Every Day Is A Gift

Sometime in the late seventies, by chance, we ran into Norm and Pam at the Miami airport. They and their young family were headed to Jamaica. I lived with Norm and Pam and babysat (changed diapers) for their son, Simon, in exchange for my rent. And before that I lived in the trailer that Pam’s dad owned with Pam and Steve and Dave and at times, Rich, Jeff, Brad, Joe, and Norm (when he was home on leave.) I was there with Pam when her father, Harold, came down from Indianapolis with the trailer in tow and backed it into lot #10 on Monon Drive. We lived rent free for a while but had to pitch in on lot rental, around dollars a month. We unplugged the electric meter and ran it backwards in the weeks leading up to meter reading so our bill was close to nothing. We had the luxury of leaving the oven on with the door open in the winter.

I was trying to remember how I met Pam but I can’t come up with the connection. She was really sweet and had the best smile. We met in Bloomington where we both had either dropped out or were dropping out of IU. Pam came to visit me at my parents’ home for the July 4th weekend in 1970. I introduced her to my friend, Norm. They fell in love, immediately. They were married shortly thereafter. Pam passed away a few days ago..

Norm was two years behind me in high school. He lived near us and our mothers were friends. When I was a freshman, living in the dorm, Norm’s mom called me to say Norm had run away and he was headed out to stay with me. He stayed about a week and then returned to Rochester. Norm died in 2021.

We talked with our Bloomington friends after Pam’s death and Rich asked if I wanted the artwork I did for his 1973 book, “Trailer Tales.” I painted a fictional illustration of the trailer we lived in with Rich playing sax on the roof. And I see the electric meter is in there. Rich got around Bloomington by bicycle, as we all did in those days, but he was the only one with a typewriter in tow. While we were sitting around he was banging out pages. The title page in his book reads “This book was written for the china boys and anybody else who can live in a mobile home. Copyright 1973. Cover titles, painting, inspiration – Moan-On Studios/Paul Dodd.” We were all characters in the book but the facts were all changed. Mae Sachs character was based on Peggi, Paoli Todd was based on me. Here’s an excerpt:

“Rudy had spent a great deal of time trying to figure out MD. Dave Mahoney’s success on the saxophone and his final conclusion was that the old man was able to play his instrument, solely because he believed he could do it.

This idea was further reinforced when Rudy viewed a movie, “The Music Man” in which a con-artist band leader supplies the town’s children with instruments and uniforms and they are able (at the end of the film) to play despite NO lessons. They believed they were a marching band and they became one.

Therefore, Rudy believed the most important thing to make his band become a band was to treat everyone as if they were an accomplished musician and for everyone to treat the band as a working entity. ‘Think Band and The Band Will Zen You’ was Rudy’s motto.”

The photo above was taken by Peggi at Barb and Roc’s wedding in Indianapolis 1972. It is reproduced in Rich’s book with this caption: “Four of the Zen-Men at a table at La Hacienda Night Club. L. to R. Edgar LaChoy, Sam Filigree Rudy, and Paoli Todd. Photo taken in 1961 by nightclub photo-girl.” Rich was in the process of putting the Chinaboise together when Peggi and I left Bloomington. We had banged out a few versions “Self Conscience Pisser” in the back room of the trailer before leaving town. Rich recorded an instrumental version of the song with his next band, MX-80 Sound. When we talked he told us he had just received a big royalty check for streams of SCP from Russia! Check out MX-80’s “Self Conscious Pisser.”

After Pam died we talked to Kim. We talked to Brad. We talked to Rich and Andrea and we talked to Steve. Steve told us he looks at every day as gift.

1 Comment