Sometimes you need some help getting the tears to flow.

As most of you know, Cassie (left) died over a month ago. We got the word while we were on a Viking riverboat on the Danube. I cried immediately upon hearing the news and then again that night when Ransom and I hugged each other to sleep. I didn’t have an extended cry or cry over several days, partly because we were on a working vacation and maybe because we were so far away. Since returning home I’ve spent more time than usual hugging our two remaining dogs, Zack and Zeus. They seem to sense that something is wrong, or is that my imagination? Obviously they see that Cassie is not with us, but do they know why? Who knows? 

For a month the crying jag that I thought was likely coming got derailed somewhere between too much to do at home and too much running around. I didn’t TRY not to cry; I just didn’t.

That all changed last week. I read Rescuing Sprite: A Dog Lover’s Story of Joy and Anguish by Mark Levin. Then I read Me and Marley by John Grogan and A Search for the Perfect Dog by Gary Shiebler. They’re all short and sweet; none of them are Pulitzer-winning masterpieces but each of them is wonderfully comforting and at the same time acts as the perfect emotional lubricant to leech the sadness from within.

I cried on three different Metro North trains. I cried at home on the couch in the bedroom and on my favorite reading chair in my office. I cried while Zack put his head in my lap and tried to lick away my tears. I cried while Zeus bent over me on the bed and washed away my sadness.

So many tears. So much joy. Sadness too, but as I look back at our lives with our dogs, I remember mostly the warmth and the love and the kisses. Brendan was our first, a Sheltie who grew up in New York City and never quite got over the fears that experience instilled in him. Maggie, a puppy who didn’t survive three months, and Toby our 85-pound lab mutt who lived to be a remarkable 16. Misha, his best buddy, our first Husky and a major loss at only 11 years old.

Then there was Jake who we rescued as a young adult and tried unsuccessfully for two years to fit into our pack. We failed, but found him a home in Washington state where he lived to be 14 as the perfect dog once he was the only dog.

Lucky we rescued when he was two but, in a mockery to his name, he died at seven from cancer. Tasha, rescued from the same shelter as Lucky, lived 13 years with us; Paulo, from the Woodbridge Shelter, was tragically run over by a car as he bolted for home, having been scared in the woods.

That makes eleven dogs who have shared our lives and given us so much joy and love.

When I cried those tears last week I felt sad, yes, but mainly I felt humbled that there exists such a creature as the family dog. Its only job is to love us and it does that job magnificently. I miss you Cassie, just as I miss all your brothers and sisters but I thank you from the depth of my being for all you gave us. To have benefitted from your comfort for 12 or 15 years would have been wonderful and remarkable. To have done so for 18 years is mythical, epic, and far beyond anything I deserve.

Zeus, 10 and our kissingest dog ever

Zack, 5 and still puppyish

Brendan (d 1997) and Maggie (d 1987)

Toby (d 2004)

Misha (d 2000)

Jake (d 2014)

Lucky (d 2010)

Tasha (d 2011)

Paulo (d 2013)

Catherine Mantelli Foery

Aunt Cathy with two of her grandkids, Ethan, left, and Brendan

I’m not exactly sure when I met Catherine Mantelli. It may have been on September 12, 1959, the day she married Thomas Foery and became my Aunt Cathy, or maybe it was the day before. I was ten, about to turn eleven, and I can’t tell you exactly when and where we met, but I can tell you when and where I fell in love with her.

That would have been in Wilmington, Vermont, in early December, 1970. I had written Uncle Tom and asked him about the ski lodge he was running. Could I visit for a week? Could I stay there? He wrote back to say, “be here right after Thanksgiving; the season runs through April so be prepared to stay that long; we won’t pay you but you’ll have room and board and a ski pass. Ok?” I was dumbfounded and thought he must have been answering somebody else’s letter. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought, “why not?’ So off I went to Mt. Snow.

It was a wonderful, hedonistic winter. The work was usually mild, the accommodations were fine, the food excellent and the fun abundant. Best though was the chance to get to know Tom’s family: Aunt Cathy and cousins Mark, Elaine, Mary Ellen and Billy. Cathy’s warmth and smiles got us through many a cold day and her laughter and vivaciousness added immeasurably to many a night of partying.

Aunt Cathy, Catherine Mantelli Foery, died today in Bennington, Vermont, at the age of 96. I have many fond memories of that winter in Vermont, but also of many other times together. One of the more recent incidents that I love to share is pictured below. That’s cousin Bill at the controls of his new (at the time) boom lift; Cathy and I are the passengers. The entire time we were up in the air I was nervous and more than ready to get back down to the ground. Aunt Kay was perfectly comfortable and having a great time. What a remarkable lady she was.

