Same Birthday

Just type the phrase “famous birthdays” in the box, and Google will provide a list of famous folks who be blowing out candles the same day as you. Here are some of my kindred birthday people --

Nov 24, 1632 --- Baruch Spinoza
Pretty good start. Google says “ of all the philosophers of the 17^th century, perhaps none have been more relevant than Spinoza….His extremely naturalistic views on God, the world, the human being, and knowledge serve to ground a moral philosophy centered on the control of the passions, leading to virtue and happiness”

Spinoza quote: “True virtue is life under the direction of reason.” Tell that to a college kid on spring break.

Nov 24, 1784 -- Zachary Taylor
Also pretty good. The odds of my birthday being the same as that of an American President are only 8:1. Not that he was a great president. He was a war hero, the General who won the Mexican war, and back in those days people liked to vote war heroes into the Presidency.

He died suspiciously after only 2 years in office. So suspiciously that his bones were unearthed a few years ago and analyzed for traces of poison. As it turned out, there was no foul play, he simply had a nasty gastrointestinal reaction to a bowlful of ice cream and cherries. So I’ll be careful of that.

Nov 24, 1868 -- Scott Joplin
I would have been disappointed if there was no famous piano man born on Nov 24. It seems that everybody on the planet recognizes “The Entertainer” when it’s played, very much due to its use in the “Sting“ movie. I play it on my gig all the time, in addition to Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag”. Supposedly this ragtime style was the ancestor of jazz.



Nov 24, 1888 -- Dale Carnegie
“How to Win Friends and Influence People” was required reading for me in 9^th grade. Carnegie was a salesman, and simply a nice guy. Sold a lot of copies of that book too.

The thing I remember from his book is “Three Ways to Make Somebody Like You” -- focus on a) what he’s proud of b) what he’s interested in c) what he wants.

Nov 24, 1897 -- Lucky Luciano
Well what was this Mafia guy proud of? Not getting whacked. What was he interested in? Not getting whacked. What did he want? Not to get whacked.

He did survive a couple of close calls -- thus the nickname. But he died of natural causes at age 65 after a lifetime of wielding power in the treacherous New York mob world.

Nov 24, 1925 -- William F Buckley
Well I guess the question “What’s Your Sign?“ is an invitation to meaningless chitchat. Thus far, Nov 24 has produced a philosopher, a gangster, a piano player, a salesman, a military man, and now…..

…..a political columnist, famous for staunch Conservatism and an extraordinary vocabulary. He made one quick foray into politics, running for Mayor of New York City in 1965 as a somewhat facetious third-party candidate. Toward election day he said “If I win, I’ll demand a recount”.

                                           Nov 24, 1940 -- Pete Best

From the very lucky Mr. Luciano we now go to the very Unlucky Mr. Best. Getting fired from a band is, in itself, not the worst thing in the world, in fact it’s often a blessing in disguise, the next step in one’s evolution as a musician and person.

But when you’re fired from the Beatles, replaced by a short, ugly guy named Ringo Starr, and within a year they’re The Most Successful Band in World History, well…don’t give me that evolution crap.

Nov 24, 1946 -- Ted Bundy
Well the key word here is “famous”, and unfortunately he is quite famous for his misdeeds. No book on serial killers is complete without a whole chapter on this guy.


Nov 24, 1950 --Stanley Livingston
The TV sitcom “My Three Sons” ran from 1960 to 1972, with Livingston playing the role of Chip, the middle son. Major dollars at an early age. Perhaps this is not too significant, but his birthday is exactly the same as mine, both day and year. Which is significant to me, and some day I’ll send him a Birthday card.  

He stayed in show biz, producing, directing, acting, screenwriting, in movies, TV, and stage, seemingly doing what he felt like doing, seemingly completely out of the limelight. He has a website, with a pretty interesting resume, he looks robust, and I suspect he’s had a very nice life.

Nov 24, 1978 -- Katherine Heigl
The youngest, and the only female on my list. So what is “Grey’s Anatomy”? I wondered. Google says it’s a highly successful TV series in a hospital setting, with Ms. Heigl in a starring role. I haven‘t seen this show yet, but I suspect its really sexy.




