Jims of Wyzdom for May 4, 2018

Spring term is half gone and I managed to mess up the projector in Classroom A, but Jae fixed it toot-sweet as they used to say. I used to be very good with “equipment.” Back at age 20 or so, when I had a real job and income and was simply dying to have a component stereo system, I could bring home these pieces with their patch cords and instructions, often in other languages, and get them all set up, wired, speakers optimally placed for the most accurate stereo effect, put on a record (remember vinyl?) and let the good times roll. Well, in my case, it was not so much rock and roll as the fairly new Columbia records club that my mother joined for me. This is when long-play records were not that old and the club just sent you the selection of the month. Later, they would make it easy to buy dozens of discs at one time—yikes!

My best friend, Robert, a real genius, introduced me to Bach organ music…and I was a goner. By the time I was a sophomore in college in Los Angeles, I had my choice of several organ recitals per week, mostly free, at the big churches that sponsored them. That passion Is still very much alive in me, although, I have to admit that last Sunday’s Verdi Requiem at the PSO was spirit enough to keep me going for a month! But, if you ever get the opportunity to go to an organ recital at Heinz Chapel, DO IT! The music, together with all those windows…to die for.

What was I talking about?

The great secret that all old people share is that you really haven’t changed in seventy or eighty years. Your body changes, but you don’t change at all. And that, of course, causes great confusion. [Writer Doris Lessing]

Ah, yes…aging. I was thinking as we were all leaving Heinz Hall…’I wonder how the symphony would survive without all us old types?’ I could say that about the theater, as well. I used to worry about why we continued to teach new generations of theater students and how they would all get real jobs in theater, especially with cruel student loans to pay. But then, I had students that became lawyers, politicians, brain surgeons (I am not making this up), and oh, yes, techies and actors making real money following their dreams. If the talent is there and the will strong enough, they will find their way and make us proud.

Twenty can’t be expected to tolerate sixty in all things, and sixty gets bored stiff with twenty’s eternal love affairs. [Writer Emily Carr]

It’s time to mow the grass….

Tally-ho! Jim