The wedding is today!

The rehearsal and rehearsal dinner were last night. The church looks beautiful. Simple, but elegant. This morning, besides writing this post, I’m doing last-minute run-throughs on the piano of Debussy’s Clair de Lune and Liszt’s Liebestraum and Rachmaninoff’s Eighteenth Variation from “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini” and Reverie (Debussy again) and Albert Hay Malotte’s The Lord's Prayer and Bach-Gounod’s Ave Maria on which I am accompanying one of the violinists (who are also playing Dona Nobis Pacem and Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring and Pachelbel’s Canon in D, all unaccompanied). This is going to be quite a wedding. There are trumpets in there, too, when Meredith, the bride, makes her entrance.

I also need to run through some of the dreamy, romantic music for the reception one more time: Stardust, All the Things You Are, The Way You Look Tonight, Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing, The Nearness of You, When I Fall In Love, If I Loved You, and while we have the italic font all warmed up, et cetera, et cetera, ad infinitum. I have to polish my black shoes to wear with the tuxedo (I don’t have patent leather), take the dog to his favorite doggie-dude-ranch (a 40-minute round trip) as we will be going out of town for three days early tomorrow morning, wash our clothes for the trip, shower, wash my hair (not much to do there), shave, and dress. The wedding is at 4:30 p.m. and the prelude music begins at 4:00 or thereabouts, so we have to leave home before 3:00 so that I can run through the piece with the violinist one more time.

For the rehearsal dinner, the groom’s parents picked one of the best restaurants in town. The building formerly housed a funeral home. I kid you not. We ate shrimp and grits (don’t laugh; it’s a southern main dish and it was scrumptious!) but the water smelled a little like formaldehyde (now you can laugh).

And I’m sitting here at the computer taking a fifteen-minute break from the piano. Mrs. Rhymeswithplague is working on her hugely intricate counted-cross-stitch that uses 53 colors. Fortunately, Jeannelle turned off comments on her blog today, so I can return to practicing the piano now with my “Must Reply” switch in the off position.

This has been One Day In The Life Of Rhymeswithplague (with apologies to Ivan Denisovich and also Aleksandr Solzhenitzyn), and it’s not over yet. In fact, it’s just beginning.

Well, my fingers are hardly what you would call rested, but I hear the ivories calling my name.

(Note to myself: Try to use fewer parenthetic expressions.)

Missed the boat, dropped the ball, blew it

No Tuesday ramblings this week. We had an overnight guest on Monday, an old classmate of mine who was on the way back to Texas from North Carolina. This particular guest has been the editor of our “Class of 1958” Newsletter for the past five years (and has done a terrific job, by the way), served on a planning committee for the class’s 50th Reunion back in May, and even provided some of the day’s entertainment. So with all the housecleaning and cooking and welcoming and visiting and eating and, yes, the sitting-up-late talking that took place, Tuesday slipped by, blogwise.

Today all is back to normal. After not having had a drop of rain for more than a month, it’s raining and the weather folks say to expect at least an inch. Much needed, and long overdue.

The leaves are beginning to turn in north Georgia, the sky is blue (except today), and the air is cool and crisp. I love October.

Nothing earth-shattering is going on around here, except that since I will be playing for a wedding and a reception this weekend, there’ll be a bit of extra piano-playing going on for the next few days. Can’t promise I’ll get to the blog, and can’t promise I won't.

Carry on, world.

The Most Romantic LP Ever Made

First of all, if you’re asking “What’s an LP?” you need to go find another blog to read.

This is just one person’s opinion, of course, and there’s no accounting for taste. De gustibus non est disputandum, and all that. I get it. For example, Mrs. RWP always used to enjoy listening to Johnny Mathis. But my vote for the most romantic 33-1/3 revolutions-per-minute long-playing (LP) vinyl record album ever made goes to one recorded in December 1956 and released in 1957. I got mine through the Columbia Record Club. With the Gorden Jenkins Orchestra doing the accompaniment honors, it was -- drum roll, please! -- Love Is the Thing by Nat King Cole. Back in those days, there were no videos to watch when you listened to music, and no CDs or DVDs or iPods or iPhones, either -- nothing, nada, zilch. You had to make up your own mental videos as you listened.