Well that’s my Top Ten for Nov 24 --


HAPPY  BIRTHDAY TO YOU FOLKS
WHEREVER YOU ARE　
　
　

Simple Old David

“The Alamo” was on TV again this past weekend. Not a week passes by where an Alamo movie doesn’t turn up somewhere on the many cable TV channels.

For the uninitiated -- The Battle of the Alamo occurred in March of 1836, when 181 Texan frontiersmen in a shabby old fort fought a Mexican army of 5000. It took 13 days for the whole drama to play out, and supposedly those 13 days were crucial to the organizing of a much larger Texan fighting unit further north. This larger group, shouting “Remember the Alamo”, eventually defeated the aforementioned Mexican army, and the nation of Texas was officially born.

It’s a compelling story which spawned no less than nine Hollywood movies. The story is further enhanced by the fact that a major celebrity of the time - Davy Crockett - was one of the Alamo defenders.

He was literally a legend in his own time, an 1830s Hulk Hogan, with both the macho aura and the fraud. His exploits -- bear wrestling, Injun fighting, and other wilderness prowess, were exaggerated to absurd proportions in the books of his time, for the provincial and the gullible. He “could ride a streak of lightning” and “leap the Mississippi”. A theater production, called “Lion of the West” was a fanciful presentation of his life -- Crockett actually attended this show, saw himself impersonated by an actor, and accepted a standing ovation at the end.

He parlayed his fame into politics, serving 2 terms in the US House of Representatives for his home state of Tennessee. But he finally overplayed his political hand, and was defeated in his attempt for a third term, a stunning rebuff for such a famous native son of Tennessee. In his concession speech he said “You all can go to hell -- I’m going to Texas”.

Now 49 years old,  he headed west with a  group of Tennessean cronies,  hoping to parley his fame, experience, and stature into  high position and a large spread of land,  in what he understood to be the newly-forming Texan Republic,  free from Mexican rule. 

Fess Parker, John Wayne, Brian Keith, and Billy Bob Thornton are the most recent movie “Davy Crocketts”, playing the cherished role in 1955, 1960, 1987, and 2004 respectively. The first three took a fairly standard approach, playing a one-dimensional hero with a coonskin hat who fought and died for Liberty and Texas Independence.

The Thornton version probed deeper, and suggested a man who had misjudged the situation in Texas, and now faced an identity crisis that would seal his fate.

In all honesty Crockett certainly hadn’t expected anything life-threatening in Texas, the 2004 movie suggests. In fact he “thought all the fighting was over”, that the Mexican army had been chased away, that Texas had an organized and sizable army, that his Texas Relocation would be easy.

Then one morning he woke up to find the Alamo surrounded by 2000  enemy soldiers, with many thousands more to come. He saw the situation grow hopeless -- and as the days built up to the final battle, he considered escaping.  There were several opportunities to gallop out in the dead of night, making a furious run for life, past the dozing Mexicans. But he stayed.



Davy Crockett (center) flanked by Colonel Travis (left) and Jim

Bowie in the 2004 version of "The Alamo"

What would the world think of The Great Davy Crockett if he’d “chickened out” and run from the heroic last stand? It would ruin The Legend which he’d cultivated over the years. On the night before the final, full Mexican assault,  knowing what was to come,  he confided to a friend,

           “If it was just me, simple old David, I’d sneak over that wall 
            and take my chances. But that Davy Crockett  feller --
            they’re all watching him..."

Of course, this statement comes strictly from the imagination of a scriptwriter. However to me it seems quite plausible that he said something like this,  to himself at least, on the last night of his life, as he pondered the difference between his real and public selves.

Just as surely, all of us are torn between what we want to be, and what people expect us to be. Even without the added complication of public fame, we all deal with people’s expectations, many of which we ourselves help to create.

Happily, I’ll never have to launch a solo frontal assault against a dozen bloodthirsty Mexican soldiers, with just a single-shot rifle in my hands. It wouldn’t work out for me any better than it did for the “King of the Wild Frontier”. But for him, as a consolation, it led to everlasting fame, through history books and the modern miracles of film and cable TV. So if it’s really important to be remembered and celebrated by millions of total strangers, hundreds of years after you’re gone, then simple old David did the right thing.

