David Mac (DM): Happy Easter Mom.

Mom: Happy Easter to you.

DM: This means of course you survived another lent season and the usual sacrifices you make.

Mom: Yes indeed, this year I gave up caviar, sky diving and Harley Davidsons.

DM: People have asked who I have in store for them in the upcoming May edition of BLUES JUNCTION. I tell them I am doing a feature on my favorite musician of all-time. You…

Mom: What…Ray Charles isn’t returning you’re calls?

DM: (laughing) I knew this would be fun. We have been talking about doing an interview for some time Mom.

Mom: I’m 89 years old. What have you been waiting for?

DM: A world-wide pandemic coinciding with Easter. Thank you for asking. You must miss going to Mass on Sundays.

Mom: I do, but I could get used to watching Mass on T.V. in my pajamas. As you know I just retired from playing four years ago. I miss that the most.

DM: Yet it was kind of a soft retirement, as you continued to be a part time consultant for their Latin masses. Why would a Catholic Parish need a consultant?

Mom: Because the musicians they hire are all professionals, hired guns if you will, who come from outside the parish and in many cases, many are not Catholic and don’t have any idea about the liturgy. It is that way just about everywhere now.

DM: In a sense your retirement, shall we say, is the end of an era. They just don’t make ‘em like you anymore Mom. Your career, in this one arena alone is really remarkable. 

Mom: They called me on the phone and said I could still help out but they just wouldn’t pay me. To that I say, “Screw them.”

DM: Of course, they stopped doing masses all together a week or two after that and now you get to have your 6 am televised Blessed Trinity pajama party. Do you remember the first Mass you played?

Mom: I do. I did my first Catholic Mass at the age of twelve for a German P.O.W. camp called Camp Grant, just outside of Rockford, Illinois, during World War 2. Our government reasoned that the German army was less likely to attempt to liberate their captured soldiers if we had them scattered all over the Midwest, as opposed to the east coast.

My birthday is December 8^th and I remember my 12th birthday party being interrupted with President Roosevelt’s famous “A day that will live in infamy…” speech, which we heard on the radio of course. My prevailing recollection of that day was at first, nobody was quite sure where Pearl Harbor was or the island of Oahu for that matter.

DM: That makes perfect since, as Hawaii was still 18 years or so from becoming our 50^th state.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but from 1942 all the way up to the first several weeks of 2020…that is quite a run. That includes parts of nine decades, mostly every week and usually several masses per Sunday, Holy Days of Obligation (as they are called) weddings funerals, first communions and I’m probably leaving something out.

Mom: Yes, you are but that’s OK.

DM: I don’t want to embarrass you with all of this…

Mom: Go right ahead.

DM: But I can’t really think of any analogies that would apply here. Michael…

Mom: Your brother…

DM: Yeah, that guy…he said it’s like Cal Ripken or something, but we agreed that doesn’t even do it justice. He went on to say that in any field of music, it is the best person that gets the gig but it’s even harder to keep the gig. He went on to tell me you and he sat down and tried to calculate with some reasonable degree of accuracy how many masses you have played through the years. He couldn’t remember the figure but the number was staggering. If someone is keeping score it could be a world record.

Mom: I believe that someone is keeping score.

DM: But we don’t want to get into all that.

Mom: Thank You.

DM: I remember going to the last Mass you played. When it was over the Priest let folks know that you had decided to retire and asked you if you wanted to say anything. You simply said, “It’s time.”

Even though you were given a heartfelt and rather lengthy standing ovation, something that you simply don’t see or hear very often in a Catholic Church, I wonder how many of those people know your history and your commitment to something you cared deeply about for so long. I have wanted to tell your story for some time, but at the end of the day, I thought it might be more meaningful for you to tell it.

There is something I always wanted to ask you. Where did your first name come from? I don’t know that I have ever heard that name before…or since for that matter.

Mom: Janaan is unique…I suppose. My mom had heard it someplace and thought it was pretty.

DM: It is very pretty.

Mom: The weird part is, she didn’t know how to spell it. Because my folks were both devout Catholics many thought myself and my only sibling, my little sister, would have Biblical names. Nope…

DM: Janaan and Sally…you two could pass for heathens with names like that.  Let’s talk about your childhood.

