weejuns, shined with black shoe polish was damn near a requirement. V-neck sweaters and a London Fog jacket were part of the new me. i was transformed from a hick, at some considerable expense to my parents, who magically became sort of cool and maybe hinted at debonair, although i really don’t think it helped that much.

Cy and i hit it off. That first semester we would go to our and others dorm rooms and play 45-RPM’s with a catch. You tried to be first to name the song, the singer or group, the label, the label’s description, and the year and location of the recording. i was pretty good, but Cy was the recognized champion across the campus. He could be walking to class and co-eds would stop him, hum a few bars, and challenge him to name the song. He always succeeded and added our other elements to his answer.

But Cy’s music knowledge was not limited to the top forty. i later discovered he had an amazing knowledge about almost every genre. Much later, i found out he knew more about Western swing than i did, and that was when i was in the heart of it, line dancing at the Lakeside hall outside of College Station, Texas while my regular job was the senior Navy officer at Texas A&M’s NROTC unit.

Back at Vanderbilt in the spring of that first year of my learning, which had almost nothing to do with academics, Billy, the “Agent” a.k.a. the “Avigator,” Parsons and i went looking for Cy “Flyface” Fraser — i was called “Junior Jock” — in, of all places, the library. We wandered into the music section, and there was Cy with headphones in a cubicle, directing to his heart’s content, and yes, he was listening to Dvořák’s “New World Symphony.” i listened enough to realize i had come across one of my favorite pieces of music…ever.

Later that spring, Cy introduced me to Handel’s “Water Music.” So my LP record collection became even more eclectic. i added the “New World” and “Water Music” to Joe Tex, Jackie Gleason’s “Oooh,” Nina Simone’s “Nina’s Choice,” the first Bob Dylan album (even though i agreed with the bluegrass band The Dillards (their fame was enhanced by being on “The Andy Griffith Show”) who said Dylan sang like a bluetooth hound with his leg caught in barbwire), added to a pretty good collection of 45’s (this was before i became WCOR’s disc jockey and amassed a pretty large collection of 45’s and LP’s).

i have had three LP’s and three CD’s of Antonin Dvořák’s masterpiece. i wore the earlier ones out listening to them when reading, mostly with Faulkner, and writing.

But sometimes now, i will sit down in the rarely used living room club chair next to the fireplace, put on my wireless headphones, and just sit and listen to Dvořák’s Ninth. Unlike Cy, i don’t direct. Just reflect. It always makes me feel good, calm, at peace.

Last night, for the first time in person, i listened again. This time in Copley Symphony Hall in downtown San Diego, Cristian Măcelaru conducting the San Diego Symphony. i was discreetly swaying a little bit somewhere in the third movement, tapping my feet softly, when i realized the orchestra was a bit blurry. i thought it was my contacts, which i wear to stage presentations, working on home tasks, skiing, and golf. But then it dawned on me while i still was simply into the music, there were tears of joy welling up.

Thank you, Cy for giving me that dream, and thank you, Maureen for making a dream come true.

Back in wonderful, magical Watertown, New York in 1970, i gained a close friend named Earl Weideman. He was a teacher in the town where his family were long time residents. i was a sports writer and then sports editor of The Watertown Daily Times.

Somehow, we connected, probably through John Johnson, my Vanderbilt friend who got me my job, and then Earl and i ran around together frequently. He and i met for drinks at a nice bar downtown when i was accosted by a young woman when she found out i had taken part in the pizza rating contest two writers had conducted and written about in the paper. She was distressed that her favorite pizza joint finished last. We had to leave the bar. The story had run six months earlier.

Earl was the guy who celebrated the birth of my daughter Blythe with me. Back then, the dad was not allowed in the delivery room. They rolled Kathie out with Blythe just after she was born at 9:35 p.m. After i spent a brief time, all that was allowed, with them, i met Earl for a celebratory drink, which lasted way too long into the morning.

Shortly before Blythe was born, Earl took Kathie and me by boat out to the island his family owned in the Thousand Islands chain at the confluence of Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. Earlier in the year, he had offered to drive us out to the island on the ice that formed each winter. i declined and probably would have done it the next winter, but my life had changed course, and i was back in the Navy before the next winter.

This photo was taken in front of the cabin’s fireplace. i am imitating Art Metrano, the deranged magician who frequently performed on “The Tonight Show” humming “Fine and Dandy” while displaying his fingers as if they were jumping from one hand to the other.

Earl was a perfect little goofy for being a school teacher. i wanted to remain his friend and stay in contact because he was so much fun and good hearted. But the Navy and life away from Watertown took over. We lost contact even though i thought about him a lot.

So when i was scanning this photo for filing and organizing, i decided to look him up on the internet. Earl died in 2005 after retiring two years earlier from his teaching position at Beaumont (California) High School. i could have been spending time with him easily as Beaumont is about eighty miles east of Los Angeles, roughly 120 miles from my home. His son apparently lives here in San Diego.

He has been gone almost a dozen years. i am suffering from delayed sadness. But boy, did we have fun together in Watertown a long time ago.

i won’t forget him.

Twenty years ago today, our families gathered together in the sanctuary of Central Christian Church in Austin. It was a perfect day for a perfect union.

The bride’s walk down the aisle was to Handel’s “Water Music.” i think Blythe chose it independently of it being one of my two favorite pieces of classical music.