The Manhole

So what do you call it? A manhole, or a manhole cover? On the street I grew up on, I never saw a manhole cover removed, therefore I never saw the “hole” underneath. But it was too tedious to call it a “manhole cover”.

We simply called it a manhole. Drab, inconspicuous, simply functional. A thick, heavy, iron disk, more than 2 feet in diameter, with the letters “BSBQ” imbedded in the iron. (“Bureau of Sewers, Borough of Queens” -- I found out much later on). And though they’re probably all the same to manhole workers, there is a very special one on 46th Road, between 202nd and 204th Streets in Bayside, NY.

It so happened that this street was chosen by some Founding Baby Boomer kids to be a favored street for stickball. Not the kind of stickball you see in schoolyards, with some guy pitching at a rectangle “strike zone” painted onto a brick wall. (Not that there was anything wrong with that!).

By the time I was old enough to play with my earliest pals, bases were painted in strategic places on the street, and the game imitated real baseball, at least in the sense that baserunning and fielding were key elements. Pitching was eliminated -- the batters held the ball (Pensy Pinky or a “Spaldeen”) and bounced it whatever way they pleased before swinging the stick.

However, the “field” was ridiculously elongated. The street was only 28 feet wide, so first and third base were painted at the left and right curbs, 28 feet across from each other. To allow for a 60-foot run from these bases out to second base, or in the other direction toward home plate, the standard 90-degree angles of a baseball infield were dramatically stretched, and became more like two 30-degree angles at home and second, and two 150-degree angles at first and third. Runners “rounding second” had to do something resembling a U-turn, and many a kid fell on his butt out there for lack of traction.

One particular manhole -- The Manhole, to be reverent about it, served as home plate. No need to paint a 5-sided “home plate” figure. The Manhole was perfectly located, about 80 feet in from the 202nd street corner, surrounded by houses full of kids. The asphalt “field” ran some 250 feet down the street, toward the less-developed far end of the block.

The Manhole was the Center, where sides were chosen, where you ran to score a run, where you threw the ball to prevent a run, and most of all, where you stood alone for a few seconds, keenly observed by all present, with stick and ball.

In the beginning, it was where I watched “the big kids” play. They were fearsome and macho, and some of them could hit the ball over Mr. McHugh’s house into the trees of the woodsy vacant lot at the far end of the block on the left side. This was an automatic home run.

Mr. McHugh’s property made for some rather curious Ground Rules. McHugh, shrewd dude that he was, owned 2 adjacent properties, far down the left side of the street. The first property, occupied by nothing but weeds and flowers, was unfortunately completely enclosed by tall hedges, not quickly accessible. Any ball hit there was an automatic Out.

The second property -- adjacent and further out, contained the McHugh house, and was equally inaccessible. The only people who deliberately hit the ball toward McHugh’s house were those who hoped to clear it. It was either Home Run or Out, and batters who adopted this strategy were especially subject to scrutiny.

The crazy layout of the bases dictated that you hit the ball straight ahead. There was hardly any Right Field or Left Field. This was good, because there was really no practical way to play the game if the ball was hit too far off center.

Nonetheless, there were some properties just past first and third base, on the right and left sides, that were considered “Fair Territory”, and kids could be seen scampering into driveways, through lawns and bushes, on walkways and porches, chasing that elusive pink rubber ball.

If the neighbors were annoyed, they never seemed to show it. Kids and adults alike might drop what they’re doing at any given time to observe some stickball. As in pro baseball, where the focus is usually on the batter -- on 46th Road the focus was on whoever was standing at The Manhole. It felt like a stage.

One of the more heartwarming sights was that of a kid named Gerald, a 15-year old Polio victim who could barely stand. Yet the big kids let him play. He would stand for a minute at the Manhole, actually get the stick around and hit the ball -- a soft ground ball usually, and another kid would run the bases for him.

A more amusing sight would be some young teenybop girl in short shorts, hanging out with the big kids, trying her luck at batting both the ball and her eyelashes.

