We’re Americans. We don’t float no stinkin’ boats.
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My head snapped back and hit the wooden booth.
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I’m writing this on the day after the Electoral College met and actually, officially, chose that awful man to be the next President of the United States. In the six weeks since the election I have been wishing for something to happen to prevent this from occurring. First I wished (and confidently believed) that the recount in the swing states would show that Hillary had won them, and give her the electoral votes she needed. Then I wished for 37 faithless electors who would change their votes to Hillary. Neither of those wishes came true. There are still four and a half weeks until the inauguration and I can wish for a miracle to happen in that time. But I am losing whatever faith I had. I don’t even have the energy to circulate any more petitions, because I no longer think they will do any good. I wish I still believed this would turn out okay.

• * * *

Thinking back through my past for wishes that did or didn’t come true, I keep coming back to Woodstock. This was not something I wished for, rather it was the opposite — something that was offered to me and rejected by me, and then afterwards I wished I had gone.

As everyone undoubtedly knows, the Woodstock Festival occurred in August 1969 on a farm in upstate New York. This was the summer after my freshman year of college, and I was living in Washington D.C. and working at the national headquarters of Planned Parenthood. My boyfriend from high school, Jeff, called me to say that he had bought two tickets to Woodstock, and did I want to go with him. I never knew until today how much he paid for those tickets, but according to Wikipedia (that fount of all knowledge) they cost $18 apiece. I don’t think I knew very much about what the plans for the festival were, and certainly NOBODY knew that it would turn out to be one of the defining events in the history of rock and roll. But I did know that it was three days camping out in a tent, that it was likely to rain, and that it was going to be a little bit of a hassle getting there, as I would first have to get from D.C. to New Jersey to meet Jeff, and then drive in his old clunker car up to Bethel, NY.

Probably the most dispositive factor was that I didn’t really want to spend three days and nights with Jeff. He had been a good boyfriend for my senior year of high school, but nothing more. He was from my town, but two years older and we had gone to different schools, so our paths had never crossed. We met when the youth group at my temple had a Chanukah party and invited all the local college students who were home for the holidays. He was a sophomore at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, which was about an hour away. Our first date was on New Years Eve, and we both had a nice time, going to a party, and then sitting in my driveway talking for hours. He went back to school, but started coming home to his parents’ house every weekend to see me. We dated for the next six months, until I went to D.C. for the summer to work for the McCarthy campaign. When that was over, I was off to Cambridge to start college, and the social whirl there left me not a moment to think about Jeff. When I came back home after freshman year, he invited me to spend a day with him in New Brunswick, where he now had an apartment, so I did, for old time’s sake. It was a little awkward, I wasn’t attracted to him any more, but we ended up getting really stoned and having sex — something he had never been able to get me to do while we were dating, as persistently as he had tried. The sex was not great for me, and I didn’t relish the idea of having to do that for three nights (we didn’t know back then that we could say no), and in a tent in the dirt, no less.

So I didn’t go to Woodstock, and ever afterwards I wondered if I should have gone. I have twice seen the documentary that was made of the festival. The first time was in 1970, and I was tripping on acid, and thinking that I saw little green men running around on the screen. The second time was in 2015, with my husband and kids, totally sober. Watching the movie (both times), most of it looked pretty amazing, and made me regret not going, but there was also a lot of rain and mud, which I would not have liked. My hair would certainly have been frizzy, which would have made me unhappy. But I think it would have been worth it for the music!

 

[The story’s title is from the lyrics to the song Woodstock, by Joni Mitchell]

You could relax there, she thinks. You could get away from it all.
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I love movies. But I had never loved a movie star; not until Daniel Day-Lewis swept me away in The Last of the Mohicans. Actually, it is my husband Dan who claimed that I was in love. An old friend referred to my condition as obsession. She would know. She’s a therapist. That didn’t stop her from sending me a larger-than-life movie poster from Mohicans. At Dan’s suggestion, we framed it and hung it on a prominent wall. Now I could gaze at Day-Lewis’ intensely handsome face whenever I needed romantic inspiration. Lucky for me that my husband and beloved shared the same name. It made things less messy. My mother-in-law thought the two men looked alike. Let’s just say their coloring was similar.