There was just something about the husky, grainy voice of the REAL king (Elvis, eat your heart out) coupled with those banks of cascading strings that got me every time. Wikipedia puts it this way: The singer’s “restrained vocal approach” and the arranger’s “unhurried string charts” combined to produce a romantic album of enduring popularity. You can say that again.

But don’t just take my word for it. Listen to these songs (they were all on that album):

“Love Is The Thing”

“When I Fall In Love”

“Star Dust”

Someone has put together a video of literal star dust with the last one, along with photos of the song’s composer. Can you name him? The composer, I mean, not the video maker.

You’re free to disagree, of course. De gustibus non est disputandum. But as a former pastor of ours used to say, “Can I help it if you’re wrong?”

Here’s further evidence that 1957 was a very good year:
Nat King Cole music, a brand-new turquoise ’57 Chevy, and the girl of my dreams in my arms. At the time, one out of three wasn't bad. Not bad at all.

Somehow my copy of the most romantic LP ever made, the one I purchased from the Columbia Record Club in 1957, took up residence at my son’s house several years ago as part of his extensive record collection.

[Addendum: Just for the record (no pun intended), I wasn’t personally in love with Nat King Cole. Just his voice. Somehow, when he sang, it was me singing. And he wasn’t singing to me. He, er, I was singing to my idealized, perfect, absent, non-existent girlfriend. I just wanted to make that perfectly clear! Oh, and one other thing: I would not want to go back and re-live my teenage years for all the tea in China.]

[Addendum #2: I tried to find a YouTube clip of the most romantic song on the most romantic LP ever made, but I couldn’t. I did find the lyrics, however. Here they are:

That’s All
by Alan Brandt and Bob Haymes

I can only give you love that lasts forever
And a promise to be near each time you call,
And the only heart I own
For you and you alone,
That’s all, that’s all.

I can only give you country walks in springtime
And a hand to hold when leaves begin to fall,
And a love whose burning light
Will warm the winter night,
That’s all, that’s all.

There are those, I am sure, that have told you
They would give you the world for a toy.
All I have are these arms to enfold you
And a love time can never destroy.

If you’re wondering what I'm asking in return, dear,
You’ll be glad to know that my demands are small.
Say it’s me that you’ll adore
For now and ever more,
That’s all, that’s all.]

[Addendum #3: As for my fantasy girl fantasizing about me, Peggy Lee singing “And Then My Heart Stood Still” tops the list.]

An important day in (my) history

Fifty-one years ago today, something happened that affected everyone in the world, and something else happened that affected very few but changed my life completely.

On Friday, October 4, 1957, the Russians launched a rocket that put an unmanned satellite named Sputnik into orbit around the earth. It circled the globe once every ninety minutes and people were both amazed and frightened. The Space Age had begun, and the Russians got there first. A great emphasis on science and mathematics began in American schools, along with a great decline in the liberal and fine arts. Who would need music and drama and painting when the barbarians were at the gates? People were abuzz. The world had changed forever.

I didn’t find out about Sputnik for three days because on Friday, October 4, 1957, at about 7:30 in the morning, something else happened. My mother died. She had been in St. Joseph’s hospital in Fort Worth for nearly a month, the latest hospitalization in her eight long years of battling cancer. We had known for about a year that she was, as they say, terminal. She was forty-seven years old. I was sixteen. Nothing has been the same since. My world, like the larger world, had changed forever.

Some people say time heals all wounds. They are wrong.

Parting
by Emily Dickinson

My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If immortality unveil
A third event to me

So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.

A serious question

Can anyone tell me why Blogger reduces the number of spaces after a sentence? And is there a way to override that particular (and particularly) annoying attribute of our not-always-dearly-beloved Blogger? I guess that’s two questions. Here’s what I mean:

This sentence has one space typed after it. Here’s another sentence.
This sentence has two spaces typed after it. Here’s another sentence.
This sentence has three spaces typed after it. Blah blah ditto.

Do you see any difference? I am frustrated.

