My favorite music at the moment are the three Chorals (for organ) by Cesar Franck: Choral 1 in E major, Choral 2 in B minor, and Choral 3 in A minor.. He started writing these in late 1889. During this period, in July 1890, he was injured in a traffic accident in Paris that left him with a head injury from which he did not fully recover. He died on November 9, 1890 of pleurisy. But he managed to complete the Chorals. These three pieces are really a musical odyssey...a journey... that encompass just about every sound an organ can make. I am not an organ expert by any means, but having grown up attending a church with a big organ and a great organist (Charles Barnett at the First United Methodist Church in Austin, Texas) my love of the organ and it's repertoire go back to my childhood. In modern terms, the Chorals are like a huge, theatrical rock show. They are both big and small...soft and loud, and everything in between. Franck may have invented the power chords that Pete Townshend or Jimi Hendrix or Jimmy Page applied to the electric guitar seventy years later. If you listen to all three in succession, you will be breathless and limp upon their conclusion. And Franck had an epic beard as well.
Mozart. A few years ago I listened to Mozart's symphonies 1-41 in sequential order. It was an "ear opening" exercise. I am sure I had not heard at least half of his symphonies up to that point. Most of time, 21, 25, 39-41 are the ones that are played. So I heard them all and felt good about myself! I decided to do it again this year, and last month I listened to 1-41 on order again...it took me about two weeks. This time, the collective, symphonic Mozart lodged itself in my brain. I went much deeper than I had in 2012. I wanted more....so last week I decided to listen to them in descending order. I'm on 26 now. I will report back on what I learn when I get to number 1.
Wedding Ring. Several years ago, I think it was in 2011, I broke the ring finger on my left had...I was trying to catch a football that my son Jack threw to me. I did not open my hands enough and the ball hit square on the tip of my finger and bent it back, breaking it. It swelling up immediatelyand made it impossible for me to remove my wedding ring...it was trapped... and my finger began to turn black. The doctor had to cut it off...the ring, not my finger! The swelling went down and my finger healed. But my wedding ring was toast. A few weeks later, after my finger had healed, I wanted to get a new ring. In was early June, and I was at a conference for work in Orlando. Cheryl and I had agreed that we would get a new wedding ring for me in July when we had our anniversary. I was in the Orlando airport killing time and I saw some rings at a kiosk in the atrium. They were value priced at $19 and one ring caught my eye:
Seven years later, I am still wearing this ring. I love its musical notation.It "fits" me.
Traffic stop. I was recently driving home from Texas (I was coming home from a work trip). It was late at night and it I had already been a long drive. I was tired and my back was bothering me. I did my best to stretch my back and legs while I was driving to try and get comfortable. I was also trying to stay awake. So I'm somewhere....nowhere...in the middle of Oklahoma and I see flashing lights in my rear-view mirror. I was pretty shocked by this. I had the cruise control set exactly to the speed limit, so I was sure I had not been speeding. My heart was beating faster now. The officer approached from the passenger side. I rolled down the window and was greeted with a blinding light from his flashlight. "Good evening sir....do you know why I pulled you over?" I said "good evening", and "no I don't." "I've been following you and noticed you have been drifting into the other lane several times." I told him I was tired and that my back hurt...I was trying to stretch it to get comfortable. "Where are you headed?" he asked. I told him I was on the way home from work in Texas. He peered around in the car with his light and asked for my license and insurance card and went back to his car to check me out. I have never been pulled over on the highway in my life. I was not speeding, impaired or running from the law. I was very nervous even though I knew I had not done anything wrong. And I'm all alone in the middle of nowhere on an Oklahoma state highway...not one car had passed since I had pulled over. The mind can do funny things when you are tired and nervous. After a few minutes, he came back to my car and handed me my license and insurance card. "Here you go sir. I am not going to give you a ticket or anything. I just want you to make it home safely. Please be careful." I was so relieved of course...and I thanked him with relief and appreciation. We went our separate ways and I began to reflect on what had happened. This man was sent to me to keep me safe. I was probably on the verge of falling asleep at the wheel. This traffic stop woke me up. He was a guardian angel. I have no doubt about it.
So here we have a white man, pulled over by a black police officer. I have black friends who have told me stories about being pulled over by white police officers for no apparent reason other than being black..and hassled and harassed. They live with this fear. I have no such fear of the police. And after this, I began to wonder what would my traffic stop have been like had I been black and the officer white...late at night on a remote Oklahoma road? The officer who pulled me over was kind, and professional. He did not ask me to get out of the car to take a sobriety test, or subject me to any inquiry beyond his first questions. Would this have been the case if a black person veering into the other lane was pulled over by a white officer? I wish I could answer this "yes" with confidence...but I can't.
I also wish I had had the presence of mind to ask the officer for his name so I could share it with you. He really was an angel sent to keep me safe.
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