Page 27 - MLD Book

Christmas Eve antics when he let the air out of Ben’s tires. Burrel was always mad at somebody for the flimsiest of reasons – that one was because Ben simply asked him to turn the lights back off as he had rushed to the light panel and turned them all on right before the balcony reading was to begin the service in a darkened church. He had a thing about turning lights on if the were off, and vice versa. Once he changed all the light bulbs in the library so nothing would match. He said lights only cost 6 cents a day to stay on. By virtue of his father having been the mayor of Louisville and a member of Calvary to boot, he felt authorized to do whatever he wanted and whenever he wanted. Sounds like some other guy I know who still feels that way. He periodically ran for political office, never successfully. The death of his father and subsequent funeral at Calvary, also in 1990, set him off to ultimately continue to do outlandish things. One of the worst was that apparently he did not like the anthem as it was being sung one Sunday, so he jumped up from the pew he currently was habitating (he rotated numerous times during a service, usually hitting most spots in the church before the service was over, even rearranging hymn board numbers on the way). So during this anthem, he shaped his right hand in the form of a gun, and shouted that he was shooting the choir as he ran back and forth in front of the chancel. This of course precipitated action, and Edgar had to involve the police and hire a law enforcement officer to protect us in subsequent weeks. The officer wore a plastic jacket with POLICE on the back, not conducive to tranquil worship! This finally led to a legal family Intervention that really produced nothing.
Burrel was alternately mad at me and an advocate, but his mad side antics far outweighed his occasional feelings that I reminded him of his mother. He had a partial hearing problem due to having been hit on the head with a glass bottle by one of his adversaries, so when he sang, it was unbearably loud and somewhat flat. During Edgar’s 1990 stint, this vendetta against me (for playing too loud!) ACCELERATED. It became a contest (and a great distraction of worship) to see if I could play louder than he could sing. At the ends of hymns, I usually won because he would finally run out of breath, while I could hold a chord forever. His family owned a publishing firm called the Lost Cause Press, and I remember that he did like the service music that I had composed for both rites before we began using the new prayer book. He had both of those published and they are still glued to the front and back of the 1982 hymnal, although using them is definitely not a priority of our present musical regime. (Of course in the present pandemic, all of the hymnals and prayer books have been boxed and are sitting in the Parish Hall). Funniest thing about the Lost Cause publication is that the service music is in E Flat. The three flat signature is only printed on the first staff, and not on the ensuing ones, so it’s a tiny bit confusing. But it was one instance when Burrel was helpful and supportive. Mostly, however, when leaving the church, if I said See you, he would reply I hope not!
The life he led did not turn out well as the years went by. He would land in an apartment somewhere and then get kicked out, and often he was homeless for a spell. He set numerous fires, once to the mattress in his room, and I remember him sitting in his underwear on the wall in the old south parking lot with many votive candles lighted in protest of the projected new building that would destroy the ground that had been under the old Glazebrook house. He reasoned that destruction might do away with bones of his ancestors who had attended Sunday School in the building. Crazy? Of course! That plot now is the Calvary Burial Ground, dedicated in 1996. The last time I ever saw Burrel, he was seated in his wheelchair at the intersection of Brownsboro Road and Hubbards Lane, right in the middle of the cross walk! It is indeed true that Burrel was not only Edgar Allen’s challenge, but one for all of us. And it