I couldn’t label what happened to me. After the first viewing of Mohicans, I was so pumped with adrenaline that I couldn’t sleep. I had to see it again and approached Dan about going to a late show alone after our two boys were in bed. He was bewildered, but agreed. I was unprepared for my emotional response. I was not ordinarily a frivolous person. Before we had children, I was a well-respected, highly paid tech sales representative. We had been married twenty years at the time. I turned 40 during the peak of my Mohicans madness and sage friends nodded their heads: “Mid-life crisis”, they concluded. All I knew is that between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve of 1992, I saw the movie seven times. The movie had been released months earlier and at this late date, the theater was almost empty. I held silent communion with Daniel Day-Lewis in the darkened house. Two months later, I missed it so much that I traveled some distance to see Mohicans at a second-run movie theater before it disappeared into the small screen Neverland of video and cable TV. I found that I had company. The book editor of Glamour confessed in print: “I owe a lot to this man. I’m convinced I got pregnant after seeing The Last of the Mohicans three times.”

Daniel Day-Lewis is described as the thinking woman’s sex symbol. At least I’m a “thinking woman”. It’s more dignified than being called a “love-crazed fan”. During the first winter of my passion, I immersed myself in the life and times of this man. I rented videos of anything he’d ever been in, even Sunday, Bloody Sunday, in which he appeared for 10 seconds as a 12 year old car vandal. I became fascinated by his smoldering performances, even though many of those early films were awful. I had studied acting seriously, been a theatre major in college, but knew that my talent never approached his. I marveled at his transformations. Though he was already an Academy Award winner, I preferred to think that I had just discovered him; I was the only woman who really appreciated him. I needed to know more about this brilliant contradiction of a man; so shy and serious in print, yet able to assume anyone’s shape on celluloid.

In his interviews he spoke of his late father, Cecil Day Lewis, the poet laureate of England, so I bought the complete volume of his poetry, edited by Daniel’s mother, the actress Jill Balcon. I snuck off to my study to read this poetry and was astonished at my sensual response. I loved it and craved more. Reading The Buried Day, Cecil’s autobiography, gave me context for the poetry, but the book ends in 1940 as Day-Lewis’ father leaves his first wife and children, long before this family comes on the scene. I felt compelled to write to Jill Balcon for more information. After all, in her introduction to the volume of poetry she had written: “I am touched myself when friends, and often strangers, quote passages of Cecil’s which move them and, moreover, sustain them.”

With trembling hands, I tore open the aerogramme from London to find a handwritten response: “Dear Mrs. Pfau, Thank you for your letter. I cannot possibly enter into private correspondence with you: I have at least 100 letters a week (& and my son far more) that do require attention, & more work of my own that demands a great deal of me. Yours sincerely, Jill Balcon”

The letter was bracing. Reality had intruded on my fantasy life and I didn’t like it one bit. I imagined a satisfying scenario: “I would like to thank the Academy for this award honoring my screenwriting. I owe my inspiration and drive to Daniel Day-Lewis’ mother, who once told me that I was unworthy of her time.” I put away the father’s poetry. I couldn’t bear to look at it.

The son was another matter. The more I read, the more I longed to know him better, but he deliberately remained an enigma to interviewers. He only revealed little bits of himself, then contradicted himself in later interviews. As the years went by, he became increasingly wary of the press as his career hit peaks and valleys. In a piece he wrote about his father’s death he said: “Since that bizarre, alienated, emotionless first encounter with the great scythe, which left me reeling from my own indifference, my sense of loss has grown, soured, devoured, belched and finally purified into what it is now – the eternal certainty of grief, ignorance and the mystery of love.” If a screenwriter put that bit of dialogue in a script, he’d be banished from Hollywood. Daniel is half Jewish, half Irish, prone to fits of melancholy and I found him thoroughly seductive. I was sure that I could coax him out of his reticence. I wanted to know the real Daniel, see him in person, figure out who he was when he wasn’t role-playing.

Up to this point I had managed to hide my strong feelings from my husband. He had no idea that I was watching videos while the kids were in school, or had corresponded with Daniel’s mother. I was leading a double life. I got caught when he discovered me reading The Age of Innocence and I confessed: guilty –  Daniel’s next film. Dan was annoyed; I was unperturbed. Besides, the book was wonderful.

I had to find a way to meet this man who shunned publicity and didn’t like to come to America. He’d rather ride his motorcycle fast through his beloved Ireland. Perhaps Daniel would venture to this continent to promote The Age of Innocence. I reasoned that there was likely to be a gala premiere for the opening of the film and that it would probably be in New York City, since the movie takes place there. I formed a plan. New York is just a shuttle hop away from Boston, where I reside. I wrote to the head of Columbia’s promotions department, explained my interest in the film and asked how to obtain tickets to the premiere. I never heard back. Regrettably, I wrote to him the week that Last Action Hero was unleashed and bombed. I think he was preoccupied.

