The Pianist

When I got divorced, I let go of many things from my married life. One of those things was having a lot of books near at hand. Moving from a house to an apartment involved a lot f downsizing and I realized that books could be had at the local library. It wasn’t the same as having them in my living room, but it was good enough.

I kept my science fiction books, my Apollo books, some baseball books and a few music books. Among my music books was a water-damaged copy of The Pianist by Wladislaw Szpilman. Some may remember this book from seeing the movie of the same name. In fact, we only got it after seeing the excellent movie.

I actually got it out before I left, but I didn’t open it until Saturday. I’m not sure why I had it in with the music books. It really has very little to do with making music. It is the story of a musician, though. A Jewish pianist, caught in Warsaw when the Germans came in 1939.

I’m including this as a Zach story because I associate this book with Zach. I don’t remember where I was when I saw the movie, or who was with me, or where we got the book, but I remember Zach telling me he had read it and at the time it surprised me. The printing is 2003 so Zach would have been a freshman or sophomore in high school. I believe he even had it in his room although I don’t remember that for sure either.

So somehow I associate it with Zach and I was thinking of him when I picked it up. He was moved enough by the story to keep it near him. Perhaps he even read it more than once. If he kept journals in those days, I haven’t seen them.

Reading it myself now, I am struck by the thought that evil is everywhere. Here in America we tend to have the belief that we are morally superior to everyone else in the world. When someone does something odious in the political world, we often brand him or her with the epithet of Hitler. I try to remember that Hitler didn’t kill all those people by himself; many people did his bidding. Szpilman’s story is told in simple, unemotional prose. The most horrific things happen. They are done by Germans, Poles, Lithuanians, even Jews.

They could be done by Americans. It could happen here.

county fair

I went to the San Mateo County Fair this morning. Rose wanted to go because she had entered her oatmeal cookies and wanted to see how they were judged.

The fair opened at 10, but Rose likes to be early so we were there a little after 9:30. Free admission for the first hour! Quite a few people had the same idea, so there was a clot of a couple of hundred people at the gate. Many had young children. One little girl next to us was posturing dance moves and looking at the results in her shadow. The weather was perfect.

It struck me that this crowd represented the best of America. It had people of many cultures and ethnicities. And there were children of couples that were clearly from different ethnicities. The little girl we had been watching was joined by a friend whose skin was a different color. They were still obviously best of buds. Everyone in the crowd was respectful of each other.

About the time we walked up, someone started talking from a stage nearer to the gate. It was a county supervisor, who introduced the sheriff, who brought out the color guard and led everyone in the Pledge Of Allegiance. Our local State Senate representative was next as he spoke on ‘Emergency Preparedness Day’ which was the theme of the day. It was all over in about ten minutes and the gate soon opened and we all poured in. Free admission for the first hour!

In the exhibition hall were many of the typical fair booths: various county services, things for sale. We stopped at a booth for a farm to table venture run by local farmers. Rose signed up for a trial. The young man who talked to us said he was going to have a hard time all day ignoring the smell of the cinnamon roll booth about 20 feet away.

Just past the cinnamon rolls were the food entries: beautifully decorated cakes, breads, brownies, beers and wines, … and cookies! They were all mixed up in glass cases so we had to go around to all of them. Finally there was one oatmeal cookie that had won first place. I was disappointed, but Rose kept looking and nearby were her cookies.

‘2nd place!!’ She nearly screamed. She was so happy. It was at the bottom of one of the cases so she had to squat down to take a picture. The card had gotten bent wrong so her name was barely visible but she was delighted. ‘2nd place!’ she kept saying, over and over. She spent the next ten minutes texting and emailing the picture to everyone she could think of. She was pumped!

After a bit, we went outside and looked at the midway and had a corn dog and crappy ‘lemonade’. A band started playing at a stage nearby and we smiled at another little girl who was moving to the music. Then she wanted to go in and look at the cookies again. I swear, she was floating!

On the other side of the food entries was the fine arts pavilion. We went over and looked at the paintings, drawings, photographs, poems, quilts until we were tired. ‘2nd place!’ she kept saying. What a great morning we had.

more puzzles

I’ve been thinking – as usual – about some serious subjects to write about. Instead I’m going to write about my jigsaw puzzles. I finished the one of the Irish cathedral today. It’s a pretty picture but not a difficult puzzle.

For fun when I got all the new puzzles in March, I had started keeping track of the dates I started and finished each one. Now I have completed four and here are the results:

The first was a picture of a Greek village, perhaps Santorini. The box just says, ‘Greece.’ Bright white buildings and a very blue sea and sky. 20 days.