Mom: I was born in Rockford, Illinois, as you know but we lived in Dubuque, Iowa, at the time. My folks were visiting Rockford when I was born. My mom had family there. We would eventually move there as well. Dubuque is a town on the Mississippi River that is just across the river from Illinois and Wisconsin for that matter. My dad was a manager of a brewery in Galena, Illinois, in those days.

DM: I don’t recall how or under what circumstances you learned how to play the piano.

Mom: Neither do I. Just kidding...I was in the third grade when I started taking lessons in school. I took to it immediately. We were still in Dubuque in those days.

DM: Did you have piano in your home?  

Mom: No, that came later, but we had an organ in the basement that I would play. I would go to school early and stay late to play the piano at whatever school I attended…first in Dubuque and then in Rockford. I went to high school and college in Rockford. The piano, which ended up in our second home in Orange, was shipped from Rockford.

DM: Wait a second…that came from Rockford?

Mom: My Mom wanted to make sure I had settled down before shipping it.

DM: The marriage, five kids and the four-bedroom house on Hoover Avenue in Orange wasn’t settled down enough for her.

Mom: I guess not.

I don’t know if I ever told you this story. One day I was at my high school in Rockford while practicing the piano after school a friend came up to me to tell me that my dad was waiting to pick me up on his way home from work. This was unusual as he often took the bus to work. He had a car but my mother felt that it was more practical to go by bus thus reducing the mileage dad would incur by taking the short trip to his office.

DM: Your mom was a piece of work.

Mom: Remember that she would cover all the furniture in plastic to protect against wear and tear, then put sheets on top of the plastic, so that it wouldn’t get dirty. 

DM: I remember the ghost house of Rockford. So, your dad picked you up from school…

Mom: Oh yeah…We went home of course and my Uncle Pat, my Aunt Helen and even my little cousin Tommy, who lived close by, were there. My dad had bought me that piano and wanted to surprise me.  When I sat down on the bench for the first time there was sheet music on the stand and it was turned to the page that had a song called, “You’ll Be Surprised.” I was…

As you know that same baby grand is in my “new” home that I share with your sister Elizabeth and her husband Rick. I say,” new home” but we have been here almost 20 years now. So, everything is relative of course.

DM: So, the baby grand piano that was in our home up on Villa Real Drive in Orange came from your old home on Jefferson Avenue in Rockford, Illinois. I guess I didn’t know that.

Mom: That’s the one. My dad had been saving up for a new car but he said, “I can always wait on a new car, but Janaan needs a piano right away.” A few weeks later he was taking that old car to work when he stopped to help another man whose car was stuck in the snow. He needed someone to help him push it out. While pushing this stranger’s car my dad suffered a heart attack that proved to be fatal. I was seventeen years old. You were named after my Father.

DM: …and born in a hospital named the Good Samaritan.

Mom: That’s right… I never thought of that connection to my dad. It was just the closet Catholic hospital. You were almost born in taxi cab.

DM: I feel for the driver. “Hey lady, any of these other hospitals good enough for you?” You are probably trying to explain to the poor guy that your Mom will kill you if her first grandchild wasn’t born at the Catholic Hospital on Wilshire. In the meantime, he is saying, “Didn’t you read the sign sayin’ NO CHILD BIRTH IN THE BACK SEAT.”  He is just trying to figure out a way to explain to his next fare that it was just the placenta and nothing to worry about.

Mom: (laughing) We may be getting ahead of ourselves here, but I always appreciated your sense of humor.

DM: Of course, you do. You’re my mom. The jury is still out on this aspect of my personality, but if in fact I have a sense of humor, you’ll have to admit that I come by it honestly. You are a hoot Mom. Dad had his own comedic sensibilities, although it may have been an acquired taste. His dad, however, was one of the funniest men I have ever met. This leads to an obvious question; where did you get your sense of humor? I don’t recall your mom being a laugh riot.

Mom: No, she wasn’t. She was quiet and very shy.

DM: She had the perfect grandma name though, Agnes.