I wouldn’t give up my quest. I considered who else to contact. Finally I came up with a winner. Christie Hefner, chairman of Playboy Enterprises, is a childhood friend. While on vacation with her in August, I explained my gambit and asked if she knew anyone at Columbia. She did and agreed to make the inquiry. I tried to remain calm as I waited for her reply, but finally blurted out my plan to Dan. That was it! He was convinced that I had gone looney. He may have been right. Isn’t this the way someone in love behaves? I suppose it is poor form to let one’s husband know that one is in love with a dark, brooding movie star. Dan changed his tune when Christie came through with the tickets. Evidently, it is OK to be nuts as long as the husband gets to go along to a glamorous event.

The invitation arrived just before the event: black-tie benefit for the New-York Historical Society. It read like a who’s who of New York society. Names like Baron de Rothschild, Henry Luce III, Armani, Plimpton, Forbes and Tisch were sprinkled among the Hollywood set. I was impressed; Dan panicked. He didn’t fit into his old tuxedo and decided that renting one just wouldn’t do with this crowd, so he bought a new one; Armani of course. I would make do with the old black velvet dress that I always wore to his company Christmas party.

Full of anticipation and trepidation, we flew to New York that Monday morning. We couldn’t stop giggling. Soon we would be hob-nobbing with Hollywood celebrities and industry moguls, not to mention Daniel Day-Lewis. Unfortunately, it was 80 degrees on September 13, but Dan assured me that it would cool off by the evening. However, the thermometer blinked 71 as I waited for the cab in my long-sleeved, black velvet dress.

A mob was outside the Ziegfeld Theatre taking pictures. We were held up at the door as Michelle Pfeiffer and David E. Kelley entered just before we did. They walked up to the top of the lobby and were greeted by Martin Scorsese accompanied by his daughter and his date. The theatre was full of notables: Alan King, Glenn Close, Geraldine Chaplin, Mike Wallace, Barbara Hershey, Ron Silver, Joanne Woodward, Paul Newman, who was breath-taking. And then he was there, Daniel Day-Lewis in the flesh. He was tall and thin, wide-shouldered, impressive looking. We brushed past him on our way to our seats. I was close enough to touch him. I tried to remain calm, but my raging hormones got the better of me for a moment. I collected myself and we settled down to enjoy the film.

As the end credits rolled, the stars were whisked away. I feared I wouldn’t see Daniel again. We walked across the street to the dinner at the Hilton. A red carpet led the way with velvet ropes holding the gawkers and paparazzi at bay. We felt enormously special. Upon entering the ballroom, we found our assigned table and were alone. At first we felt out of place, but soon met others who set us at ease. Dinner conversation was pleasant with an executive from Warner Brothers and someone from the news division of CBS. We commented on the people drifting by. Michael Ovitz worked the power players in the center of the room. Joan Rivers looked great. Matthew Modine and Chris O’Donnell were cute. Winona Ryder passed with Dave Pirner. Everyone concurred that Winona and I bore a passing resemblance. I was flattered, as I was twice her age and even smaller. At 5 feet, 98 pounds, most people over the age of 12 are larger than I am. But I still hadn’t seen Daniel.

Suddenly he appeared. Dan asked how I wanted to proceed. “Just let me look for a while”. We got up and moved closer. I watched closely to see if strangers approached him. They did, Dan gave me a push. “Here’s your shot. Go for it.” What do I say? Do I congratulate him and ask about future work? I still wanted him to know that I was more than just a casual observer; that I had read his father’s works. Mass of contradictions that he was, there was one point in particular about Daniel that troubled me. From what I had read, he was looking for meaning in his father’s death and still felt a strong bond to the lost parent. I didn’t understand why then he had changed the one aspect of himself that was a direct link to his father: his surname. His father had not hyphenated it by choice. Daniel used the hyphen. I would ask him about that.

