So last Saturday afternoon … my wife, son and I are sweating in the shade underneath our backyard deck, after triple-teaming the mowing and trimming in the high heat.
They ask me to come up with something fun for the evening.
This never happens.
They usually don’t trust me with The Decisions.
Admittedly, my track record’s … spotty.
Heat must’ve been fogging their judgement.
Sensing a fleeting moment, I brainstormed in earnest.
Found a movie I thought might fit the Venn diagram of our disparate interests — low-stakes, light-comedy with slapstick potential … no heavy themes or deep thinking required.
Showing in Squirrel Hill at their delightful, restored (and air-conditioned) downtown theater none of us had ever been to.
5:30 showing.
About an hour’s drive away from where we were sitting and sweating at 3:30 in the afternoon.
Gave us a good hour to get cleaned up.
Ran the idea past the committee, along with a suggestion for dinner afterwards.
No violent objections.
“Want me to buy tickets?”
Nods.
“We’ll have to leave by 4:30. Everybody good with that?”
Before locking it in, I made each of them give me a verbal … like they do for exit rows.
So four-thirty comes.
I’m showered, dressed and ready.
Karry, too.
I look out the window and see my son standing in the driveway.
Changing his oil.
I do a double-take.
Initiate seething protocols.
Walk outside.
Say the dumbest thing I can think of.
“You’re not changing your oil,” I say to the grown adult standing in front of me … holding a jug of oil.
Which prompts the following exchange
He: Be done in a minute.
Me: It’s 4:30.
He: It’s not going to take us an hour to get there.
Me: (clenching jaw, taking several seconds to locate the shit in my mind that I am losing … before temporarily regaining the power of speech) There are few things I hate more than missing the start of a movie. Just sharing the fact of that with you.
I turn and go back inside.
Seething level: roiling boil.
I can’t help myself.
The prospect of being late while waiting for others has always made me spiral.
When my oldest was younger, I spent a lot of time spiraling.
Oh, was he a dawdler.
Among the greatest of his generation.
No amount of yelling or cajoling could ever make him move any faster.
He kept time according to his own internal clock. Remarkably, he never let it stress him, either … no matter how much or how loudly it stressed those around him.
Pretty much grew out of it by college, though.
I hadn’t seen any evidence of it for years.
So … finding him in the driveway changing his oil at Agreed-Upon-Go-Time … reminded me how awfully I used to deal with it when I was a younger parent.
I knew (and remembered) enough to know that if I let Seething Protocols reach Def Con Hot Magma, the evening would not turn out well for anyone ….
And I could kiss any future contributions to The Decisions goodbye.
It was at that moment that Jim’s letter caught my eye, lying on the dining room table.
Had come in the mail that day.
It’d been weeks since I’d since I’d heard from him, since I’d last sent him something I’d written.
Knowing he’s in his 90s, and having come to expect his prompt (and extraordinarily wonderful) replies, I feared that maybe he’d been having health issues.
So when I saw his familiar hand-writing on the front of the envelope while fishing the day’s mail from the box, it immediately sparked both relief and joy.
Accompanying his letters are always recent poems he’s written. He writes them all out by hand, in near-calligraphic quality. Sends me photo copies.
I keep them all in an overflowing manilla envelope in the top drawer of the desk where I’m typing this.
He writes so beautifully and unflinchingly about his long life, about growing old. His verse bursts with both aliveness and ache, his words suffused with such wise noticings.
I hope to someday write as well as Jim does in his 90s.
While walking back from the mailbox, I decided on the spot to wait to open his letter … to give my Sunday something to look forward to.
But seeing it lying on the dining room table while feeling the minutes tick further and further past our agreed-upon departure, I could think of no better way to invest whatever time it would take for my son to shower and get dressed.
So I reached for Jim’s letter like it was a life preserver.
Which it was.
In every sense of the words.
I was right … he had had a health scare.
He wrote me from his bed at Washington Hospital, where he’d spent the previous four days in the care of doctors working to reduce the fluid in his lungs from his weakening heart.
“Many tests, few new answers, long-time problem.”
He was hoping to go home on the day he was writing me.
Yet, as he always does in his lovely letters, he described the beauty he was finding in the world around him.