Less amusing were the frustrated attempts of the youngest kids trying to get the hang of it. Bounce the ball once? Bounce it twice? Hit it high or low? Short fat broomstick or long skinny one? Two strikes, yer out, on this street. I was pretty lousy at first, actually got “chucked” (fired from a choosed-up team) a few times.

Then, at some point, I got the knack. My 46th Road stickball got supplemented by some real baseball with bats and gloves at a real field elsewhere, with a different group of kids. There I learned to whack a baseball, flipping it in the air and not attempting to bounce it first. This transferred over to the broomstick and rubber ball pretty easily. Eventually I had enough strength and skill to knock a few over McHugh’s house, quite a sweet experience.

I never did become part of a “big kids” crowd that played stickball and flirted with the girls. The aforementioned “big kids” social crowd disappeared, and was not replaced by a new group of big kids, it seemed. Perhaps I was at the tail end of a Golden Age of Stickball on 46th Road.

I passed by the old neighborhood recently. There was absolutely no one to talk to, half of the houses had been razed and replaced by larger, gaudier structures. Mr. McHugh was long gone, and his two properties were completely unrecognizable from long ago, now occupied by large showy buildings. My dad’s old house, right across the street from the former McHugh properties, was also barely recognizable.

I had a few minutes to kill, so I got out of the car, talked with the Asian man who now owned my dad’s former house. Strolling down the street, I was awash in all the memories and images of kids and adults on a young and happy new suburban Baby Boomer street some 50 years ago.

Presently the asphalt looks pretty new, perhaps recently re-done. Certainly no sign of painted bases, nothing to indicate that anybody had ever played stickball there. Which is all perfectly fine. Everything evolves, as it should, on 46th Road and elsewhere.

Then I came to The Manhole, located exactly where it always was, looking like it always did, the “BSBQ” still quite clear to read, stepping out of the past without a trace of age.

I stood there staring out at the ghost of an asphalt stickball field, seeing one kid after another, facing me 60 feet away in between third and first base, playing the closest “infield” position. I saw Gerald, the teenybop girls, big kids, little kids, and the curious onlookers. I summoned my imagination and pictured the top of McHugh’s house, as it was back in the day, 250 away and inviting us all to reach it. And if it was possible at the moment, I would have emptied my wallet for a broomstick and a Spalding rubber ball and one more time at bat at The Manhole.

Skull on My Porch

I remember one time Halloween fell on a Sunday when I was a kid. Since I didn’t have to go to school first, I thought I could get an earlier start treat-or-treating and haul in an extra bag or two of candy.

This idea was shot down when Halloween Sunday arrived. At 11:00 in the morning a young treat-or-treating “witch” or whatever -- apparently thinking like I was -- turned up at our doorstep, and was turned away by my dad. It was simply too early, he said, and it smacked of greed. More importantly, it was Sunday, first and foremost, and stupid old Halloween simply didn’t fit.

In hindsight I see how correct my dad was, whether he knew it or not. Halloween had its origins in Gaelic (Irish) pagan ritual, which existed long before Saint Patrick came to Ireland and converted everybody to Catholicism. I came from an Irish family, but they were quite Catholic, hardly interested in ancient Gaelic ways.

I recently checked out a website dedicated to old Gaelic culture, which described, among many other things, the 4 seasonal observances of the ancient Gaels. The website said --

"The ancestors celebrated the 4 solar events associated with the
pastoral people that inhabited the Isles before the coming of the
Roman, Saxon, and Angles. These times are commonly
referred to as the Samhain, Oimelc, Beltinna, and Lughnasdh."

Samhain (Gaelic for “summer’s end” -- pronounced SAH - win) was the last harvest observance, on Oct 31 - Nov 1. Back then as much as ever, the four seasons mirrored the advance and decline of life itself on earth, and Samhain was the darkest, most death-oriented observance. It’s opposite observance was Beltinna, on May 1, which celebrated light, the return of the long Sun, and new life.

There was supposedly a protective sheath, separating the living “earth” world from the spirit world. This sheath was at its thinnest around Samhain. Spirits of the Dear and not-so-Dear Departed were particularly accessible, and things got very spooky.