With straightened shoulders, I walked across the floor, eyed fixed on the tall slender figure. He wore the rhinestone fleur-de-lis on his lapel, reportedly given to him by Isabell Adjani, his on-again-off-again love. His hair was long and swept back, a cigarette in one hand, waiting for the opportunity to go outside and smoke. I waited while he greeted one friend after another. Finally he saw me. I offered a handshake:

“I want to congratulate you on another brilliant performance.” He smiled and acknowledged the compliment. “I must tell you, your ‘Hawkeye’ just knocked me out.” He demurred. “I saw the movie eight times (he seemed surprised) and couldn’t sleep after the first two.” (My husband told me that this confession was a strategic error. I had now placed myself in the ranks of rabid fans. That wasn’t planned, it just slipped out.) “You can’t believe what strings I pulled to come down here tonight to tell you that. Do you have a new project after you complete In the Name of the Father?”

“I have a little more work to do to finish that, then I am taking some time off. That movie took a lot out of me.”

“Yes, I understand that you fasted for several days as part of your preparation for the role.”

He visibly startles. “How did you know that?”

“I read it. I read everything.” (In fact, I had read in Entertainment Weekly.) Speaking of which, in The Buried Day, your father talks specifically about not hyphenating your last name. He called it ‘an invented piece of snobbery’, yet you hyphenate it.”

“Ah, but you know that he wrote that book fairly early in his life. Later he grew tired of being mistakenly called ‘Mr. Lewis’ and added the hyphen.”

“Yes, but in your early screen credits, there is no hyphen.”

“That was a mistake.”

“Hmm, thank you for clearing that up for me.” (I had now finished my planned remarks, but still had his attention. Do I slip him my name and number? No, too obvious.? “Have you ever been to Boston?” I continued.

“Yes, well, Cambridge actually. I was with some friends who were performing with an Irish circus troupe. I enjoyed it.”

“Yes, I could see you in Cambridge, it’s a fun place. You should come to Boston for the Marathon sometime. It’s a good party.”

He smiled, we parted company, and it was over. I have no memory of physical contact with him, though I believe I shook his hand. I remember his eyes. They are green, deep set, beneath thick eyebrows, so thick that one doesn’t see eyelids. I was aware that for one moment in time I had his attention entirely; his gaze was unlike anything I had ever experienced; his concentration is unrivaled. Subsequently, I read that his producer from In the Name of the Father pointed out, “one thing that remains constant is the tremendous intensity of his eyes.” I could verify that first hand. I found him to be engaging, warm and forthright, not as he comes across in print.

I rejoined my husband. He laughed. “You know he was almost doubled over to speak to you.” (Day-Lewis is more than a foot taller. I was pleased that he was so involved in our conversation.) “How to you feel?” Wonderful! I floated out into the night. People still hung on the ropes, hoping to see their favorites. I just had a nice chat with mine.

...sometimes there would be fresh snow, sparkling white on the granite steps.
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Chanukah has always been my favorite holiday. Not because of the gifts — my parents actually gave us our gifts on Dec. 25th when the rest of our friends were getting theirs — but because I loved lighting the candles, singing the traditional songs, playing dreidel, and eating Chanukah gelt (chocolate circles wrapped in gold foil to look like coins). We had a turquoise menorah shaped like an oil lamp that my parents had brought back from Israel, which I loved. However, my mother would always have us blow out the candles in the menorah after only a few minutes, rather than letting them burn down, so that we could continue to use the same ones every night. A box of Chanukah candles contains 44 candles, because that is how many are needed for eight nights, including a shammas, or helper candle, for each night (2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9). With my mother’s frugal system, we would only use nine candles for the entire holiday, and thus a box would be just one candle short of lasting our family for a full five years. I didn’t know until after I left home that this was not the way other people did it.

With my own children, one of our favorite Chanukah traditions is to sit and watch the candles burn all the way down each night, and make predictions about which one we think will be the last to go out. We have had many different menorahs over the years, including some that the kids made in religious school, and some years we would use several at once, resulting in lots of candles to watch. About ten years ago I found the beautiful menorah pictured here, called Synagogues of Europe. It has tiny reproductions of nine synagogues, and the city where each is (or was) located is identified on the back. So now when we are betting on which one will win, we can say Florence or Prague instead of just identifying them by number.

I find the flames of the candles to be soothing, and even mesmerizing, especially on the last night when all nine are lit. It is a nice time to sit and reflect, or just sit and stare and not think at all.

My own family has no traditions to speak of, but when I arrived at the National Music Camp in 1964 (now the Interlochen Arts Camp), it was full of traditions. Some I would help add.