Second turned out to be a painting, which I did not expect. I thought I had bought only photos. It was nice, though, called ‘Cote d’Azur.’ A French town center I suppose. Cafes and a cobblestone street leading down to the (very blue) sea. 23 days.

Third was the Forest Stream I’ve already talked about. A stream running through a forest. Very pretty with irregular pieces. 29 days.

And today the stone cathedral with the blue, gray and white clouds above contrasting the brightly colored houses in the foreground. It sort of reminded me of the ‘Painted Ladies’ people pay to go see in San Francisco. Anyway, only 14 days for that one.

Let me know if you want one of these puzzles. We can arrange something. The Cote d’Azur one I already took to Mom’s but she hasn’t started it yet. I think she likes to have other people working with her. There are several places she could set up at her house but she uses her sewing room, which is used for other things and is small.

I don’t know what’s up next. I’ll let this one sit on the table for a few days.

jigsaws

I’ve got a puzzle going now, as usual. It’s a scene of a cathedral in Ireland with some brightly colored houses in the foreground. Sorry, no pictures! It’s pretty standard for a 1000 piece puzzle. The houses and cathedral were relatively easy but the sky isn’t. Shades of blue and gray and white. This particular brand of puzzle has pieces that are all essentially rectangular with either zero, one, two, three, or four ‘outies’. (One could say the same thing about ‘innies’.)

I’ve finished the easier part and now I’m working on the sky. I’ve got about 200 pieces left. I’ve found that I can segregate the pieces by number of outies (or innies) and make better progress on the puzzle. Yes, I know it’s about a process not a result. It’s still slow, but I have to feel I can find at least a few pieces every time I sit down.

Now the last puzzle I did was different. It was a forest scene: a stream surrounded by trees with varying foliage. Greens, reds, yellows, oranges, browns – lots of colors but not in any particular pattern. Oh, and blues, grays and blacks in the stream part. It was one of the hardest puzzles I’ve ever done but one of the most interesting. I think the reason why is that the pieces were not symmetrical like the one I have going now. They were all over the map. In fact, some of the pieces were rather bizarre looking. No pre-sorting these babies! No pictures of that one either.

It’s funny, some people will take their completed puzzle and put a backing on it and frame it. Not me. For me, it’s all about the process. I usually leave the completed puzzle on the table for a few days and admire the picture but then it’s back in the box and on to the next one. Most puzzles I’ll take to Mom or someone else who likes to do them. Failing that, it’s Goodwill time! Most of the time I’m not interested in doing a puzzle a second time.

The forest stream one I’m hanging on to. It will get another shot in a year or two.

the road home

Re-reading yesterday’s post made me realize I described details of my trip up but not of my trip back.

Part of why my visit was not so ‘transcendent’ was that even as I was marveling at the water pounding through the canyon I was thinking of the trip home. I knew I wanted to be home that night and I didn’t want to be so late as to have to deal with lots of Bay Area traffic.

I remembered my trip last year via Highway 88 and had decided ahead of time that I would go home that way. It was pretty, but it didn’t strike me as hard as it had before. Caples Lake was still mostly frozen over and Silver Lake, which so enchanted me last year, I missed entirely, presumably because it looked like a meadow covered with snow.

Here’s a picture from just below Carson Pass.

There was hardly anyone on the road, so that was nice.

Eventually I got down to Jackson, where I stopped to eat my sandwich at Kennedy Tailing Wheels Park. It’s the site of an old gold mine. From 1913 to 1942, tailings from the mine were sluiced across a valley and over a hill with the aid of 4 huge wheels. One has been restored and protected in a shed, two others are in varying states of disintegration. The fourth I found by accident and got this picture.

This one is smaller. The big one now in the shed is about 60 feet in diameter.

Below Jackson was familiar territory as it was the same road I had driven on Sunday coming home from Drytown. I didn’t stop any more until I got home to Pacifica about 2:30. Since the night before at 7 pm I had driven 440 miles.

return to Eagle Creek Falls

It wasn’t as transcendent as I’d hope it would be. I left Pacifica last night around 7 so I missed the bulk of the traffic. Still, it was a nearly 4 hour slog to the Lake. I had reserved a room at a funky motel just south of the Y.