The ceremony was beautiful with my brother Joe as the pastor and Blythe and Jason the bride and groom.

Later at  the reception as the father of the bride, i gave a toast predicting their marriage was a union much like Blythe’s grandparents’ marriage. Jimmy and Estelle Jewell became as one and lived that way for seventy-five years. Blythe and Jason, with the Samuel James Jewell Gander as an addition, have been in theirs for twenty years. Thus far, my toast prediction has held true. and i hope they make it together for seventy-five years. i actually think they will.

They are funny together and different. When they argue, it is wonderful to watch them make up. Their love and parenting for Sam is unparalleled makes one grandpa proud and sure Sam will succeed in his life because of their parenting and love.

It is simply wonderful to watch them together. As someone once said in one of the best films of all time: “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

Just oh so much more.

Congratulations you two. i love you.

papa

Very early this morning, i discovered my shipmate from the Hawkins, Rob DeWitt got up as early in Maine as i do in the Southwest corner.

He had seen my post with the photos from my Aunt Bettye Kate Hall’s album and remarked, “Simpler times.”

i replied on his Facebook comment, and then decided i wished to share it publicly in case his and my comments on the post were missed. My expanded response:

They were simpler times, Rob DeWitt, but we tend to remember the good things and forget the bad. Still this group of men and women, as i am sure your parents did also, had a much simpler, black and white, more straightforward approach to the world, couched in good principles. There was more disease, less knowledge, and underlying and often outright bigotry, and prejudice, and sometimes, to paraphrase Bob Seger, i wish i didn’t know now what they didn’t know then, but from here it seems they were closer to the right thing than we are today.

It seems to me that generation was truly the “Greatest Generation” as dubbed by Tom Brokaw. But i don’t necessarily apply that term for the war effort. i apply it for i believe their core belief of equality brought about our considering what equality for all really meant. They were a long way from it, but their innate goodness taught their children true right from wrong, leading to the next step. Even those with darker skins taught their children they deserved equality.

Our generation and those following us have drawn lines in the sand, digging in, ready to fight for OUR rights, not theirs. We are divided in every which way and there is no attempt to try and understand, “walk in the customer’s shoes” so to speak, or watch and listen to the underlying problems experienced by the other side. No one is willing to take his foot and brush away those lines in the sand.

Our generation, many of all persuasions saw a need to protest injustice. You, Andrew, and i were serving our country, meeting our obligation, and were consequently removed from that protest, but it was needed. It began an honest effort to rid us of inequality, but somehow, it has led to division, not unity.

Now it seems equality is pretty much described accurately by Mose Allison in his song “Mercy.” “Everybody’s crying justice, just as long as they get theirs first.”

As noted several times, i could not bring myself to vote for any of the four candidates. i did not trust any of them. My non-vote, i hoped in some small way, demonstrated my disappointment in the choices. My wife, daughters, and many others, are fearful of Trump becoming president. i am not. Why? i trust the system, the process.

We have swung back and forth in our politics since Jefferson’s Democratic Republicans and Hamilton’s Federalists sought for control of the system. If Trump holds firm on his ridiculous campaign promises, the system, the process, will take care of him. i suspect that will happen, and i hope if it does, the two parties will recognize the need to cooperate, not posture and continue to draw their stupid lines in the sand.

i don’t like the electoral college. It had its purpose, although that purpose is fuzzy to me. But it is our system and we must, must abide by it. Those who are now protesting are in effect saying they don’t desire to abide by our system. If they don’t, then they should leave or work to make the system better, work together so the process is better, not complain because they didn’t get what they wanted.

Yes, it was simpler times back in 1941. The country was uniting to defeat the threat to our freedom, and uniting was necessary to ensure that freedom. Now we have a bigger threat. No, even though ISIS and extremists from many cultures and religions, including ours are serious threats, our real threat was clearly predicted years ago by Pogo, the main character of Walt Kelly’s brilliant comic strip, when he declared:

“We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Still, these folks pictured in the Smoky Mountains in 1942 were wonderful, incredible people in simpler times. i like them better than what we have now. But then, i wasn’t there; i’m here. Perhaps my vision is blurred by the beauty of the memories.

But i will continue to try and live like they taught me.

i am working on my Tuesday column in The Lebanon Democrat, and will add more comments on my trip when the column is published. But here is evidence of a special moment. Pete Toennies and Jim and Sharon Hileman joined me for a barbecue at Deborah and Frank Kerrigan‘s wonderful home in La Quinta.

Jim, Pete, and Marty Linville are the three good golfers in our foursome for the San Diego Telephone Company Golf Association. We rendezvous in the desert in each year for the “Year Ender,” a two-day tournament of fun and games. Frank and Deborah kindly included us in their dinner with friends. Marty and Linda Linville were driving from San Diego and not being sure they would make it in time, i failed to ask them to join us.

There were some legends created at the dinner, which is pretty close to invariable when this foursome goes to the desert. But there was a very special moment for me.  After the great meal and lots of talk, Frank goes to the kitchen and comes back with two beers.

They were “Tusker” beers. Frank and i drank a number of Tusker beers together in Mombassa, Kenya in early 1984. It brought back special memories for me. As noted here earlier, Frank and i had a symbiotic relationship during those eight months of deployment to the Indian Ocean aboard the U.S.S. Yosemite (AD 19). That Frank remembered and actually found two Tusker beers in the desert was pretty remarkable.

Seems that symbiotic thing is still going on.