Mom: That’s right. After my dad died my Aunt Mary came to live with us. At that point my mother couldn’t get a word in edge wise. I may have picked up my sense of humor from my Aunt Mary. I don’t know.

DM: After high school you stayed in town and attended an all-girls, Catholic school, Rockford College.

Mom: That’s right. I graduated in 1952 with a degree in English and a double minor in history and music. It was later that year that a small contingent of us from the Rockford College history department were invited to the United Nations in New York City.

DM: Wasn’t that massive building and surrounding complex relatively new at the time?

Mom: It was brand new. It had just opened. That is where I met Eleanor Roosevelt. She had already been a delegate to the U.N. General Assembly and was named the Chairperson of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. We had lunch and discussed the future of that commission among other things.

DM: That’s a long way from Dubuque, Iowa.

Mom: That it is.

DM: You had already traveled to Europe at that point with friends from college.

Mom: Yes, I did.

DM: What are your general reflections and memories from that first trip to Europe?

Mom: It was both extremely beautiful and devastatingly sad at the same time. Remember our trip there was shortly after the end of the second world war. I remember touring historic cathedrals for instance and as we walked through the streets, we might turn a corner and see entire city blocks reduced to rubble. A cathedral that might be hundreds of years old with beautiful renaissance architecture could be sitting literally just a few feet from total destruction. These things are shocking to see. It wasn’t like we didn’t know there was a war going on, but to see this first hand is something that one never forgets.

DM: The history of the Catholic Church and the history of Western Civilization are inextricably tied to one another. You have a perspective on this like few others. That history was and is still being made and you lived through two of its darkest chapters. You were born On December 8, 1930, just fourteen months into the great depression and that yielded to World War 2.

Mom: Not to put too fine a point on it, but another dark chapter is happening right now. However, you are asked to do something in which you are uniquely suited…stay home, sit on your ass and do nothing.

DM: My mom ladies and gentlemen…two shows every night.  Now, I forgot where I was going with all this. (throwing my notes into the air)

Mom: Did you ever think that the election of this asshole (Trump) would lead to things getting so bad?

DM: Yes, I did…it was very predictable, but that is a topic for another day. Weren’t you planning a trip to the Middle East after going to the United Nations?

Mom: Yes, I was but my mother was having none of it. I also had my sights on San Francisco. My mom saw that as a reasonable compromise. The Middle East seemed too exotic for her and of course too far away. She said to me, “They have pretty flowers out in California.”

DM: I’m guessing once you got to San Francisco there was no looking back.

Mom: Pretty much…I LOVED San Francisco. I lived there from the fall of 52’ through the early spring of 57’. It was glorious. I continued my education at the University of San Francisco and even took classes at San Francisco State University. That is where I met your dad. I met him in a semantics class taught by the famous semanticist S.I. Hayakawa. He later became the President of San Francisco State University and a United States Senator from California.

DM: As you know he also wrote extensively on why listening to blues music is good for your mental health.  

Mom: I guess he never met you or your brother.

DM: (laughing) I walked straight into that one. Where in San Francisco were you living at the time?

Mom: It was just a couple of blocks south of Kezar Stadium which was in Golden Gate Park. I would love walking over to 49er games. Myself and my roommates would let 49er fans park in our driveway for the games. We were also close to USF.

DM: I guess I could point out that USF, a small Jesuit College, won back to back National Championships in men’s basketball while you were there.  

Mom: It helped having Bill Russell on the team. I would see him around campus from time to time. He was easy to spot, as he was the tallest human being I had ever seen.

DM: At 5’1” tall Mom, you could say that you REALLY looked up to him. You enjoy sports even though I wouldn’t describe you as being athletic.

Mom: I’m not the least bit athletic. Your skills in that area came from your dad.  I’m not sure if I ever broke a sweat in my life…on purpose. I like watching others play. Your dad and I enjoyed watching the San Francisco Seals play baseball. They were in the old Pacific Coast League back then. That was before the Major Leagues moved out west.

Like yourself, I learned the game from my dad. As you know we had a professional team in Rockford…The Peaches of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. He would take me and Sally to games right there in Rockford. They played the Kenosha Comets, the Racine Bells and other teams in that league. That was a big deal...especially for Rockford.