The Foery family is today less than it was yesterday. Go with God, sweet angel.

50 Tears Ago Today: Chicago

On Wednesday, August 28, 1968, the news programs were filled with images and video that made my blood boil. The young and the not-so-young were demonstrating against the immoral Vietnam War in Chicago, home to that year’s Democratic National Convention. Mayor Richard Daley, no friend of young people or demonstrators, ordered his police to use whatever force necessary to disperse the thousands in the street and in the parks. Wikipedia does a good job of summing up the story; read it here. As you may know, the Walker Report to the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence called what happened that night a police riot.

I wasn’t in Chicago on the 28th but I was so angry over what was happening to “my people” that I went in the next night to join the protests. I clearly remember thinking that I might get tear-gassed, beaten or arrested, and that all of that would be ok.

I spent the night in Grant Park, opposite the Conrad Hilton Hotel where the delegates were staying. Thursday was much quieter than the night before and the mass attacks we had seen on TV were not repeated. I was neither beaten or arrested, but I was tear-gassed, an experience I’m glad to have never had again. Most of the night though was spent chanting anti-war slogans, smoking and rapping with fellow protestors. I headed home to Aurora and my VISTA post early in the morning.

1968 was an incredibly divisive and emotional year for all of us. Several of the year’s pivotal events had direct impacts on my life: Martin Luther King’s assassination forced me away from my brand new training site in the west side of Chicago and eventually led me to Aurora, IL, instead. Later, I spent two weeks in Resurrection City on the National Mall, supporting a group of Aurora locals who had come to join the protests. I was there when Bobby Kennedy was killed and tried to get to Arlington National Cemetery for his burial, but that was not possible. And then there was Chicago.

Fifty years later we once again live in a tumultuous time. I tend to write checks in support of liberal causes, rather than march in protests, but the way things are going, I may be joining the protests once again. Who’d have ever thought that possible?

So your brother's bound and gagged and they've chained him to a chair
Won't you please come to Chicago just to sing?
In a land that's known as freedom how can such a thing be fair?
Won't you please come to Chicago for the help that we can bring?
We can change the world
Rearrange the world
It's dying . . .
To get better
Politicians sit yourselves down there's nothing for you here.
Won't you please come to Chicago for a ride?
Don't ask Jack to help you 'cause he'll turn the other ear.
Won't you please come to Chicago or else join the other side?

We can change the world
Rearrange the world
It's dying . . .
To get better

Graham Nash, from the album Songs for Beginners 

Coming face to face with memories

Truth be told I haven’t felt much like blogging since Don Dale died in December 2015. He was my number one reader (and I his). His death hurt and it took me a long time to get used to the fact that he was no longer around to hear or read my latest tale. But I am used to it and of course my life has gone on.

This week brought me together with two people from my past – one from my very distant past – so I thought it a good time to revisit these pages. Not sure I have it in me to write regularly, but we’ll see.

David Tittle worked for me when I was in the Concert Office at the Yale School of Music, about twenty years ago. We developed the habit of talking long and late – his job no doubt suffered because we liked each other so much, but who cares? College is more about the relationships you form than about anything else.

David and I stayed in touch; I went to his wedding in California and he visited me when he came back to Yale. Facebook helped.

David is one of the finest young men I’ve ever known and so I was thrilled that on this trip to California we’d get together for dinner and an opera. The meal was excellent, the opera (Rigoletto, L A Opera) not so much, but all was eclipsed by the quality of the conversation.

I told him that one of the things I am proudest of is that I am fiercely loyal. Once I’ve decided to love you, I’m not going to let you go, or give up on you, no matter how much time and space come between us. Talking with David Wednesday night was just the same as those conversations all those years ago. The foundation we built was strong; it will weather the weather, survive the changes and grow with the years.

The other person I got together with on this trip was Sandy Adams, my first boyfriend. We were together for two years starting in January 1972. We’ve lost touch more than once over the years but, again, thanks to Facebook, we started chatting over the last few years and when I knew I was going to be on the West Coast for a week, Sandy generously invited to put me up for my two nights in L A. I arrived after the opera and then spend the next day touring the Huntington (fantastic!) and that evening listening to the Los Angeles Philharmonic play Schumann at the amazing and wonderful Walt Disney Concert Hall (my first visit).

As I write this in Redlands, CA, four hours before Ransom conducts the final concert of the Redlands Symphony season, Sandy is heading this way to enjoy it with me. What a treasure is our friendship.

Some people live their lives, never looking back. I’m not one of them. I try not to wallow in former glories but I sure appreciate remembering them and, even better, sharing them and creating new memories. Don and I did that for fifty years. Just because he’s gone is no reason to stop.

The stunning Walt Disney Concert Hall