Songs I Used to know

SOMEONE, just a few days ago, asked how much preparation was done before getting up on stage to play a song or three or four? Found, the evening after the question was asked, is this small piece of evidence from the archives. What it is, as any good coffeehouse musicologist could tell
you, is a big cheatsheet-playlist-songchart from about 1968.

Yes.

Kum by yah is on there.

The Sendoff

They threw your brother/uncle/cousin Brian a little sendoff this afternoon at St. Augustine’s. I went. I thought it would be a small affair, some cake, some coffee, a few old folks.

Uh. No.

I got there early, maybe I could help set up a table or something. Uh, No. There in the church basement was an army of volunteers. Some standing guard over the platters of food, some over by the steam table full of hot dishes, some getting ready to pour coffee from the four urns, some handing out the commemorative pens, some putting the finishing touches on the stacks of cookies and more people over by the big screen projection of what can only be described as An Unending Series of Thousand of Pictures of your brother/cousin/uncle Brian. Did I mention the commemorative pens? How about the long list of sponsors on the handout?


The people started coming through the doors at three. First, Brian was greeting them down by the hot dish tables, but someone mentioned that the line was out to the sidewalk, so he moved down to the middle of the hall and then they had him move all the way down to the stage, but the line of people, his people, kept growing. Few people in this life get to see a real community of love in love. I did today. I’ve never been prouder of anyone. Brian greeted every person by name, every one of them one of his favorites, every word important to him, every goodbye heartfelt, every wish he-didn’t-have-to-leave smiled at in a special way. On they came, the little old ladies, of course, but also some tough looking teary-eyed codgers and tall, strapping young men with families trying hard to find words to say without choking up. They did choke up a little. There were women holding the hands of babies, women holding onto their canes, women holding out their program for Brian to sign and kids, lots of kids, shyly getting a hug goodbye. It was hard to watch and a wonder to watch.

After an hour or so, the organizers decided it was time for some presentations. Brian went up on the stage. Nobody in the line moved. A fellow from the Knights of Columbus spoke a few words and there were some gifts opened, there was a plaque from the local police department thanking Brian for being part of the larger community of Seymour and a scrapbook from the fourth grade CCD class and a big book of remembrances from hundreds of people in the church.

Then they talked about the dumpster diving.

Apparently, unbeknownst to most of us but probably suspected by MaryEllen who just did a valiant job of helping Brian clear out his attic and closets of clutter for his move, the man is a trash picker, unable to walk by any large container of refuse without having a look-see. That’s where he found the window frame. A window frame, the bottom half of a window to be precise, and he brought it back the church after looking at it several times in a trash pile down the street.
Then it sat in the garage for a year. That’s when Alese, his devoted secretary, stole it.

They used it to frame a picture of the altar at St. Augustine’s which is perfectly appropriate and why there wasn’t a dry eye in the place. The altar, some of you may know this, is a combination of two other altars that Brian essentially found in trash heaps. Both the altar itself (hand carved marble Last Supper) and the solid wood backdrop, for lack of the correct word, were both lying discarded and unused in the basements of other Catholic churches. Brian rescued both and had them restored and installed at St. Augustine’s.

“I love this church and I love this altar and seeing it in this frame is a reminder to me,” Brian said to the crowd, “that when you get out of the way and let God lead, the wonders happen.” There was a nice explosion of applause.
I started watching all the pictures on the big screen. There was Brian with a beard, there was Brian without a beard, there was Brian with a huge hat, there was Brian wearing the oddest shirt ever sewn. Brian with kids, Brian with the people of Ghana, Brian in the statuary garden he made by the parking lot, Brian wearing a pink hat.

“He gave us back our church” people said to me, “He made us all feel like a family.” “And,” more than one said this, “He’s so much fun.”

Brian, meanwhile, was wrapping up the presentations by telling everyone the basics of his new life, yes, two parishes, some nights he doesn’t sleep at all, neither is air-conditioned—YET, and get this—they hand out the bulletins during mass---- the crowd roared----- family jokes, you know. Oh, and the cat is fine. When he started reciting his usual closing remarks from the end of mass the people recited it along with him laughing all the way to the “famous little table on the left.” More roaring. They were all with our brother/uncle/cousin because he has been their brother/son/father/uncle/listener/prodder/pleader/healer for all these years.

He went back to greeting people in the line. I don’t know when the line ended, it was just as long as it had been two hours before, and I had to leave for the city.

Tomorrow, Brian starts all over again up there in the corner of Connecticut.
Lucky them.

What Children Remember

I saw an article that reminded me, it's been forty years since I was sent for by the Commandant's Office at the Defense Language Institute at Monterey, California. I raced across the campus straightening my uniform tie and looking at the shine, or lack thereof, of my shoes, wondering what it could be? Surely they hadn't received a complaint from the Institute's chaplin? I did not know that girl was his daughter. Had our room failed inspection again? Goddamned that slob of a roommate!, I said as I trotted up the stairs.

"Who?" the sargent asked.
"Nation, Joe, Airman First Class, sir!"
"Oh yeah, your father called. Call him back. Phones're in the hall."

Have you ever seen frostbite? It's really interesting. The skin and the flesh under it get crystallized and they turn, in the parlance of 1967, a whiter shade of pale, but even whiter than that. I saw my face as I exited the office in one of those "Look Sharp!" mirrors,... it looked frostbitten.
I dropped two dimes in the slot.
My father had never called me before. Never. Not ever. I didn't remember him even using the phone, what could he be calling about??What was it?
Mom was sick. Oh my. Oh my God.
No, there'd been a horrible accident and she was on the edge of doom.
No, HE was sick and wanted to tell me himself.
No, all my brothers and sisters were upset that I had left without saying goodbye and they never wanted to speak to me again.
No. It had to be something really bad about Mom.

The phone rang twice. The operator came on.
"Uh, Joe Nation calling person to person collect to Ben."
"ThinkQ" she said and we waited.
The phone rang five more times.
There was a click and my father's voice said "Halo."
"You have a collect call from Joe Nation to Ben. Do you accept the charges?"
"Oh yeah. Sure." my father said, "Hello?"
"Hello," I said, "What wrong? Why did you call me?"
"There's nothing wrong."
"There's nothing wrong with Mom?"
"No! There's nothing wrong with anybody. I just had some news for you."
"What?"
(Oh, no, did that girl from Emerson call about carrying something of mine?)
"The Sox won the pennant."
"Wha?"
"The Red Sox are in the World Series. People are going crazy around here about it." "...um..Wow! That's great!"
"I thought you'd like to know. Been a long time coming."
"Yeah."
"Yaz hit like over .500 for the past two three weeks. It's been nuts."
"Wow, the Sox in the Series. I'll have to find a way to watch."
"Well, okay. It will be a good one." he said and then the line went dead.
"Dad,?" I said into the dead phone, "Thanks for calling me."

===
You never know what your children are going to remember, remember that.

Twenty years later I was telling this story to my brother and my father said he didn't even remember making the call.
"You said 'everybody was going crazy', maybe you got a little crazy?"
It was a crazy time, 1967, crazy and going to get crazier, but as I walked back to my language class on the edge of the war I felt a little connected to the real world.