Started by telling me how much he was enjoying the quality and variety of food they served him. And how grateful he was for the care and the company of the staff.
And then, this …
“Jesus, talks of ‘The least of these,’ … helping, dealing with, the least, lowest of these.
Allie, hospital pusher of wheelchairs, lowest of lowest hospital staff, pushing me today … 30-33 years old, plain, drab reddish color uniform.
My inquisitiveness, ‘Is Allie a short version of your full name?’
‘Yes.”
Silence.
‘Is your full name Alicia?’
‘Yes! You are the first person in my life to guess my full name!’
Amazed smile, new relationship … between lowly patient, and lowly pusher.
And another blessed, new friend today, to share my 91 years — of God’s gifts!”
The weakening but still beating heart of a humbled soul still fully alive and leaning his flickering candle to the world around him.
His words immediately reminded me of my Dad, who, even when — especially when — he was at his most vulnerable, would go out of his way to make the people around him feel good.
“Boy you’re good at this,” I remember him saying to the hospice caregiver while she was changing the sheets in his bed with him still in it.
“You sure know your way around this place,” I remember him saying to the orderly whisking him in his wheelchair during one of his frequent hospital visits.
To remain fully present to the world around you when forces are conspiring against you, even when you are at your most vulnerable?
Well, let’s just say that there’s a lot to be learned from the Jims and Neal Riddells of the world.
And from all those who keep time according to their own internal clocks.
Jim’s words convicted me.
Doused holy water on my Seething Protocols.
Reminded me that there are far more dire circumstances than being a few minutes late to a movie.
And, most importantly, reminded me to appreciate the blessings of our days.
Of triple-tag-teaming the yardwork.
Sitting and sweating in the shade.
Getting to choose.
Watching the Greatest Dawdler of All Time … still perfecting his craft.
By the time Jim’s Saturday sermon finished reading me, I was as grateful as an old army chaplain for the variety of hospital food he would soon be missing.
For the record, it was 4:43 when we locked the back door behind us.
As I spied Peter’s car in the corner of the driveway, I pointed to the empty bottle of motor oil resting on the ground in front of its grill.
Said to my son what I imagined my Dad would’ve said.
“Boy, you’re pretty good at taking care of your car.”
No heavy themes or deep-thinking required.
Thirty-nine minutes later … we walked into the darkened and wonderfully air-conditioned Theater #4 at the Manor.
Was saddened to learn of the recent passings of a couple humans who were both significant figures in my musical growings up … Bob Mascia and Ralph Bill. Sending love and condolences to their families and to all that loved them and will miss them.
They both influenced a ton of young musicians, having both served as band directors at Brownsville High School. I believe Bob may have actually followed Ralph in the role.
I was not one of their band students.
And I only really knew them for a fraction of my life, which was even a smaller fraction of theirs. But though I hadn’t seen either in decades, knowing them was — and will always remain — meaningful.
As does the fact that I’m writing this on an otherwise nameless summer Sunday afternoon.
__
I was 13 years old and standing in the kitchen after school one day while Mom was getting dinner ready.
When Dad came home from Sherwin Williams, walked in the kitchen and promptly informed me — outta nowhere — that he’d signed me up for drum lessons. And that he’d already met with the teacher, and made it clear that I was to learn all styles of music, “not just rock,” (I can still hear Dad’s voice emphasizing those words) … including waltzes, bossa novas, cha-chas, rhumbas, tangos, and of course, jazz and swing.
The specificity with which he relayed his expectations made it all feel like a foregone conclusion. But I was an agreeable kid, and drums were cool … so my reaction was along the lines of, “Ok.”
Bob was my drum teacher. He graduated high school with my older sister Missy (she reminded me that Bob played the lead in the high school musical their senior year – The Music Man — while she played piano).
At the time of Dad’s kitchen conversation, Bob was playing steady in a local rock band and filling in with a few others, including the group my Dad played with — Sammy Bill’s Orchestra.
Gave drum lessons on the side downtown at Ellis’ Music Store.
First thing I learned?
Drums don’t start cool.
I got a pair of sticks and a rubber pad the size of a piece of Texas Toast.
Was informed that I had to learn snare drum before I’d be allowed anywhere near a set. For my parents, it was like a stay of execution.
