This is the only photo I have available at the moment and it’s fairly topical, as I finished this section the other day while watching baseball. There’s much more to go. It’s currently stashed on the end of the den sofa.
It’s coldish today and windy, but the sun is out or it was out, as it’s just become cloudy. Still no sign of the Carolina wrens, but I choose to remain hopeful. I can’t remember exactly when the female started nesting last year. I don’t think it was this early. Fingers crossed that they come back. The weather has been so changeable lately and there’s been so much rain and flooding. I haven’t heard quite as much bird song as usual.
A memory:
I used to listen to an afternoon radio show on the CBC called Disc Drive. Do any of my Canadian readers remember it? It was on from 3 – 6 pm and the host was the wonderful Jurgen Gothe. It was – to me, someone who has always been eclectic in my musical tastes – the perfect radio program. Gothe had a vast knowledge of music, especially classical, and was blessed with a mellifluous voice and offbeat and quirky sense of humor. I think it ran from 1985 to 2008 and then the CBC dropped it because of an unfortunate decision to try and reach a younger audience. That decision was one they would regret.
Since I grew up in the Detroit, Michigan area and Windsor, Ontario was just across the river, I was used to watching Canadian television and listening to the CBC. Disc Drive actually started airing when I was in graduate school in Philadelphia, but when I came home to visit, I’d listen to it daily. I distinctly remember driving to the airport with my friend Joe. It was late in the afternoon in January, late enough that it was dark outside, and I was headed back to Philadelphia after Christmas break. Joe had Disc Drive on the radio and Jurgen introduced “Belle of the Ball” by Leroy Anderson. (Anderson was a wonderful composer who was well known for his light concert pieces that were often premiered by Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops. I have a “Best of” recording of his compositions, including “Sleigh Ride,” “The Syncopated Clock,” and a host of others and have several pieces on my playlist.)
I can still hear Gothe’s voice introducing that piece. I fell in love with it. I don’t know why, but that memory often comes back to me, a very specific moment in time. Jurgen’s voice, the darkened car, the beautiful and magical music, and my heading back to school must have been a powerful combination. I’ve been listening to that piece a lot lately.
I even bought a shortwave radio to try and catch the CBC signal because I wasn’t close enough to Canada to get it in the days when I was living in Philadelphia and Boston. I don’t think I was ever successful.
Now, of course, I would have been able to stream it on my computer.
Many years later, when Don was acting in a play in Canada, he recorded two Disc Drive programs for me on cassette per my request. That’s how much I missed that show.
I went on a Jurgen Gothe search yesterday. He died in 2015 at the age of 71 – much too young. He’s the kind of person I would have loved to have as my friend. I listened to a tribute to him that had been done by the CBC a month or two after he died and it was so wonderful to hear that voice again. If the CBC was smart they would have archived his shows, as the BBC does with Desert Island Discs. I’ll keep searching but I didn’t see any evidence of archives yesterday. My current fantasy: Being able to listen to past programs every day from 3 – 6 pm.
There are very few – if any – radio programs like that today. Even Jonathan Schwartz – out of New York and recently retired – was not quite the same thing. It centered on the American Songbook and singers, which I dearly love. I listened to it every weekend. But it wasn’t the same as Disc Drive.
In my ideal world, in which all the things I miss from days gone by haven’t been cancelled and are still out there, I would listen to Jurgen Gothe and Jonathan Schwartz daily.
Just something that’s been on my mind lately. I got teary-eyed hearing Gothe’s voice again, listening to his patter between recordings, remembering his vast musical knowledge.
Both Don and I reminisce about things we miss. Parts of the world as it was. I suppose everyone our age does.
Some thoughts for Sunday.
Stay safe.
Happy Sunday.
