Ted Rubright’s musical activities (and more) from the musty confines down the stairs.
I got an email from my friend Randy Max, timpanist extraordinaire, and he attached some pix of an old friend, the late great Saul Goodman. They were taken in the summer of 1977 at the Eastern Music Festival in North Carolina.
Observe:
Saul Goodman at the timpani. I bet he had some choice words about these drums.
They look like Walter Lights to me.
Saul and Paul Dowling.
Portrait of Randy as a young dude.
The maestro avec cigar.
Last weekend I attended that once-in-a-decade ritual, the High School Reunion. You might be wondering what I, a certified band geek with exactly two close friends from those days, was doing there. After all, a third or more of my erstwhile classmates took a powder, so why bother?
For one thing it was convenient, seeing as how I had to travel all of a half a mile to get to the bar night at a local tavern and maybe two miles for the banquet night at a local hotel. I suppose I am always curious to see how others have fared and how the years have treated them. But the real reason I attend is that I hope to encounter my reunion pals. In this I was not disappointed.
Reunion pals? Didn’t you have any actual high school pals, you ask? I did have one and he came to the bar night. The other one was in Aspen, CO teaching at the famous music festival, so I wasn’t expecting him. But that’s another post. The reunion pals are two women that I actually knew better in junior high that I have found to be indispensable while reuniting. We had mutual friends whom we yak about and other than that they are just dang good company. It made the whole experience warm and fuzzy; not a guaranteed result at these functions.
Here’s a pic:
Other interesting reunion phenomena: meeting people that I didn’t know from Adam back in the day who have things in common just by dint of being of a certain age. We can complain about our contacts, reading glasses and encroaching decrepitude, which I predict will crowd out other topics in reunions to come. I found several other runners and we compared routes and distances. I spent no time trying to convince anyone of my coolness because, quite frankly, that would be difficult.
Many people (my wife, for one) are anti-reunion. I think a majority of people are. I would have thought myself a good candidate for this camp but I’d like to take a minute and say that I’m glad I got over the (slight) stress of the whole thing and dove in. I recommend it to others, especially the fence sitters out there. After a couple of beers everyone is happy to see you and someone will find your name tag and commence to ask where your really cool high school friend is. If you’re like me you tell them he’s in Aspen, but I’m right here.
Last week I was in Las Vegas for a non-music related experience: Blackboard World ‘08. Blackboard CE is a powerful learning management system that I support at Saint Louis University for my ‘real’ job. I’ve never been to Vegas before. It’s a trip. I stayed at the Palazzo which is part of a huge complex that has the Venetian on the other end. It’s pretty nice, though the rooms, pardon me, suites, are a bit too Tony Soprano for my taste. There’s lots of dark wood, heavy drapes and black marble. Not to mention three flat screen TVs. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I went out of the building exactly twice in four days and on those occasions it was hot, temperaturewise. Over 100. Yes, but it’s a dry heat, you say. So is an oven and I wouldn’t want to hang out in there for too long, either!