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Saint Ann’s had a great turnout for the afternoon Holiday Bingo event. The lights in the Oak Room were up bright and most of the residents were wearing green or red. Refreshments were on the tables and the moderator was calling out numbers and letters. It sounded like a party and I wished my parents were in there but age has gotten the best of them. And Bingo was never their scene anyway.

I was picking up my dad up for an another appointment and driving his car this time. I had snagged up a City newspaper at the Margaret Explosion gig last night and had already skimmed through it. They feature one city house in each issue, a regular column sponsored by the Landmark Society, and this week’s house was 107 Burlington Avenue on the west side, the house my dad grew up in. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I handed the paper to my dad and he laughed so hard he cried.

The radio was tuned to his station, Jazz 90.5, and they were doing a 24 hour Frank Sinatra marathon to celebrate one hundred years since the Chairman’s birth. Non-stop melancholy songs like “Last Night When We Were Young” and “Moon River.” Johnny Mercer is my father’s all time favorite.

We parked next to the Ford Thunderbird, above, and I finally discovered the secret to opening the trunk on my father’s Honda Accord. I had had such bad luck before, pressing the buttons on his key fob over and over before the damn thing popped, that I would just hand it to him and let him pop it so I could get his walker in or out. It’s actually my mom’s walker but he has taken to it lately.

We were visiting his primary care doctor for the last time and as we got out of the car I asked, “Why is it that this trunk opener works for you and I can’t get it to work?” He demonstrated his technique and explained that he just holds the button down until it opens. The time factor! I am still learning from my father. He has given me so much by his example.

The good doctor pretty much handed my dad’s care off to a Palliative Care specialist and he shook his hand, a final gentlemanly goodbye. On the way home I said, “I wish you and mom could trade places.” My mom wants to die. My dad is eternally young and in the middle of so many projects. And there are always the birds to watch.

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I don’t know if it is the dark side of me that finds this extremely limited, grey/brown, late Fall palette so appealing or the minimalist side. It doesn’t much matter. I am attracted to it and I trust my instincts. I feel like I’m living in an austere Bergman movie as of late.

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Ossia’s program on Friday was especially good. They do four or five performances a year, programs that include five or six compositions by contemporary composers, and there are always one or two exceptional pieces. Friday’s program was all killer, no filler.

It included an out of body piece that reminded us of Gearld Busby’s score to Robert Altman’s “3 Women” and a couple of Morton Feldman-like works by the Japanese composer, Jo Kondo. The one that really knocked us out though was by the Icelandic composer, Anna Thorvaldsdóttir. It is called “Ró.” We were sitting in the front row of Kilbourn Hall and our row gave it a standing ovation. Thorvaldsdóttir says her piece of sustained sound materials “reflects my sense of imaginative listening landscapes and nature.” It certainly did that for these woods walkers. We often stop and stare and listen and this is the experience.

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I dropped Peggi and my parents off at the funeral home in Penn Yan where my aunt was laid out. The Menonnite family in this buggy had just paid their respects to my uncle and cousins. My aunt and uncle, solid Catholics, lived on a farm near Dundee for sixty years and the land around them was slowly bought up by Menonnites. They became quite close and shared more values then you might imagine. A Menonnite family eventually bought their farm and rented their 200 year old house back to my aunt and uncle.

I had to leave the funeral home as soon as we arrived because I had forgotten to buy a flower arrangement, something my father had asked me to do yesterday. I spaced it out. I found a florist on Google, a few miles out of town, called the “Garden of Life.” There was a sign in front of an old farm house but no flower shop. I pulled in their driveway to lookup a Plan B and I saw woman with her dog and a small shop behind the house. I told the woman that I was going to calling hours at the funeral home in town and she interjected, “Helen? She told me she had already paid her respects and said, “Come on in and I’ll get you something.” She picked out a coral colored Poinsettia and added some other oddball touches. It was perfect.

A man came in the shop and asked about microphones for an event he was planning. The woman told him to go to Musician’s Friend and get a Sennheiser, but not a cheap one, a good one. When he left I said, “that was some good advice you gave that guy.” She asked if I was in a band and I said I was. She said she and her husband played in a band and, as if on cue, her husband, a drummer, walked in the door.

He introduced himself as Richard and said he left school when he was seventeen. He studied at Berkelee when it was still in its original location and his teacher was Louie Bellson. He went out on the road with a big band right after school. He played with the Temptations for six months, the only white guy in the band. They played the same set every night in the same order. He couldn’t take it anymore and quit. His band, “Soul Congress,” backed a long list of soul and gospel groups. They were opening for James Brown on the night that Martin Luther King was shot. Mr. Brown played a long set and wore out his drummer so he asked this guy to sit in. He said, “I’d go out on the road right now. I loved being on the road.”

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The only green around here is the Wembley Stadium pitch on our tv. Check the enlargement of this photo for our grey/brown surroundings. The French national team pulled it o gather to take on England in a friendly. The English saluted them before the game and cleaned their clocks in the 90 minutes.

The dental hygienist tried to sell me on bite-wing X-rays today just like the last time. I’ve had so many over the years I try to limit my exposure by turning her down and promising to do it next time. She has a kindergarten teacher-like manner. “Hi Paul! Are you all ready for Thanksgiving?” “Ah, no.” I usually dismiss her and that is probably my mistake.

I was looking my last full mow x-rays on her monitor while she cleaned my teeth. I have all these glaring white teeth in mouth, on the x-rays that is. “Those are all caps and bridges,” she said. “I should have taken better care of my teeth,” I thought aloud. She didn’t miss a beat and said, “Life is one long learning experiment. And our experiences make us who we are.” She added, “I don’t think we ever stop learning.”

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