Bob taught me how to read music, how to count quarter notes, eighths and sixteenths, what triplets were, how to bounce my sticks for open rolls. Graduated me to Charles Wilcoxin’s rudiments … paradiddles, drags and ruffs, and rolls of every dynamic, shape and size: fives, sevens, nines, seventeens, with an odd eleven and thirteen thrown in for good measure(s).
I was always somewhere between good and bad, never quite religious in my practicing.
But I stuck with it.
And a couple years into lessons, Dad surprised with the best Christmas present I’d ever receive — a set of Pearl drums from Ellis’.
I began alternating my weekly lessons with Bob between set and snare.
I remember my very first lesson on set, Bob teaching me the building blocks of how to assemble a couple basic beats.
Eighth notes on the hi-hat with my left hand (I’m a lefty), backbeat on two and four with my right on the snare, opening the high hat with my right foot on the ‘and’ of one and closing it on ‘two.’ Gave me two variations for the bass drum — four on the floor, and an alternate where the kick drum hit on “one” and “three-and.”
I still remember the exhilaration of the first time getting all four limbs to hold a groove.
It was a teenager’s equivalent of pedaling a bike under your own power for the first time. The inexpressible freedom that comes from being responsible for your own locomotion in the world. I can tell you the feeling’s the same whether the locomotion is physical or sonic. The Big Bang it was to me.
At last, drums were cool.
Occasionally I’d arrive a few minutes early for my Saturday morning lesson, climb to the top of the steps and find Bob just messing around on the kit.
Oh, was he a monster.
Every time I heard him play, from the first time to whenever the last may have been, I was in awe.
Got to hear him play once with Sam’s band. Though he held back for the kind of dance music they performed, he still couldn’t help overflowing the banks with his prowess.
It’s hard to keep a Ferrari tame.
__
Fast forward to the summer after ninth grade.
I was in the kitchen on an otherwise nameless Sunday afternoon, Mom fixing an early dinner since Dad had a gig that night. They played every third Sunday at the Moose in Perryopolis, three easy hours for an always appreciative crowd. Dad always loved that gig.
It had rained all afternoon, torrential summer thunderstorms … the kind that percussively pummeled and waterfalled rain on the aluminum awning on our tiny front porch.
The phone rang and I remember walking from the kitchen to answer it. It was Sam, calling to let my Dad know that the Moose had lost power from the storms and that the gig was cancelled.
I remember Dad being bummed, but also relieved to get his Sunday night back so he could prep for work the next day.
About 45 minutes later, we were eating dinner at the table when the phone rang again. It was Sam calling back to say that the power had come back on at the Moose … so the gig was on.
So Dad resumed his gig-prep ritual, getting a shower, doing his teeth (which took a good 30-45 minutes. I’m not sure there was ever a trumpet player more meticulous about his teeth), laying out his suit, his mute bag, etc.
No big deal.
Until the phone rang for a third time. Sam again. He’d gotten a hold of everyone except Bob. In the age before cel phones, when answering machines were still a novelty, you either got a hold of someone or you didn’t. Sam figured that Bob must’ve gone out to eat or something after learning that the gig was off.
“Tell Pete to get ready, just in case Bob doesn’t call me back,” Sam told my Dad.
Upon which I promptly started freaking out.
I’d tagged along on a couple of my Dad’s gigs, had listened to a couple cassette tapes of the band he’d given me, so I wasn’t completely unfamiliar with the music. But my drums had never left my practice room. I didn’t even have cases for them. I remember taking them apart that afternoon for the first time, afraid I wouldn’t remember how they went back together. When I wasn’t freaking out, I was praying that Sam would call back saying he’d gotten a hold of Bob.
Alas, a fourth call never came.
The rain had long since stopped by the time Mac came to pick us up. I remember carrying my cymbal stands out one by one, gingerly laying them down in the back of his Chevy Suburban, covering them with blankets so they wouldn’t be tempted to roll.
When we were done loading the truck, Mac commented, “They look like dead bodies.”
Not the encouragement I was looking for.
When we got to the Moose, Dad helped me set things back up and bought me a Pepsi to calm my nerves. Sam loaned me an oversized tux jacket, and a gratuitously large, velvet, clip-on black bow tie that wore crooked.
