Page 74 - MLD Book

St. Andrew’s was also instrumental in getting me involved musically, and so I began an extended period of subbing there beginning in March. John Linker asked me to do a recital on their series at Good Shepherd in Lexington, and I did that on May 25. That was also an opportunity for me to spend some time with Callie Hausman, as she had left Calvary at the end of 2013 to take the DRE job there. Katherine Doyle also left early in 2014, both of them driven out by Erdman for one reason or another. (He resurrected Elizabeth Back from Bowling Green as her replacement and she lasted past Erdman.) But this isn’t about a parade of Erdman corpses, but a recitation of how other people made sure I kept busy, both at Calvary and musically. And bless them all.
My playing opportunities kept increasing (even a couple at Calvary)! I did a full recital at Holy Spirit Catholic Church on September 28. A couple of memorial concerts also cropped up, one on September 12 at U of L by his former students where I also played, and October 19 at the Cathedral of the Assumption by Mark Walker’s group, Louisville Master Chorale, where I also was an organ soloist. Also September 14-17 I babysat my two early teenage granddaughters in Cincinnati. Although we had a good time, there were a few hairy moments when they sat snickering in the back seat because I didn’t know my way around Cincinnati! We can laugh about that now but at the time it wasn’t so funny to me.
Maria and Michelle and families were (and still are) extremely wonderful in getting us all through this time of loss. On Mother’s day, for instance, while Michelle distracted me with a Reds game in Cincinnati, Joe and Maria and girls erected a basketball goal on my garage, something I had always wanted, with my irascible addiction to sports.
was reincarnated in 2014 when I was asked to co-edit a blog with Bart Brown. That lasted for a little while, but with Erdman’s never following through on deadlines but still insisting on writing stuff that never appeared, my involvement didn’t last too long as I didn’t have to put up with that.
I edited the Calvary newsletter from 1993 to 2012. It fell into disarray after I was fired for a
while, but
So how do I assess 2014? Probably as a year I never want to
go through again, but one that nevertheless contained a
number of musical highs and personal manifestations of
friendship that I will never forget., specially the love, care and friendship my two girls showed, and continue to do so to this day.