I wanted to get up for the dawn so I didn’t take a sleeping pill. I finally got to sleep sometime after midnight. The second time I woke up it was almost 4:30 so I went ahead and got up, slugged down a caffeine pill and ate a Clif bar. I was almost out of gas, so I took care of that first, then headed out to Eagle Creek Falls.

As I drove out Highway 89 from the Y, past Camp Richardson, I remembered last July, going through that same stretch of road and seeing the sun lighting up the peaks above me. This time the sky was light but the sun was still below the peaks’ horizon.

At the falls, there were no hooligans, just 4 or 5 photographers with their cameras preset on tripods, waiting for dawn. As I expected, the creek was a mighty torrent. I went to the spot where I had been unable to get all of Zach’s tiny rocks to go over the edge. The water was churning and deep. There was no way to see below the surface. I feel sure that the water has scoured every bit of Zach over the edge and towards the lake.

As the moment of dawn approached, I watched the bright spot across the lake carefully. I had gotten a picture last year of the moment of first light. Today I did the same but the way the sun seemed to leap up from the mountain peaks seemed different. From the moment of the first edge showing to the full fiery ball in the sky seemed only seconds.

After a few minutes there, I headed across the road and up the trail. The falls up there where the bridge is has a post calling is ‘Eagle Falls’. I don’t know what that makes the falls below the road. Anyway, it was above the falls, at a spot labeled ‘Vista’ that I was most interested in. Ashley and Jeremy had brought saplings last year and planted them up there and I wanted to see if they survived.

Sadly, they did not. Or if they did, they are in a completely different spot. I took a lot of pictures of the area and will ask them if they remember exactly where they planted the saplings.

At first it made me sad that there were no special trees for Zach but after a while I remembered what I had said many times last spring. The whole of Lake Tahoe is where we will remember Zach’s final resting place. It was incredibly beautiful again this morning. Here’s the top of the falls a bit later in the morning.

Shannon Taylor speaks

Look what I started. I present here the sworn statement of Shannon Taylor, aged 25 years. Ms Taylor was the passenger in the Nissan pickup truck that killed Zach.

Driving up Lee Drive white truck on right side of truck would not stop from merging in the lane truck is extremely close. Bikers on side of road and crossed the street and was hit. The white truck speed extremly fast on side.

We were first at the red light in front. We went pass as the light turned green white truck speeding in right lane and pass the merge. This was very scary to have a person doing this even pass merge. We see some people one side and the person crosses

53 in a 35

I think about this often when I’m out driving. The 53 is a guess. I think of it as too fuckin’ fast. I used the phrase earlier today when responding to a poster on TDPRI who I thought was kind of a jerk. He responded calmly that he, too, had lost a son.

The TDPRI thread had to do with automated driving, with many posters stating that they enjoyed driving and would never willingly give up their hands on the steering wheel. Others said that the number of deaths and injuries by automobile were too many to be ignored and that the government would step in when the technology was ready. Most thought that would be less than 10 years.

At one time I was going to post here all of the statements made by the witnesses of Zach’s death. I haven’t looked at any of that stuff for many months now. I’ve had more than one therapist tell me not to look anymore. The one I can’t remember very well is the statement of the passenger, Shawn R Allen’s girlfriend. It wasn’t as lame as his but it was pretty lame. I guess they’ve gone on with their lives.

I talked to Micah at the work weekend. He said he was living in a different house in Baton Rouge, which I had not been aware of. He went on to tell me Jake moved to Las Vegas and sold the house. Well, now I don’t have to worry about being invited to stay there if I ever were to go back. Going back is unlikely but some days I do have a fantasy of walking from the corner to see exactly what the distance is and really watching the speed of the traffic.

Life

I keep saying I want to cut back but I keep failing. Last week was the return from the work weekend Monday. I was so tired when I got home I couldn’t go to band that night. Tuesday I got my laundry done and napped but had work that evening. Wednesday and Thursday I took classes for professional development in Hayward. By the end of the second day I was wondering why I bothered. The new big Yamaha mixer is interesting but the likelihood of me driving one for a job are slim to none.

Friday morning was our first graduation of the year at Davies. I stayed down there to work the evening shift. Saturday, Rose’s sister Leigh had a gathering at her house in Antioch to celebrate the life of her husband, John. Saturday traffic was an abomination. 2+ hours each way.

Sunday morning up early for the Youth Orchestra in Davies until 5 pm then a dash down to Santa Clara for Mother’s Day dinner. In addition to that, we celebrated Jane and Julian’s birthdays. Julian is 21!

