The Great Hits and Albums of 1971

 You know how you envy people, especially when you're young? I'm well over that now.  I used to wish I could be as handsome as David Cassidy and as talented a musician as Karen Carpenter, both close to my age. They both died after years of unhappiness, Carpenter at 32 and Cassidy at 67. I'm still here, and despite the pandemic, the usual problems of being over 70, and not being rich or adequately famous, I have a good life. The last six weeks, I've taught a class called "The Great Hits and Albums of 1971," as a volunteer at Osher Life-Long Learning, through West Virginia University's School of Public Health. David Cassidy, as part of The Partridge Family, and Karen Carpenter, who formed Carpenters with her brother Richard, have been  featured in this class. 

I've gained an appreciation of the hard work and commitment of people in music who were also politically involved, people like Aretha Franklin, Isaac Hayes, Curtis Mayfield and Gladys Knight. I have more  respect for David Bowie and Elton John, and "Lola" by the Kinks, breaking  barriers around masculinity. While many people were blaming John or Paul for the breakup of The Beatles, videos from 1971 show Paul and Linda and John and Yoko in love. I have memories of young women I knew who swooned over Carole King's Tapestry  Joni Mitchell's Blue, and "Best New Artist" at the Grammys, Carly Simon. I still think of "So Far Away" from Carole King when I think of friends I miss in California. I played a video of Joni Mitchell accompanying herself on dulcimer, singing her song "California" that knocked me out. 

I was too old for The Partridge Family and The Osmonds, but I am still in awe of The Jackson Five, especially little Michael, who had a brilliant career as an adult, but an early and sad end to his life.

I look at The Bee Gees, three brothers, the younger two twins my age. Someone in class noted that their syrupy ballads, moving syrupy ballads, but still,  were nothing like Saturday Night Fever. Barry Gibb, the oldest brother, is still with us, but the twins died a few years apart some time ago. 

The Beach Boys also were three brothers, where the younger two have died, and the eldest is still here. This was a time of a lull in their career, but their albums from 1970, 71 and 72, Sunflower, Surf's Up  and Holland, have always been among my favorites. I played "Until I Die" from Surf's Up in class, and fifty years later, I still cried when I heard that song. 

I'm ending my class tomorrow with two songs from Gonna Take A Miracle by Laura Nyro, a songwriter who decided to do an album of covers of songs by other writers, and recruited Patti Labelle's new group, Labelle, to sing backup. Although the album never cracked the Top 40, had no singles, and was not on recommended lists from Rolling Stone or Spin, it is my favorite album from 1971. The Word magazine listed it as one of "The 60 Best Underrated Albums." There's a cult of Laura Nyro fans, and I'm in it, and it centers especially around this album. I could earn a PhD. from explicating it. The album is on YouTube. Check it out.

I don't know if I'll teach another OLLI class. I do a lot of research and these classes take way too much of my time. I've been doing this for more than eight years, and I've done a class for every year from 1960 to 1971. Still, I enjoy it, and I think people in my class do, too. I would like to do some other writing, maybe a book, and clean up the piles of trash in my office space left over from my time on Morgantown's City Council.

But just yesterday, I had a thought about classes I might teach. 1972 would bring us Jackson Browne, Bruce Springsteen and Steely Dan, and a new era for Stevie Wonder and Paul Simon. Or maybe six weeks of R&B heroes: Isaac Hayes and David Porter, Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Nikolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson and Holland, Dozier and Holland. Or six weeks of women artists: Aretha Franklin, Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Carly Simon, Janis Joplin, and Gladys Knight. How about women in country music from Patsy Cline to Loretta Lynn, June Carter, Dolly Parton, Lynn Anderson and Sammi Smith? Make me stop! I don't want to work this hard. But maybe I will. 

5777

If the Jewish calendar were more correct, Rosh Hashana would have been September 4 and 5, instead of October 3 and 4. That would have nixed our early August trip to California, but it would mean all the holidays would have been in September, and already over. Meanwhile, Osher Life-Long Learning, where both Joe and I are teaching six-week classes, started September 26. And I've been involved in some election campaigns, trying to attend an almost daily run of candidate events. I am on the Morgantown Library Commission, which meets October 19. I've been to one meeting, where they handed me a 96-page handbook, which I should have read by now.  I won't make my monthly trek to another county this month- no time. For Rosh Hashana, I agreed to chant haftarah, about three pages, in Hebrew. I'm chanting Torah at Yom Kippur, using a special holiday melody, 19 verses, mostly from memory, as the text has no notes, no vowels and no punctuation.

This year, I looked at Rosh Hashana as more of a burden, an inconvenience, getting in the way of my preparation for my class, called "The Great Hits of 1962," interfering with my social life and my desire to be something of a political player. I feel like this last year has been a separation from the temple and Rabbi Joe's shadow, making my own friends outside that circle, finding other things to do and places to go. Still, I agreed to read on the holidays, because no one else can do this, except Joe, and he is already overwhelmed.

Monday and Tuesday were Rosh Hashana day. I was prepared in my one good suit. I helped Joe with the early childrens' service before the regular one. The day was sunny and warm. Joe spoke beautifully, as he always does, I chanted well, the sanctuary was full of friendly faces. We threw our sins, in the form of bread, off the rail-trail bridge over Deckers Creek, then twenty of us went out for pizza.

Something happened during services. I saw the faces of my parents and grandparents greet me, and, as if I were dying, my whole life flashed by. I was comforted, not threatened in any way. I felt the ancestors were stopping by for a visit, and I saw good things from the past.

 I will be sixty-seven later this month. When I read the paper, I look at the obituaries. It's rare for me to know someone in Morgantown, but I count how many of the people listed are younger than I am. A lot. Sometimes I feel that I can look back at my life from a high mountain I've been climbing for the last sixty-seven years. I worry about falling off the mountain if I look back for too long. Better to look ahead to the fog-covered peak in front of me and keep going.

As we were leaving Los Angeles, in mid-August, I found out about the death two years ago of Danny Kolker, one of my first friends there in 1984. My high-school-and-after friend Darryl Ruder died from cancer earlier this year. I hadn't seen him in decades, but he friended me on Facebook, where he rarely posted. His children "tagged" him in a Facebook post after he died, which is how I found out. They told me he had spoken to  them about me.

In my class today (October 6) I will show a clip from "West Side Story," which won Best Picture and lots of other awards at The Academy Awards in 1962. I remember, maybe not accurately, how that movie affected me my overly sensitive twelve year old self.  I had never seen such sexuality, beautiful dancing, handsome men, some as dark as I was. This week, I cried watching George Chakiris and Rita Moreno dancing to "America," overwhelmed by the beauty of it, and by the passage of more than fifty years.I think about my spiritual ancestors, Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins and Stephen Sondheim, all furiously creative gay Jews. Chakiris, Moreno and Sondheim are still with us, now in their eighties. I wonder how they feel looking back down the mountain they have climbed.

I've cried a lot lately, not just for my friends who have died, or for my advancing age and rapidly decaying body. Not to worry: my tests are good, and I'm in better shape than many men my age. I can see how things are going generally, and I understand the rules about end of life. I'm more likely to cry for art than real life: watching a scene from "West Side Story," reading from Vikram Seth's now thirty-year old novel in verse "The Golden Gate," hearing a perfect sermon from my husband,The Rabbi, or even listening to the new Radiohead album, "A Moon-Shaped Pool," as I am while writing this.

I guess I did what I was supposed to on Rosh Hashana, after all, examining my life, expressing gratitude to God for what I have and what I've accomplished, and vowing to keep going and do better in the future.

I wish my few readers a happy and healthy 5777