DM: Let’s talk a moment about dad.

Mom: My first impression was that he was very serious, bordering on intense. He was also a lot of fun. We shared the same values and many common interests. Like myself he was from the Midwest and came to San Francisco for many of the same reasons. While he always spoke glowingly of his hometown of Des Moines and Iowa in general, he too loved San Francisco and had no plans to leave California. He was different from the other young men I had been dating. Your dad was two years older than me and had a maturity and a level of sophistication that exceeded that. He also had a great apartment in the Marina District. It was just a short walk to the park at Crissy Fields. What a great place for a picnic.

Your tastes in music strongly aligned with your dad. He had a love for various types of jazz and other forms of black music, as we called it back then. He had worked nights in Des Moines, for a brief time, at a hotel that had a big ballroom where he first heard jazz music, as various bands would pass through town between Chicago and Kansas City. I don’t remember all the names but Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Louis Jordon were particular favorites of his.

We saw one of his favorites…Oscar Peterson in San Francisco. Slim Gaillard was another name that comes to mind that we saw during this period. Your dad used to walk around the house singing a Gaillard tune, “Cement Mixer (Put-Ti - Put-Ti).”

When we moved to Southern California, we would go to the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, where we saw Cannonball Adderley and Wes Montgomery among others.

DM: Let’s talk about your work life in San Francisco.

Mom: I still had the God gig, as you call it. In addition to that I taught English and History at a Junior High School in Daly City. I also played on Sunday afternoons with an opera company at the Hungry I in North Beach.

DM: (laughing) I think some background and context might be in order here.

Mom: Yep…The Hungry I has been a topless bar for the last 50 years or so. I know that through the years, if you would walk by the place you would casually tell the person you were with that your mother used to work there, just to get a reaction.

Back in the 50’s, The Hungry I was famous and was known as one of the first comedy clubs in the U.S., but they had music as well. Woody Allen, Dick Cavett, Lenny Bruce and others got their start there. They were big fans, as was your dad and I, of Mort Sahl. He was one of the first of the modern stand-up comedians. He had just one prop. Do you know what that was?

DM: I do. Mom…may I ask the questions? Sorry…It was a newspaper.

Mom: Very good…He would point to a headline and could do an entire set off of that. Smart, funny…great.  

DM: Like yourself mom, Mort Sahl is still with us. He is 93. Woody and Dick are also still around for that matter. Although they are both youngsters born in 1935 and 36’ respectively.

Mom: That club was (is) in one of the greatest neighborhoods in the world, North Beach. It is right across the street from the famous City Lights Bookstore. That place was ground zero for the Beat poets who thrived during the decade of the 50’s. Didn’t you tell me the other day that the founder/owner and long-time proprietor Lawrence Farengheli had just turned 103?

DM: I did. Apparently, longevity has broken out in North Beach. What was opera music doing at this hip 50’s nightclub?

Mom: They only had opera on Sunday afternoons when they figured all the “Beats” (as they were called) were still asleep. I don’t remember if The Hungry I was opened on other afternoons, but the place was hopping at night. I would play mass and go right over to The Hungry I immediately after church.  

DM: Music was changing in the 50’s. I guess popular tastes are always changing, but for the sake of this discussion you embraced a music that never changes.

Mom: That’s why it is called classical music.

DM: We have talked about Catholic Church music and we know you have great affection for opera and classical music as you mentioned. What has been your favorite part of being a musician?

Mom: I have always loved being an accompanist. I love working with singers, be they soloists or working with choirs. It is the working with others that I have always found the most rewarding.

DM: Before your journey headed south to Los Angeles you married that big handsome guy that you had been dating.  

Mom: No, I married your dad.  

DM: (laughing) Mom you brought your “A” game, thus allowing me to fulfill my lifelong dream to be your straight man. I take it you got married in a Catholic church with the full mass and all the trimmings.

Mom: Of course. We got married on August 8, 1956, and nine months later you were born. Dad had just opened his business in downtown L.A. He still had his office up on Market in San Francisco. He was up there when you were born…thus explaining the taxi cab ride to the hospital we talked about earlier.

DM: I know how much you loved San Francisco. How did you like Los Angeles?

