Kith & Kin

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Yes, this is a true story, related as accurately as I can, considering that the events occurred thirty years ago. Have you ever heard the expression “There’s no education in the second kick of a mule”? According to this article , the saying “is a proverb meaning that one should have learned the lesson the first time. L. Mendel Rivers (1905–1970), a Democratic U.S. Representative from South Carolina, used the saying many times.” For some reason that aphorism comes to mind when I recall turning pages for Samuel Sanders as he accompanied the legendary violinist Itzhak Perlman at the Peace Center in January of 1994. I had already been kicked by the page-turner mule once, but when the house manager asked me if I wanted to do it again when Perlman came, I bent over and said, “Yeah! Kick me again!” If you’ve read my previous blog post, “ Adventures in Page Turning, Part 1 ,” you will know that in October of 1993 I had the privilege of turning pages for Emanuel Ax,...

My program from that evening, signed by Ma and Ax. AUTHOR’S NOTE: Yes, this is a true story, related as accurately as I can, considering that the events occurred thirty years ago. There I sat, alone—alone on stage at the Peace Center . Alone in front of a packed house—over 2000 people in attendance. And I wasn’t supposed to be there. You ever have a nightmare where you find yourself in public in your underwear? Yeah, well, this was kind of like one of those dreams. Except I was wearing a suit. How in the world did I end up here? My mind began to drift back . . . “That Would Be . . . Amazing!” Months back, at my interview for an usher position with the Peace Center, Gary, the House Manager, asked me why I wanted to be an usher. Part of my answer was that I loved music—I played the piano, sang in choir, loved classic Broadway musicals . . . Gary remembered those comments when an unusual need came up. “Hey, you read music, right?” “Yeah.” ...

PLEASE NOTE: This essay contains events regarding physical trauma that some readers may find distressing. If that concerns you, please feel free to read no further. David was a quiet kid, well-behaved, intelligent; he was an eighth-grade student of mine many years ago. His face was rather pale; he had dark hair. His most notable feature was his eyes—they were large and dark and kind. I wonder whether they attracted members of the opposite sex as he grew older—I suspect they did. David, as students will, grew up and moved on to other things. He became a Marine and got married. I worked with him on a paint crew one summer (he worked year-round; for me it was just a summer job)—he was still kind and soft-spoken, but he was now a “beast” as far as his physique was concerned, thanks to the Marines. I couldn’t compare with him in the least when it came to strength. I have never had a lot of upper-body strength. Most of the other guys in high school PE could climb a rope or hand-walk do...

Our former home on Bartley Road, LaGrange, Georgia. We lived here in 1973 – 74. Author’s Note: This essay is absolutely not intended as a condemnation of all people who live in Georgia, of all people who live in LaGrange, or of anyone living there today. This is how things were for me fifty years ago. Although I don’t speak of them here, we met many wonderful people and made great friends back then. And I am sure that today the good people of LaGrange, like the rest of us, are very different from those I knew so long ago. It was 1973, and I was riding the bus home after my first day at Troup Junior High School in LaGrange, Georgia. Two boys about my age were a couple of seats behind me. “Hey!” one of them said. “Hey you!” I turned and looked at them hopefully. Maybe they would be friendly. “Where you from?” they asked. “Ohio.” They looked at each other and said, “Oh-Hi!” and laughed. “I bet you like Sherman, don’t ya?” one of them added. Now, the only “Sherman” I knew was ...

My cousin Peggy is three years older than I am. We have been close ever since we were very small children and she dressed me up in little girl clothes like I was one of her dolls. As far as I know, only one photo exists of me thusly attired, which is one more photo than I wish there were of me thusly attired. I once told my mother that when I grew up, I wanted to marry Peggy. Grandma Swartz, standing nearby, reacted in typical Grandma Swartz style. “Oh, Stevie, you can’t marry your first cousin! Your children will be deformed! They won’t be right!” Mom’s wise reply: “For heaven’s sake, Mom, he’s only five years old! He’s not really going to marry her!” Why our children would be deformed was a mystery to me, but it didn’t really matter in the long run because Peg and I never married each other anyway. Peggy and I got to discussing birthdays once when we were kids, and we came to realize that I was born on September 22, and she was born on December 22. “We were both born on the...