I’ll never forget his only instruction to me, which he delivered with his signature calmness: “As long as you begin and end with the rest of the band, you’ll be fine.”
By the time everybody tuned up and gathered on the bandstand, I was in full panic. I gave my full attention to Sam’s every word and gesture, locking into the tempos as he counted off the tunes.
But once a tune shoved off from shore, one person became my life preserver — Ralph, Sam’s son, who played keyboard. I hyper-focused on Ralph’s left hand, which he used to play the bass lines. Ralph’s left hand told me everything I needed to know about each tune … whether it was a foxtrot, a jump tune, a bossa nova, cha-cha … on down the line.
I remember little else about that evening other than surviving the longest three hours of my life … thanks to a constant stream of advice and encouragement from Alice (our singer) and the guys in the band.
When it was over, I gratefully collected their smiles and handshakes, and then collected myself before turning my full attention to trying to remember how to tear my drums back down. Then Sam came over to me. Asked me to put out my hand.
Into which he put $25 … my share of the evening’s take.
I still can vividly recall my 15-year-old self’s feeling of surprise and exhilaration as I stared at the money in my hand. It felt like a million bucks to me.
In that humble transaction, I went from being a scared-shi*tless 15-year-old to being a professional musician.
I remember Bob making a point of that during my next lesson.
“No, I’m not,” I tried to quickly dismiss.
“You were paid for your services … that makes you a professional,” Bob informed me, setting the record straight.
Sam paying me was only the second most significant thing he did that night, though.
He asked if I’d be his regular drummer.
He said he was looking for someone who could make all the gigs. Bob sometimes played with other groups, forcing Sam to find subs. He wanted someone steady.
I can tell you with 100% certainty that there was nothing in my performance that evening that earned me the invitation. And I never grew to be more than one-tenth the drummer Bob was. But I never gave Sam a chance to reconsider his offer.
And, you know what? Bob never said a single word about my displacing him.
So, for the next 13 years, I got to share a bandstand with my Dad.
And with Ralph, too.
__
When I think of Ralph, I think of how much fun he had while playing music. When his hands weren’t on the keys, he kept the band in stitches telling jokes. From the moment we’d arrive at a hall through set-up. Between sets. While we were tearing down and loading up. How he loved making people laugh.
And, oh how he loved good food, too. The more unpretentious the surroundings, the better, as far as he was concerned. I can still hear Ralph saying, “You can’t eat atmosphere,” a line that I still quote to this day whenever I find myself enjoying delicious food in less than fancy surroundings. I credit Ralph every time I quote him.
__
As I was driving Route 40 towards Brownsville a couple Wednesday’s ago to pay respects at Ralph’s visitation, I found myself thinking of all the New Year’s Eve gigs we played together. After playing Auld Lang Syne at midnight, the band would stand up and we’d shake hands. I always set my drums up next to Ralph’s keyboard, so Ralph’s was usually the first hand I’d shake in the new year. I can say as I write this I now consider that an honor.
When I got to the funeral home, I spent a few minutes looking at the old photos they had placed around the room, mostly of Ralph’s life in music and love of family. There were a couple pictures of Sam’s old bands, one from the very early days, and a later one from when we played together. Sam in the front row in his white tux, Ralph smiling from behind the keyboard. Dad in the middle of the trumpet section, and me in crooked bow tie and glorious mullet.
“So many of them are gone, now,” Ralph’s wife Hillary said of the photo, when I offered my condolences. “Sam, now Ralph, your Dad … Roger … Diz.”
It’d been about 25 years since we’d last seen each other. Hillary used to come on some of the gigs. I invited Karry on a couple New Year’s Eves and they’d keep each other company.
“I remember the first time you played,” Hillary recalled. “You wrapped your drums in blankets.”
I told her that Ralph’s left hand was pretty much responsible for getting me through that first gig. And how much I treasured those times.
On my way out, I signed the registry, taking note of the names of some of the guys I was fortunate enough to play with all those years ago.
I didn’t stay long.
Just long enough to be reminded of days of Auld Lang Syne, and what good days those were.
Learning of Bob’s passing barely a week later … I was reminded that none of those days would have even been possible without Bob’s presence in my life … and his absence one rainy Sunday afternoon.
Letters for Maggie 