Camp had been around since 1928 and became an integral part of my life for decades. Now I just send a yearly check, but I attended the camp for six summers during the ’60s; my brother was also a camper for five summers and on staff one summer. I also was on the National Alumni Board for six years in the ’90s, but with a close friend, we visited for many, many years, establishing rituals of our own.

Camp was a well-oiled wheel by the time I arrived. We wore uniforms; the girls wore navy corduroy knickers (fashionable in the ’20s when camp was founded), colored knee socks to denote our divisions, light blue button-down shirts every day except Sundays. On Sundays we wore white. Boys wore long corduroy pants and the same colored button-down shirts. We wore camp-issued name badges, pinned to the right side of our pants. These allowed entry into the cafeteria and any concert venue.

The camp was a huge place with well over 1,200 campers hailing from 48 states and 12 foreign countries in the mid-sixties, truly a remarkable mingling of different people who shared similar interests. It ran for 8 weeks. This did not include “All State”, which was a two-week at a time group (one session would be just choir, then band, then orchestra), all coming exclusively from Michigan. At various times there was even a University Division, formed in conjunction with the University of Michigan. I heard Jessye Norman perform when she was a University camper in 1968.

The first night of camp we always gathered in Kresge, the largest covered concert space. The roof had been added the previous year. All the divisions sat in their own groups. This was called “Dr. Maddy’s Geography Lesson” when I first arrived, since the founder of the camp, Joe Maddy, was still alive. After his death, it became the geography lesson of whomever was the president at the time. We were all welcomed for the season. Dr. Maddy would call out each state and we got up and cheered for our home. One year, a friend from Virginia raised an umbrella with a Dixie Cup on the end and hollered, “Save your Dixie Cups, for the South will rise again!” He was a Theater Major. Each division sang its own “fight” song, hastily learned that day. I remember as an Intermediate, we sang…”We’d like to say hello, hello to NMC. We are the Intermediates, red-socks to the knees. Yes we can dance and sing, do almost anything.  We are the Intermediates. RED SOCKS TO THE KNEES!” And we all waved a red sock in the air. It was team building fun. Then Joe asked  how many people have been here one summer? Everyone stood up. And how many have been here two? Some would sit down, some remained standing…this would go on through the number of years; faculty and staff members who had been there for years and years would be the last standing. My dear friend Clarence “Dude” Stephenson, director of the Operetta, worked there over 50 years. The place brought out uncommon loyalty. We also learned/sang the camp song – “Sound the call to dear old Interlochen, land of the stately pines/Where stalwart hands and loyal ever great you, faithful to Auld Lang Syne.”

We arose to Reveille and bedded to Taps. Each concert ended with the camp “Theme”, either played or hummed (there were no words); a few measures from Howard Hanson’s Romantic Symphony. No one clapped after. For those unwitting concert-goers who did not know that tradition they were loudly shushed.

The last performance of the season included massed orchestras of High School and Intermediates, High School Choir sang the last few bars on “aw” (again – no words) and the top dancers came in front in a paegent-like performance to Liszt’s Les Preludes. We sopranos had a high C in there. Our conductor referred to it as “murder on the high ‘C'”. but it didn’t matter because we were all crying our eyes out by then. We were told this piece was performed because it wasn’t seen as an end, but a beginning of life back home. Crying became Pavlovian. I heard the piece on the radio once, driving home from the airport after a long day on the road with client meetings. I was sitting in traffic at the entrance to the tunnel under the Atlantic ocean here in Boston. I sang along, tears streaming down my cheeks. Anyone looking in my car window would have thought I was out of my mind. Fond memories, good traditions.

I remain very friendly with many people who populated those long-ago summers. I went to Brandeis with one and she wound up living in Boston after we graduated. Neither of us were making much money. In 1975 we were casting around for an inexpensive vacation. My husband was in graduate school full time and working part time, so didn’t have the luxury of vacation time. Christie and I decided to visit Interlochen. She went home to Chicago, I went home to Huntington Woods, MI to visit family. She then joined me for a few days with my parents, we rented a Budget rental car (when it really was inexpensive to do so) and drove the five hours up to Interlochen. One of her aunts had a cabin, so we had free lodging.

We arrived in late afternoon on the night of the first Operetta performance. We went over to Grunow (the old theater, still in use at the time). The person in the box office was a peer, who confirmed that all our old teachers were still around. We hadn’t visited in five years, but everything seemed unchanged. We found some dinner and came back, sat on the dock behind Kresge, waiting for Dude. We knew he had been through a hard divorce, but not much more. We saw the familiar crepe-soled shoes come around the corner. A flash of recognition and we flew into a group hug. A few tears were shed. He brought us in to be introduced to his cast and we spent much of the next five days with him. Christie and I vowed to turn our visit into an annual event, always to come and see the Operetta.