After sunset, outdoor bonfires were maintained, to ward off evil spirits and invite good spirits. Spirits of departed loved ones were thought to revisit their old earthly homes. People prayed to these spirits, asked them for advice, left food out for them, put candles at their graves. They even dug up the actual skulls and displayed them in front of their houses, to keep away the evil spirits -- eventually this gross practice was replaced by the display of Jack O’Lanterns.

That’s just a sampling. Throw in the Germanic (European mainland) traditions and you have a ton of superstitious (?) ideas which eventually developed into Halloween. Strip away all the spooky stuff, and it was still - basically - an observance of change of season, appreciation for the harvest, preparation for the cold months, and a hope for future blessings.

In today’s America, strip away the commercialism, the costumes, horror movies, haunted houses and other manufactured scariness -- and you have - basically - NOTHING . I would expect any present-day pagans to be pretty turned off to the whole thing. Not that I know any present-day pagans.

It’s windy and very nippy out there as I type this, and tonight it should be downright wintry. Up here in the woods on Halloween Sunday, perhaps I’ll turn off the World Series for a while, put on an overcoat and step into that pitch darkness, imagining the bonfires, the black and orange landscape, the thin sheath separating the living and spirit worlds, the primitive fear and awe.

In fact, I think I’ll step outside right now. There’s a few hours of daylight left. According to that Gaelic website -- if you catch a falling leaf before it hits the ground on Samhain, you will have good luck and health for the coming winter. Might be worth a try.

Honus Wagner

Over a century ago,  Honus Wagner, a shortstop with the Pittsburgh Pirates, had a stellar 17-year career that made him one of the first inductees in the Baseball Hall of Fame.  But in recent years Mr. Wagner seems to have become even more famous because of a  little piece of cardboard bearing his image.

The most valuable baseball card in the world is a mint-condition T206 Honus Wagner card, issued in 1909 by the American Tobacco Company.  In 2008 the card changed hands for $2.8 million. 

This week the T206 Honus Wagner card is again in the news -- albeit a different specimen -- in rather poor condition.  It is legally owned by the Sisters of Notre Dame, in Baltimore,  who inherited it from a man whose "sister was a Sister"  so to speak.   On November 4 the Sisters will auction off the card, hoping to make about $150,000 for a number of needy causes. 

Strange as this news item might be,  Mr. Wagner himself is always part of any story about this card, because it is he who made the card especially rare. In the first few months of the card's existence, Wagner successfully demanded that its production be stopped.

Wagner was ahead of his time.  Back in 1909 there was no legal age limit for cigarette sales. Wagner didn't like the idea of children smoking, and didn't want his image used to promote it. 
 
Many have questioned this, saying that  Wagner's real beef was about money.  The American Tobacco Company never consulted or paid any of the players before using their images.  Possibly  Wagner gave them an ultimatum -- Pay Me or Pull the Card.

If the story is true, then it could still be said that Wagner was ahead of his time, and would make an excellent Player Rep in this era of pro baseball greed.

Another 75 years would pass before card collecting became a mainstream idea.  The amount of collectors skyrocketed in the 1980s, as did the card values.  1984 saw the first publication of the Beckett's Guide to baseball cards, which assigned prices to tens of thousands of vintage cards.

Even new cards were rated,  some of them purported to be collectors items even as they rolled off the presses.  Back in 1999,  I recall once observing a young kid opening packs of cards, with his Beckett Guide right beside him to evaluate each new card.  The most choice cards went into plastic protective sleeves.

So different from the careless abandon of my childhood 60s.  Back then I didn't care what shape the cards were in.  A great many of them were obtained through flipping, scaling (tossing  them like Frisbees) and other such games -- the cards were actually PLAYED WITH.  Furthermore,  the previous year's cards were as worthless as the previous year's calendar, and met the same fate.

But unbenownst to me at the time, there were collectors, people who held on to that 1963 Pete Rose rookie card I threw away,  like those unusual folks back in 1909 who held on to the T206  Honus Wagner card.

For all the excesses of baseball,  the evils of tobacco,  and the callous profiteering in the sports memorabilia biz,  it's nice to know something really good can happen occasionally -- here's hoping the good Sisters make a killing on November 4.