Mom: L.A. was great. One of my first positive impressions I had was rolling out of bed in the morning and my feet hitting the hardwood floor and not having that cold shiver run up my leg. That had never happened, as San Francisco seemed to be perpetually cold and damp. That never bothered me, but I didn’t miss it either.

We lived in a little apartment on a street called Orange Grove Avenue. It was near Wilshire and Fairfax. It was within walking distance to the Farmers Market. I could put you and your sister Elizabeth, who was born just one year later, in your strollers and do some of our shopping at the famous Farmers Market on Fairfax.

DM: We must have been very near the Los County Museum of Art (LACMA).

Mom: Nope…that hadn’t been built yet. Remember son…you are old. However, you don’t pre-date the La Brea Tarpits which was (and still is) on those same grounds. A park sat on the site where the museum now sits. It was where I would take you and your sister on a nearly daily basis to play.

We had a nice little shared courtyard in our apartment complex where we could eat outside in the evenings and we had some nice neighbors, the Halls, who would baby sit you if your dad and I wanted to go out.

We were close enough to the beach that we could take the relatively short drive to Santa Monica or even Malibu. Another favorite spot was Griffith Park.

On May 7, 1959, which was your second birthday, we skipped out on you to see a Dodger game at the Coliseum. It was Roy Campanella night. The Halls of course were happy to baby sit you and your sister, but we had real misgivings about missing your birthday.

DM: It was Roy Campanella night mom…I forgive you.

Mom: Campanella, as you know was one of the best catchers in Baseball history and a very popular Dodger. He had been involved in an automobile accident during the off season which left him paralyzed. This game was a special exhibition and a charity event to help Campy offset some of his medical expenses. Partway through the game between the fifth and sixth innings somebody wheeled him out to the middle of the field and they turned off the lights in the stadium and the huge throng all lit a match or their cigarette lighters which everybody carried in their pockets in those days. It was a very moving tribute and a spectacular site. It was, at the time anyway, the largest crowd to have ever seen a baseball game in person.

DM: It was, however, the Dodgers who broke that record in the fall of that same year when they played the Chicago White Sox in the World Series.

Mom:  As you know, the Dodgers were just like everyone else in L.A. back in those days, or so it seemed, in that they were transplants.

I should mention that the Halls had a son who was our age and had also just moved to Los Angeles from Cleveland. He was a jazz guitarist named Jim Hall. He would visit his parents frequently and yet spent at least as much time hanging out with your dad and you in that courtyard. He is the man that took that very early picture of you and your dad that I have in the music room of our house. Your dad and Jim would talk and listen to jazz music for hours while you played close by. I was often in our apartment with Elizabeth and pregnant with Ann.  I’ll bet you know who the guy they listened to and talked about constantly. They called him “Pres” or “The Pres”…something like that.

DM: That would be tenor saxophone giant Lester Young. 

Mom: THAT’S IT! I knew you would know. He had just passed away in the winter of 1959 and was a favorite of Jim and your dad. Another one that comes to mind was Ben Webster, with whom Jim was working at that time. Jim was also working with Paul Desmond who we knew from our days in San Francisco and the Dave Brubeck Quartet.

Your affection for this music may have come from those conversations…even though you don’t remember.

DM: Who knows? It came from somewhere…that’s for sure.

Mom: Even though it was kind of a financial struggle, as your dad was trying to get his manufacturers rep firm established, I look back on those days of the late 50’s in Los Angeles with a great deal of fondness. I guess I should point out he was in the garment industry; Los Angeles was the center for all of that on the West Coast.

DM: Right after Ann was born in 1960, we moved to Orange some 40 miles or so, down the road.

Mom: …and like the name of that town suggests we had orange groves in Orange and all over the county of the same name in those days. We were surrounded by orange groves. Even though the orchards are all gone, there are times that a swear I can still smell the orange blossoms.   

DM: The house also had a big yard which I loved and had room for expansion, which would come in handy as Michael and John would arrive in 61’ and 63’ respectively. I can still smell dirty diapers.

So now you had five kids all with biblical names.

Mom: I guess I could point out that your brother John who was born on March 8^th of 1963 was named after the President who was of Irish decent, a Democrat and was a Catholic.

