Page 36 - MLD Book

of one country to another. The actual awarding took place on stage at the U of L music school when Melvin got back to Louisville, and was awarded by the German ambassador, can’t remember her name but she was funny looking. 1996 takes the cake so far for monumental events!
1997
This is the year of the celebration of the 125th anniversary of the laying of the Calvary cornerstone, and there were special services and social occasions to mark that milestone. A Smith-Dickinson hymn, God is our Refuge TUNE Calvary 125, marked the occasion. 1997 was a particularly hot summer, and I remember many, many fights with head usher Timmons Owens about the two LOUD air conditioners poised in the balcony waiting to ruin any soft music or deny parishioners the privilege of listening to the sermon. I had to leave notes saying when to turn them off and on, and the hope was always that he would obey and turn them off before the sermon and leave them off until the Sanctus. It depended on what his level of HOT FLASH was as to whether he would actually agree. Mostly he would flash his ill-fitting false teeth and say he had made an executive decision to turn them back on! Timmons was a very assertive gay man who lived in the Weissinger with Donald Wolfe, a very nice man. I remember one party (the Blessing of his Bathroom when he moved there) where he issued an invitation that included stipulations that no one was to wear jeans or bring pets. He died in his kitchen at some point in later years, and we had to go over there and find him. He was one of at least five gay Calvary men who experienced sudden deaths in one way or another. The others were Tom Harris, Ned Reiter, Bill Mootz, and Don Allen. A storyforeachwillnotberevealedinthisepistle. Whileweareonthesubjectofexpiration,
we add Lucile Paris to 1997, joining her enemy Iris Gray. I trust they have not met again.
Staff changes in this year meant that Eugene Ward finished his four years as assistant and Susan Watts succeeded Pat Mears. Susan was very nice and we got along well, even though she was as fearful as Pat had been fearless! She was very scared to be in the building by herself and asked me every day what time I was leaving, and of course most of the time I never knew, as there was never a punching of the time clock in my job! Jelly projects and Operation Warm for winter continued. And along the way, I get very attached to some of the food and clothing clients that come to us. One such around that time was Ronald Bailey, a gentle man who couldn’t quite make ends meet. He came to us for his usual monthly food bag, and he usually had a poem with him. That’s right, he was a published poet! There wads one poem in particular that I published in a Christmas Eve bulletin about The Magi will not come tonight that described his situation perfectly. (See later).
1998
The Festival of Faiths, a yearly conference sponsored by the Cathedral Heritage Foundation, chose Melvin and me as the 1998 recipients of their Lifetime Achievement Award. The reason given was for their many years of dedicated services through sacred music to the people of the city of Louisville, Kentucky. There was a fancy lunch and speeches galore and lots of our friends attended, I remember most of all I had to wear a dress and stockings and the stockings were too tight and tried to fall down when I got up. We got a lovely crystal round artwork engraved with names and Lifetime Achievement, and a booklet containing letters from the Governor, Mayor, the Mayor’s Citation in recognition of outstanding community service, Certificate of Merit from Mayor Abramson, and various congratulatory
letters and ads from friends. Quite a Day!