All other ground is sinking sand

The American presidential election, held quadrennially, will take place one month from tomorrow, on November 4th. Millions of words have been written about both candidates and their running mates. I do not propose to add any of my own. I don’t erect signs in my yard or attach bumper stickers to my car. I don’t respond to probes from inquisitive poll-takers. I will vote according to the dictates of my conscience in the privacy of the voting booth. I believe in the secret ballot. Yes, this election is historic and we will soon have either our first black president or our first female vice-president, but what I think, as Billie Holiday used to sing, “Ain’t nobody's business but my own.” How in the world could I have become so un-American? As Yul Brynner once said in The King and I, “Is...a PUZZLEMENT!”

For a completely different take, all you have to do is read Sherry’s blog. She seems to prefer the shrill and strident approach in letting you know exactly what she thinks in political matters, being a graduate of the Joy Behar school of communication and all. I’m not going to provide you with a link to Sherry’s blog or a photograph of Joy Behar. I do try to maintain certain standards. (Sherry, if you’re reading this, I’m joking, sort of. Joy, if you’re reading this, I’ll be one very surprised blogger.)

But that’s not why I started this post. Here’s why: I think Dr. Scot McKnight, a professor at North Park University in Chicago, has written an excellent post today on the JesusCreed blog called “Where is our hope?” and I further think that every American who calls himself or herself a Christian would benefit from clicking on that link.

See, sometimes I do manage to say what I think.

Sam Walter Who?

My cyberspace friend, Jeannelle of Iowa, not to be confused with Eleanor of Aquitaine, made a trip to Nashua, Iowa, last Sunday to take photographs for a blogpost she had in mind. Today she posted it. She has written a wonderful account of The Little Brown Church In The Vale, complete with the photographs she took last Sunday. And Jeannelle, being the thoroughly thorough person she is, covered both the history of the actual church and the story of the composer of the old hymn, “The Church in the Wildwood,” which begins, “There's a church in the valley by the wildwood, No lovelier spot in the dale; No place is so dear to my childhood As the little brown church in the vale.” To see and read Jeannelle’s engaging presentation, click here. Be sure to click on her link to The Cyber Hymnal to listen to the hymn tune and read all the verses.

And so I am going to write today about Sam Walter Foss.

No, Sam Walter Foss is not the person who built the church. No, he’s not the person who pastors the church. And no, he’s not the person who wrote the hymn. So who is he? I will tell you who he is, or rather, who he was.

Sam Walter Foss was a librarian. He was a poet. He was an editor for the Boston Globe in the nineteenth century. He was born in 1858 and died in 1911. Many of us of a certain age had to memorize his best-known poem in school. Thanks to Jeannelle’s post, I now know that on the middle step of the three steps leading to the front door of The Little Brown Church in the Vale in Nashua, Iowa, is engraved a line from that very poem: “Let me live by the side of the road and be a friend to man.” His name follows, but it is misspelled. The line chiseled in the step is credited, strangely, to Sam Fosse.

The poem, in case you never heard of it (and I suppose many younger people have not), is entitled “The House By The Side Of The Road.” It is not great poetry. The critics would call it homely, homespun, folksy, sentimental, simple, maudlin, sing-songy and lots of other adjectives (vapid, banal), and even though many of their criticisms are true, I love it.

Here it is. Can you spot the Biblical references?


The House By The Side Of The Road
by Sam Walter Foss

There are hermit souls that live withdrawn
In the place of their self-content;
There are souls like stars, that dwell apart,
In a fellowless firmament;
There are pioneer souls that blaze the paths
Where highways never ran --
But let me live by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.

Let me live in a house by the side of the road
Where the race of men go by --
The men who are good and the men who are bad,
As good and as bad as I.
I would not sit in the scorner’s seat
Nor hurl the cynic’s ban --
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.

I see from my house by the side of the road
By the side of the highway of life,
The men who press with the ardor of hope,
The men who are faint with the strife,
But I turn not away from their smiles and tears,
Both parts of an infinite plan --
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.

I know there are brook-gladdened meadows ahead,
And mountains of wearisome height;
That the road passes on through the long afternoon
And stretches away to the night.
And still I rejoice when the travelers rejoice
And weep with the strangers that moan,
Nor live in my house by the side of the road
Like a man who dwells alone.

Let me live in my house by the side of the road,
Where the race of men go by-
They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong,
Wise, foolish -- so am I.
Then why should I sit in the scorner’s seat,
Or hurl the cynic’s ban?
Let me live in my house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.

Actually, here’s the house I had in mind:
Photo © Benoist Sébire