DM: That’s the triple crown in our household. The Pope at the time was also named John.

Mom: He was also a Catholic.

DM: Thanks for that little factoid Mom.

Mom: …just here to help.

DM: Your career with the church continued in Orange. After a stint with Holy Family they opened yet another parish closer to home…Saint Norbert’s.  

Mom: We attended Mass, as you recall, in a warehouse for a bit while the church was being built. That long association with Saint Norbert’s lasted until the late 90’s when I was fired by what’s his face.

DM: As I recall that was the guy known as Father Asshole. That was the first time I had heard of bringing in those hired guns we talked about earlier.

Mom: That is correct but between the mid-60’s and late 90’s it was like family. Many of the parishioners and of course the choir became close lifelong friends, as you know.

DM: It was pretty interesting, looking back on it, how much our lives revolved around that parish and those people.

Mom: Yes…and they are all gone now.

DM: Except Jose Feliciano.

Mom: That’s true…but he is a youngster. He told me once that he was born in 1945. He moved to Connecticut many years ago and we have been out of touch. He was a parishioner and lived in that swanky little village near us known as Villa Park. I accompanied him on a few occasions. I even played his wedding. We had lunch one time. We took his car. It had one of those California personalized license plates that read: “LITEMYFIRE.”

DM: I hope you didn’t let him drive.

Mom: No, he has a driver.

DM: At that point he already had hit songs on the radio and even sang at the 1968 World Series in Detroit.

Mom: Can I tell you my World Series story?

DM: You can do anything you want.

Mom: Thanks…your dad and I went to the 1965 World Series at Dodger Stadium. We went with Ed and Rosemary Crass. You remember them…anyway, Ed told us that they prefer watching the games at home on T.V. and that he and Rosemary liked playing their version of baseball during the games. We asked how that worked and Ed said, “I kiss Rosemary on the strikes and she kisses me on the balls.”

DM: (laughing) One year later the Los Angeles American League franchise would move to nearby Anaheim and we had Major League Baseball just a few minutes away. I think it is perfectly appropriate that your favorite team is called the Angels. However, this was not your last visit to Dodger Stadium.

Mom: No, it was not. I performed with a huge choir during Pope John Paul 2’s Papal Mass at Dodger Stadium. We also played at the L.A. Coliseum when he celebrated mass at that enormous venue the previous day. Oh, and the last time I was at Dodger Stadium was to see The Three Tenors, José Carreras, Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti. 

DM: Mom you can take this in one of two directions, kissing Pavarotti or playing the Pope’s big organ at the Vatican. Up to you…

Mom: I’ll tell the Pavarotti story first. No big deal. I was at the Met to see him perform Rigoletto. I was asked if I wanted to go backstage to meet him after his performance. I didn’t have to think about it too long before saying, “YES.” We visited briefly and when I was leaving, I couldn’t resist, I gave him a kiss on the cheek. This was in the early 90’s.

It wouldn’t hurt to point out I met Placido Domingo several times at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. We just shook hands. I didn’t plant one on him.

DM: During the 60’s, 70’s I remember coming home from school and could hear you practicing, as I walked up to the house. There was often sheet music all over the place and singers and yourself working out arrangements and going over the music.

Mom: Yet you never picked up an instrument and couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. I guess hanging out with your mother was just too much for you.

DM: Maybe this is like you and sports. You would rather watch other people do it as you said. I would like to listen to other people do it, as I recognized early on that I have zero aptitude for making music. I just wanted to go outside and play. I did break a sweat on purpose. It was nothing personal Mom.

Mom: I get that, but I have never heard anyone say, “I wish I never took piano lessons.”

DM: You got me there Mom.

Mom: Your brothers took to music.

DM: Like yourself, I have always been very proud of them and like yourself they are great musicians.

Mom: You still refer to John, your youngest brother in the present tense…

DM: Even though he was hit by a car and killed in 1985. Is this something you want to talk about? 

Mom: I guess only to say that no child should die before their parents. It is something you never completely get over.

DM: Then a year and a half later we lost Dad to a massive heart attack.