Ten Paces

It was July 1804. The Hudson River, separating the wilderness of New Jersey from the bustling little city of New York, gleamed with the reflections of the morning sun. At 6:00 AM,  all was peaceful and quiet on the woodsy Jersey side of the river, except for a small rowboat approaching the shore, carrying 5 men.

Two of the men were rowing the boat, getting paid for a special job requiring that they say nothing of it later on. Also in the boat was a doctor, nervous, hoping that his services would not be needed in the next few minutes.

The key figure in the boat was a celebrity, a household word, to many people a national hero. He was 49 years old, had served nobly in the Revolutionary War, had served as Secretary of the Treasury under President George Washington, and had singlehandedly established the U S Treasury. Centuries later his image would be on every ten-dollar bill in the United States.

But if Alexander Hamilton was a hero to many, he was hated by some, especially by powerful people, and this was why he sat in this rowboat, secretly en route to a most fateful encounter.

The 5^th person in the boat was a young well-dressed man named Pendleton, who would serve as Mr. Hamilton’s assistant in the upcoming altercation. Pendleton, and the doctor, and Hamilton stepped off the boat as it hit the shore. The rowers waited behind, apprehensive with what was to follow, what would come back from the woods.

Waiting in the woods for Hamilton was the Vice President of the United States of America. Now in his fourth and final year as Vice-President, Aaron Burr had recently been defeated in the New York State Gubernatorial Election. Hamilton was instrumental in this crushing defeat, having used all his political influence against Burr.
　
And now, Vice President Aaron Burr and Former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton would settle matters with dueling pistols. Burr had issued the challenge, and Hamilton was compelled to accept, as a matter of honor.

Actually the final impetus for the duel was some derogatory remarks made by Hamilton about Burr, at a cocktail party. The remarks got back to Burr, who demanded an apology and retraction. Hamilton tried to wrangle out of the situation by sending letters to Burr, lecturing him on the various meanings of the word “despicable”, without apologizing. Burr quickly got tired of this and issued the challenge to a duel. Many historians say the whole thing could have been avoided.

At this time in history, thoughtful American people were trying to end the practice of dueling, since in some cases it was little different from murder. New York State had outlawed it, thus Hamilton and Burr had quietly gone over to New Jersey, where the penalties for dueling were much less severe. But such a deadly encounter between these two famous Americans would not be kept secret for long, especially if one of the .56 caliber balls found its mark.

In a clearing in the woods, a handsome hand-carved box was presented, containing two identical pistols, manufactured for the specific purpose of dueling. They were inspected, approved, and loaded, and within a minute the two combatants stood facing each other at a distance of ten paces. One of the officials shouted the word “present”, at which point both men were free to fire whenever they wanted.

To circumvent the law, all of the non-combatants deliberately looked away at the crucial moment, so that they could safely say that they hadn’t “seen” the shooting.

Years later, they would only be able to say that they heard two shots. Hamilton’s shot went wide and high, hitting a tree branch many feet away from Burr. Hamilton’s two companions thought it highly likely that Hamilton had fired first, deliberately missing, and inviting Burr to do the same. In some duels this led to a “satisfaction of the honor” of the offended person, and an end to hostilities.

However Burr was a ruthlessly ambitious man, with an opportunity to end Hamilton’s blockade of his career. Burr’s aim was true, and when the smoke cleared Hamilton lay mortally wounded, bleeding from the abdomen, with the doctor helpless to save him. He was carried back to the boat, and rushed back across the river to his house in New York City, where he would die the next day.

It was a sudden and improbable end for a man who had survived earlier war experience, who continued to be involved in the shaping of this young and exciting nation, who had a flourishing New York City law practice, who had a beloved wife and 7 children. In short, it didn’t make sense that he took such a chance with Burr.

For all his high position, political savvy, and ambition, Burr committed political suicide when he fired at Hamilton. He miscalculated public reaction. News of the fatal duel spread far and wide, and the nation officially mourned. Both New York State and New Jersey filed criminal charges.