The next day we made the rounds of classes. I had known Mel Larimer since 1965. He directed Intermediate Choir and music for Intermediate Operetta. When I moved up to High School division, he took over High School Choir, though Ken Jewell remained as the music director of HS Operetta for a few more years. Ken was a legend in choral music circles in Michigan. He had his own professional chorale, we were lucky to sing under such a talented conductor. Mel was also excellent. I learned much from him and always admired his conducting. He demanded a lot from his singers, even the young ones. I have always felt music deeply, regardless of my religious beliefs (much of the serious choral repertoire is liturgical music, I first sang in Latin at the age of 12…just something one does as a singer, even a Jewish singer) and Mel encouraged that in me. So it was a pleasure to sit in on his rehearsals again. He welcomed us with open arms. My brother had been his music librarian in 1966. Now, in 1975, he asked his current librarian to provide a folder of music for Christie and me. Having sung this sort of repertoire for so many years, we easily and happily sang along.

At the time, the kids from HS Choir were expected to sing for Sunday morning services, a “non-denominational” service, though the Lord’s Prayer was recited. The younger kids were required to attend, but this was the only morning the older kids could sleep in, unless you were part of the service. Grumbling ensued. Mel invited us to join the Choir on Sunday. We didn’t have a uniform to wear. White shirts and black pants would do. I don’t think we even had those that first summer, but knew to bring the attire along in subsequent years. And thus, Alumni Choir was born. Slowly but surely, that weekend turned into Alumni Weekend. The high school kids got to sleep in, the High School, Intermediate, and eventually retired conductors who we knew and loved, held one practice of some piece of music that we also probably had all sung at some point in our lives. And we, the alumni in attendance that weekend, performed during Sunday services.

A few years later, Christie and I were doing pretty well professionally. Christie had now moved home to Chicago and gone to work for her father at Playboy Enterprises. I had taken a risk and found that I was good at tech sales. That summer, Dude asked if the Playboy Foundation could fund a scholarship for Operetta. He reasoned that it would be so helpful if he could guarantee that he would have some critical role filled before the start of the season by offering a scholarship to someone worthy from the previous season. Christie had to gently explain that the Playboy Foundation usually funds First Amendment issues, not summer camp scholarships. But we went back to our cabin, talked about it, thought we knew enough friends who would be willing to chip in some money, and the “Pine Tree Wonder Scholarship” was born. We couldn’t endow it, it took a lot of work, and eventually the participants dwindled and just the two of us remained, supporting it until the end. In 2004, Interlochen ceased to be an 8 week program and Dude stopped staging a full-length Gilbert & Sullivan operetta. Christie and I stopped giving the scholarship, since there was no more Operetta class.

My last visit to camp (before Dude’s Celebration of Life in 2018) came in 2002. I hadn’t been in a long time. Christie had other commitments, I had young children and a summer house on an island. Life had become more complicated, so our visits had ceased a while ago. I had been on the Alumni Board for many years and returned three times a year, getting to know many others, finding a whole new group of friends. That was an interesting and different way to connect to the Interlochen experience. But this summer brought me back to my roots. Again, I sang with Alumni Choir. We practiced the Sanctus from the Faure Requiem, a work I truly love. A large group of us were together in the Shell, an uncomfortable venue. Mel was retired, but lived in the area. He was sick with cancer, but still remarkably good-looking. We read through the work, all of us had sung it many times, I’m sure, so there wasn’t much need to practice. Lots of rehearsal time left. Mel asked if we wanted to read through the entire requiem. I, of course, was seated in the front row, right in front of him. I am always in the front row. We ALL wanted to read through the entire piece, so we began. I can sing you the Libera me right now…it is rooted in my heart. As we sang, I had the premonition that we were singing HIS requiem and I started to sniffle. This passed to those sitting next to me, and behind me, and even to Mel. As soon as he put down his baton, I raced up to the podium and just held him tightly, as did everyone. We performed beautifully the next day. It was the last time I saw him. He valiantly fought the cancer for several more years, but lost his battle. I don’t know if Alumni Choir continues; Christie and I started it under Mel Larimer’s baton in 1975.