Page 52 - MLD Book

As mentioned before, the people of Calvary had given us a nice sum of money, plus suitcases, to go back to Germany for a vacation in celebration of my 40 years and Melvin’s 25 years doing music and stuff at Calvary. . Melvin’s uncooperative knee was healed enough that we could attempt that trip in June of 2006, so off we went. This trip was one of several we took with our longtime German friends that we called IN THE STEPS OF BACH. The impetus this time was a four-day conference based at the Thomanerkirche in Leipzig (with emphasis on Goethe’s Auerbach Keller for superb eating!!!), but we managed to hit a lot of the other hot Bach spots before and after. Another summer, we did a detailed, methodical IN THE STEPS OF BACH visiting every place Bach worked and lived, and that article describing that trip even got published in the national organist’s magazine upon our return. This trip only made publication in the Calvary CONNECTION! By this time, out children of course were grown and not with us, but in our earlier years, they went with us pretty often. I remember one year we arrived at the Eisenmann home , only to be told that Doerthe had the MUMPS!! (Mumpen in German.) I remember that Maria began to feel sick when we had moved on to Italy, so we grabbed her and caught the next plane home before she was symptomatic. We overnighted in Philadelphia right before there was an outbreak of Leaggionnaire’s disease! Michelle caught the Mumpen two weeks later and then passed it on to the neighboring Gittle boys (all three!) before the end of that summer.
Of course, on the home front on Hanford Lane, various concerts and activities were always taking place. One fun concert was a benefit for CHOICES, a group advocating women. For a while, those benefit concerts were annual affairs, spearheaded by Susan Baker. We must remember also the first (and so far only) wedding in the Bach Haus, on March 17! Sam Bowerman, a former organ student who was always more interested in the mechanics of the organ than playing it, was married – her first, his FIFTH! Musical highlight was Danny Boy, sung by Harvey! Sam was quite a character and had a flourishing organ repair business, so as “payment” for the wedding, he pledged to tune our organ for life! He did so! Unfortunately for him, and for us too, we lost him to cancer a few years later. Other losses in the Calvary family in 2006 included Charlie Fritschner (car wreck on Brownsboro Road), Millie Cary (clothing volunteer since 1994 and a real help all the time) and Bill Mootz (“esteemed” music critic who died, reportedly, while having sex with a pizza delivery man in his living room!).
2007
This year started out with a literal BANG on New Year’s Day! Melvin managed to see in the new year by falling and breaking his leg, a falling act that would plague us for the next seven years with various falls here and there. This one took him to Baptist East on January 2 for surgery by Dr. Renda, a man with zero personality who also managed to give him an infection that never ever went away! Well, I guess he wasn’t personally responsible for the infection, but Melvin got it there somehow. Of course, January 2 was a Monday and he insisted that Will Simpson should take over the LBS rehearsal that evening. It was further complicated because the LBS subscription concert was to be January 7, so this was the last choral rehearsal to polish all the pieces. Will was the assistant at this time, and he stepped in and did a good job. Further yet to complicate matters, I was to play the Rheinberger organ concerto in F Major, no easy piece. So here I was running back and forth to the hospital, trying to do a full time job at Calvary that included music, outreach and communications, and also practice for the concerto. It became clear that Melvin could not conduct the concert either, so Will did that. All I remember about that concert is that I got
lost on the last line of the piece and Tom Blanford gave me roses!