Yesterday an early call (6 am) for another graduation then concert dress rehearsal for the jazz band in the evening. I did lay down and try to nap in the afternoon.

Today I am waiting for the laundry room to become free. I have a couple of errands to run but they can wait until tomorrow if it comes to that. The rehearsal showed me that I need to practice the guitar more, although I really already knew that, so I’ve done some of that already. I finished the jigsaw puzzle I’ve been picking away at for almost a month. It’s one of the hardest I’ve ever done so that is satisfying.

Tomorrow night, work returns. Thursday I signed on with Hal to be part of the sound crew for the Disney/Pixar movie presentation at Davies. It’s going to be an 8 am to midnight (at least) day plus I agreed to do the graduation at 7 the next morning. And the house head job in the evening . . .

All this to clear my weekend for personal things. Saturday afternoon in San Francisco Sarah’s quartet is hosting a benefit that I will attend before heading back to San Bruno in the evening for the jazz band concert. Sunday up to Rose’s brother Steve’s house in Plymouth and another chance to play with Allen Frank and his Doghouse Blues band at the Drytown Club.

Monday I think I’ll collapse but Monday evening is another jazz band rehearsal, this time for the school graduation. I really want to go up to Eagle Creek Falls before the summer madness starts so right now it looks like Tuesday or Wednesday will be my best options before Memorial Day.

I have Sarah’s next quartet concert on my calendar for Friday the 26th but yesterday realized it overlapped the Skyline graduation. Hmmm, I may have to weasel out of that one.

work weekend

Well, we had it last weekend. The work weekend, where we picked up the slack for Zach. Quite a few people came: family members, LSU people, Greenville YMCA people. All in all there were over 25 people involved.

I took the red-eye out of SFO Thursday night, arriving in Atlanta around 7 in the morning having slept only a couple of hours at most. Sarah had come in the night before, so she was there. A group from Baton Rouge led by Micah and Julie came about noon. Ashley got home from work about 3:30 and by 4 we were on the road to South Carolina.

Despite promises being made, no one was at the camp when we arrived. The cabins were open and the lights worked but otherwise it was deserted. There was no cell service up on the mountain so reaching people was tough.

Jeremy persevered, though, and after about an hour he got through to someone who told us the director had a family emergency and had to leave. We got the info on where to sleep so we got settled before dark. Ally arrived about 9 with Noah, having done all the driving from Cincinnati. He came into the kids cabin just in time to interrupt Rosalie from getting to sleep. They were glad to see each other.

After that, Jeremy got a campfire started and more people I didn’t know started showing up in the darkness. Soon, stories of Zach were being told. I had the foresight of bringing my little hand held recorder and I let it run for a solid 45 minutes while stories were told around the campfire.I gave up around midnight. There were a few hardy souls still there.

The next morning after breakfast, everyone headed out to ‘Zeke’s Place’ to see what we were up against. Here’s what we found:

Before we started work, Jeremy got everyone in a circle and we all spoke briefly of our relationship to Zach. Ashley used her lovely phrase, ‘Brother-in-love,’ to refer to Zach. One of the Greenville people – I don’t remember who, but male – said they had a crush on Zach. That was after one of the women said the same thing, to knowing nods all around.

Then, to work. Noah jumped in and helped as much as he could.

We broke for lunch and returned to an afternoon of rain showers but the work continued steadily. We weren’t quite done when it was time to go to dinner, but some elves left quickly after dinner and went back to finish the roof before the light faded.

The next morning, almost everyone reconvened at the site for a celebratory picture. I never heard who Zeke was but heretofore, it will be known as ‘Zach and Zeke’s Place.’

Before that, on Saturday, there was an important other celebration to have. It was Noah’s birthday! Ashley had made a cake and someone – I never found out who – went into Brevard for Dolly’s ice cream. Gifts were given and songs were sung; cake and ice cream was eaten.

YMCA Camp Greenville has a chapel called ‘Pretty Place’. It’s where Jeremy and Ashley had gotten married nearly ten years ago. I never felt that ‘pretty’ was the best word for the spot. It’s much better than pretty. Anyway, Jeremy had encouraged everyone to come out to Pretty Place for the sunrise Sunday. I had heard 6:45 but when I got there about that time, the sun was already up and many people were already there. After the rain the day before, Sunday had dawned clear and warm, but pockets of fog were in the valleys below.

After snapping a couple of pictures, I sat down next to Sarah and took in the fabulous view and thought of the wonderful people that were there with me, giving some extra for Zach. I completely broke down.

Category Archives: Life as we know it