Mom: Even though he never got along with John all that well and they really never saw eye to eye on anything, he took it really hard. Michael had moved to Dallas at this point and went to work in the same company, Dun and Bradstreet, that you had worked with for a few years. That was the best thing for Michael, as he and John were very close. You had moved to Texas in 1981 which upset Dad tremendously, then John’s death and Michael’s move. It was just too much for him.

DM: To be fair, he wasn’t exactly a health nut.

Mom: I attribute his downfall to the back injury he sustained in 1970. He lived with that pain and relative immobility for the balance of his 58 years. I think it is fair to say that the various prescription pain pills and booze contributed to his demise.

DM: It wasn’t too many years after that you were diagnosed with breast cancer.

MOM: That would be the early 90’s. You had just moved back to Southern California and you drove me to my last oncologist session in Newport Beach. Remember…

DM: I do. My doctor is also in the Newport Center.

Mom: What is all that ruckus I hear in the background?

DM: It is a delivery truck. Rosco doesn’t like delivery trucks.

Mom: What did you get?

DM: It’s a Ukulele. Tracy wants to learn how to play the Ukulele. What do you think about that?

Mom: Not much.

DM: (laughing) Do you want to explain why I’m laughing so hard?  

Mom: It is because your dad spent three weeks a year, twice a year, on business in Hawaii. If that weren’t bad enough, he would bring home all these traditional Hawaiian ukulele records and listened to those records for hours at time. I learned to like jazz, but this was just too much. Like yourself and blues music, that pretty much comes pre-advertised. The women in your life have to know that’s what they are going to get. I understood straight away that if I was going to fall in love with your dad that I was going to have to fall in love with jazz. Listening to the ukulele was a curve ball that I just didn’t see coming.

DM: What this leads me to is something for which I have always been grateful and that is how important music was to the both of you. My appreciation of music came from both my parents. While I might lean towards dad in terms of taste, the elevated and revered place that music had in our home was something I look back on with great fondness.

Mom: Your dad hated T.V. and only watched something that he determined was worthwhile.

DM: “Worthwhile” meaning anything he wanted to watch.

Mom: Exactly…we never had the T.V. on while we were eating dinner for instance. We didn’t even own T.V. trays. We gathered around the table and listened to music during dinner. I couldn’t stand radio. There was a pretty good opera and classical music station out of USC for a while, but beyond that…no thanks.

Dad would listen to a commercial jazz station on his way home from work…or news and traffic. By the time he got home he had already decided what he wanted to listen to and would choose from a large library of music that we had amassed.

DM: I always thought our house was pretty normal until I visited my friends’ houses. A typical record library consisted of maybe 8-10 LPs and half of those were Christmas albums. We had a library that stretched from one side of the family room to the other. They were all 33 and 1/3 long playing vinyl albums of course. Looking back on it none of the music was pop music either. I think your general appreciation of music rubbed off on all of your adorable children.

You and Dad started to do some traveling. Let’s talk about that.

Mom: He would take me to Hawaii once a year which was wonderful. Then we started going to Europe. We were fortunate to be there when your dad had some heart problems. The medical treatment he received there was superb. We have become almost a third world country in this area.

DM: Do you have any particular memories you would like to share?

Mom: There are many, but one stands out which might shed some light on your dad.

On one of our European vacations we had a long day of travel that took us to Nice on the French Riviera. It was hot. We checked into our room, which was lovely, but didn’t have anything remotely close to an efficient air conditioning system, if it had air conditioning at all. I was in the bathroom and struggling to find something to wear, as we were going to go out to dinner. In the meantime, your dad got dressed and yelled into the bathroom that he would meet me downstairs in the café that was outside in a courtyard overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.

I’m upstairs sweating and putting on a wrinkled blouse and trying to comb sweaty hair. I was tired and cranky. I finally got it together and went downstairs to meet your dad. When I got their he was relaxed sipping a cocktail. He was wearing a pair of salmon pastel colored shorts, with a yellow linen box shirt. He was wearing sunglasses and a pair of espadrilles.

DM: He could be quite the peacock.