However Burr never went on trial, and in early 1805 he finished his term as Vice President. His political life in ruins, he went out West, and concocted some remarkable and unsuccessful plans to attain power out there, in one case trying to be the “monarch” of a large section of Northern Mexico.

The Hamilton-Burr duel was stunning at the time, because of the fame of the two men. Yet illegal dueling continued, in secret places, despite the efforts of legislators, and religious and civic groups. It was especially strong down South, where the Code of Chivalry and Honor allowed a person to defend any perceived slight to his honor, no matter how mismatched the opponents.

All 50 states have anti-dueling regulations now, and I don‘t feel the need for weekly target practice. But there will always be challenges and fights among men, as long as there’s power, women, money, honor, and self-respect at stake. It’s testosterone, it’s human nature, it’s inevitable, and perhaps I’ll ponder this whenever I have a few seconds to stare at a ten-dollar bill.

Till I Waltz Again With You

It was sometime in the early 90s, for me a typical Sunday of early evening piano at the Cavalier Restaurant in Jackson Heights -- old songs, at an old piano, for an old audience.

Presently a non-descript-looking gentleman, perhaps in his mid-sixties, wearing a ratty gray jacket, appeared at the piano, asking me to play “his song”. And What Song is That, I asked.

“Till I Waltz Again With You” he said, and I apologized for not knowing it. Not only could I not play it, I had no clue how it went, and had never even seen the title in print. This was an uncomfortable situation because….

….this man was the AUTHOR of “Till I Waltz Again With You”. His name was Sid Prosen, and he went on to say that his song was a #1 hit for Theresa Brewer, and any competent piano man should know it. He wasn’t angry, but a tad condescending, and I instantly disliked him.

I said something like OK I’ll research the song, and Is There Something Else I Could Play For You Instead, Sir? But he had no second choice, and I went home that evening dismissing the incident, thinking that this Mr. Prosen, whoever he was with his ratty gray jacket, would hopefully not turn up again.

But turn up again he did, a few weeks later. This time I had no excuse for not knowing “Till I Waltz Again With You”, and his condescension was double. I swore I’d learn it very soon.

My day job at ASCAP did have some good research avenues, and the next day I listened to the original Theresa Brewer recording. It turned out that Mr. Prosen was on the level -- “Till I Waltz Again With You” was indeed #1 on the Billboard charts on 1952, for quite a few weeks. I had considered myself very knowledgeable on 1950s #1 songs, and was fascinated that this song had done such a disappearing act. Ironically, the tune was not a waltz, but rather a moderate shuffle beat, quite easy to play on a piano. It was as simple as Yankee Doodle, and it was the ONLY thing Mr. Prosen ever wrote that went anywhere.

I was reminded of the movie “Amadeus”, which featured a mediocre 18^th century Classical composer, named Salieri. He lived long enough to see all of his music go completely into oblivion, while the divinely-inspired works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart steadily increased in popularity long after his untimely demise. Here in the 20^th century, Sid Prosen’s One Big Tune was only 40 years in the past, but this point the only person who seemed to remember it was Sid himself.

I learned the tune in no time, and was delighted and ready to “make Sid’s Day” (maybe even get him to throw a buck into the tip jar?) when he walked in a few weeks later. I teased him, made him wait while he dined, once again alone, once again in the ratty gray jacket. Of course he finally approached the piano, and I proudly gave him a knowing smile as I played the first few bars.

Sid smiled, sang along with his own tune, waved his arms in the air like a conductor. Then he walked from table to table, saying “that’s my song” to anyone who would listen. I was happy that Sid could strut and brag, but I was a little sad that he felt the need to.

This little friendship of piano man and “hit composer” lasted a few more months, but eventually he stopped showing up. Many years later he came to mind, and I did some sleuthing. He had in fact, passed away a few years after I last saw him, and his meager airplay royalties were going to some small publishing company.

I wish I had spoken to him more. Perhaps there was more to his story. But I blew the chance, assuming that he’d keep showing up. As it stands now, this is the brief story of a man whose biggest showbiz triumph happened when he was a very young man, a triumph he would cling to for the rest of his life. At least that’s how it appears, in the eyes and ears of this piano player, who just might be the last piano player on earth to perform “Till I Waltz Again With You”