Mom: Oh yeah…and he knew how to travel. He could pull the right ensemble out of a suitcase for every situation. Contrasting on how I felt and looked, he was well pressed and looking sharp and was as cool as a cucumber, which so infuriated me for some reason. We jumped into the back seat of a cab and were on our way to a restaurant for dinner when he pulled out an English-French translation book. I wrestled it out of his hand and began furiously flipping through the pages. He asked what I was doing. Without looking up from the book I told him, in a very matter of fact tone, that I was looking up the French word for “asshole.” 

DM: (laughing) Thanks…I have always liked that story.

Mom: My love for travel didn’t stop when your dad died. I had various friends with whom I could travel. One of those trips was with a group of Catholic choir members from around the country. We did an extensive tour of the Cathedrals and other sites of historical significance. Our trip culminated with a visit to the Vatican. We had a small audience with the Pope and I even played the Papal organ at Mass. That was very special to me.

I guess I should mention that I also was allowed to play the organ in Notre Dame in Paris on that same trip. It was almost exactly a year ago you called to console me about the fire that was ravaging that famous cathedral to the horror of television audiences world wide. I hadn't been aware of the fire, as I was reading when you called. I turned on CNN and we watched together. As you know despite extensive damage to the cathedral, that the organ somehow was spared.

DM: With all your travels, I’m sure it is hard to single out any place or any experience that stands out but you have told me about a relatively recent trip to the Lost City of Petra. Let’s talk about that.

Mom: As you know, Petra is fascinating in many ways. I suppose the fact that the city and some of the ruins that date back thousands of years weren’t discovered by the west until the early 19^th Century has something to do with this. It adds a certain air of mystique and intrigue to the region.

Getting to some of the more significant sites takes visitors on a long walk which I wasn’t up to. I ended up traveling by a donkey. As uncomfortable as that was, I figured it was a better choice than my other option, which was a camel.

This city, which is in present day Jordan, was old even when the Romans occupied it for a time. The naturalist historian and writer from the Roman Empire, Pliny the Elder, recognized the city for its historical significance in antiquity and his writings are 2,000 years old.

One of the other aspects of the city was that because of its natural surroundings it served as a fortress as well as the center of the ancient caravan routes. It is very rugged country between mountains, desert and the Gulf of Aqaba. It may have been the most interesting place I have ever been.

DM: Getting back to Orange for a moment, you raised five handsome, smart, well rounded, successful children. This might top all of your other accomplishments in academia and music.

Mom: You forgot to mention modest.

DM: You also have seven grandchildren and six great grandchildren who must give you much joy.

Mom: I just got a call yesterday from your daughter, Aaron in Massachusetts. She is great and has blessed you with such a wonderful granddaughter. I should mention how nice it is to have Sophie around the house. She hangs out a lot up here. She is a delight.  

DM: Your longevity is remarkable. Any advice in this regard you would like to impart to our readers.

Mom: I’m not going to tell anybody how to live, but I stick to the three basic food groups, martinis, bacon and chocolate. That might not work for everybody, but it has worked for me.

DM: Mom, at the rate you are going you will out-live us all.

Mom: God, I hope not.

DM: Do you have any regrets?

Mom: I don’t have time for that type of thinking. I am just grateful that I had a family where I did and when I did. Do you realize your dad never made more than thirty thousand dollars a year and sometimes it was considerably less than that? You kids were all grown up by the time of the so called ‘Reagan Revolution’ when the destruction of the middle class took place. You five kids, never wanted for much. 

DM: We had real art on the walls, a huge bookcase with a variety of books including some serious literature and of course music everywhere. We were imbued with all three of these things and had a teacher for a Mom to show us how to appreciate all of it.

Mom: We also had a pool, but I never gave you kids swimming lessons.

DM: You could barely swim.

Mom: To me the pool is like the ocean. My relationship with it ends at the waters edge. I like sitting next to bodies of water, be they chlorinated or salty…with a cool drink and a good book.  I guess in many ways I wasn’t a traditional mother. I didn’t win any baking or sewing contests.

DM: No, but you taught us something that is infinitely more important, the joie de vivre. You have style and good taste, Mom. We all learned that from you in our own way. That is something that can’t be taught so easily. Thanks Mom. I love you.

Mom: I love you too.