Jonathan Alder 1968 Class Reunion

The long awaited fortieth reunion of the Jonathan Alder Class of 1968 occurred in a most beautiful style, on a lovely day in mid-August. Forty-seven classmates and three faculty members came out to Fred and Linda Kile's Farm in Plain City to celebrate a lifetime of friendship.

A few classmates, led by Chuck Reed, Michelle Troyer, Carol Shyers, Mary Detweiler Young, Lynn Church, Andy and Bev Greenbaum, showed up Friday evening, August 15, 2008, to begin the preparations and decorate the party barn at the Kile's property, on Route 161, just north of the town's limits. David Mitchell's truck brought tables and chairs from the Plain City V.F.W. Lodge, where he is commander.

Arnett Howard and his musical friends rolled onto the property at 1:30 pm., on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon to begin setup for the live music to begin at three o'clock. The entire Greenbaum Family was on hand to carve up the roasted pig that they had donated to the afternoon's feast of salads, sweets and beverages. Then the parking area began to fill with alumni and spouses.

The band didn't need leadership, as the leader was busy remaking friends with classmates unseen since June, 1968 when the thirteenth graduating class of the small, Madison County high school received their diplomas. Jobs at the local Ranco Controls awaited some graduates, like Mary Detweiler and Kathy Thompson, military service awaited Chuck and Andy, while Grace Hostetler, Susan George, Linda Flowers and Charlie Stenner prepared for their first college days.

Teresa Boyhan Dickinson eventually settled in Florida with the rest of her siblings, who grew up off US Route Forty-Two near the Village of Arnold. At the reunion, she saw her varsity basketball sisters, Lynn, Kathy, Susan Edwards Prochaska and with the team uniform in hand, she reminded us of the team, coached by Marcella Myers, that went four undefeated years, from 1964-68. If there had been Ohio women's state athletic tourneys during that era, perhaps Alder would have had a few extra state tournament trophies, instead of just the two gathered up by Susan's daughter, Laura's squad in 2004 and 2006.

Chuck Reed, current Madison County recorder, had a scrapbook of press clippings from the Washington ceremonies that upgraded Charlie Stenner from major to lieutenant general, commander and chief of the U.S. Air Force Reserves. Charlie and Dee Dee were among the most excited about renewing past friendships.

During the formal part of the afternoon, as master of ceremonies, I welcomed everyone and the committee began to draw names for the door prizes that had been accumulated. Charlie was the first to be invited to the microphone and he responded to the question, "What's it like to fly faster that the speed of sound?"

His answer seemed to demystify breaking the sound barrier, "As you approach mach one speed, you're watching your air speed indicator. When it passes through mach one, the needle on the gauge shakes, but you don't feel any buffet in the airplane. You just continue to watch the indicator go higher; 1.1, 1.2, 1.3."

I spoke on the grand day that I had just one year earlier, when on July 21, 2007, I celebrated my fortieth year as a professional musician, as guest trumpeter on the Twentieth Anniversary concert of the Lancaster Festival Orchestra. That same day coincided with the ninetieth birthday of my mentor and friend, Ray Starrett, who was band director in Jonathan Alder Schools for decades.

As the names of prize winners were offered up and all came forward to make their claim, they were handed a microphone and encouraged to reminisce about a great day in their lives during the past forty. And nearly everyone did, including three of our faculty who joined us for the event; Ray Russell, Dorothy Sayre and Jerry Banyots, who after winning an Alder athletic shirt said, "I look back fondly at those years and enjoy my meetings with former students."

The reunion party went well into the darkness and a bright, full, yellow moon arose over the pond that highlights the Kile farm. Linda walked the perimeter, lit luminaries and after the official farewell was bid, hugs and kisses were exchanged. We collectively repacked left over foods, tables and chairs, and took down the decorations, like the team we were in our youthful years before 1968.

What a grand day was Saturday, August 16, 2009, reuniting with lifelong friends.

Columbus: The Musical Crossroads

The long awaited book, Columbus: The Musical Crossroads, is being released from Arcadia Books and should be in your hands. It is a labor of our team’s love for preserving and exposing the world to our musical heritage, following Listen For the Jazz: Keynotes in Columbus History, published in 1990 and 1992.

Columbus has long been known for its musicians, if not its music. Unlike New York, San Francisco, Kansas City, Nashville, or even Cincinnati, it has never had a definable “scene.” Yet, some truly remarkable music has been made in this “musical crossroads” by the outstanding musicians who have called it home.

Since 1900, Columbus has grown from the 28th to the 15th largest city in the United States, eclipsing in-state rivals Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Toledo. During this same period, it has steady developed into a musically vibrant community that has contributed the likes of Elsie Janis, Ted Lewis, Nancy Wilson, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Dwight Yoakam, Bow Wow, Rascal Flatts, and other “stars” to the entertainment world. However, in many instances, those who chose to remain at home, forsaking the pursuit of fame and fortune, were even better.

David Meyers, Arnett Howard, Jim Loeffler, and Candy Watkins, the team, have been actively researching and documenting the history of music in Columbus for decades. Among the other books we have produced that reflect our interest in local music history, in addition to Listen For The Jazz, are More Columbus Unforgettables, and Columbus Unforgettables, Volume III. Our team also developed the Jazz Ohio Exhibition for the Ohio Historical Society and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.

We have several ways of marketing our short run of books.

1. Stocking local bookstores:
The Library Store, 96 S. Grant Ave., Columbus, OH
Columbus Museum of Art, 480 E. Broad St., Columbus, OH
Acorn Bookshop, 1464 W. 5th Ave., Columbus, OH
Karen Wicliffe Books, 3527 N. High St., Columbus, OH
Used Kids Records, 1980 N. High St., Columbus, OH
Lost Weekend Records, 2960 N. High St., Columbus, OH
Walgreens, 3445 S. High St., Columbus, OH
Walgreens, 975 E. Dublin Granville Rd., Columbus, OH
Walgreens, 4890 N. High St., Columbus, OH
Walgreens, 4530 Kenny Rd., Columbus, OH

2. Selling them off the side of the stage at concerts and upcoming festivals

3. Putting them in the hands of friends and people who have an active interest in the subject of music, the arts and entertainment history.

I hope you enjoy Columbus: The Musical Crossroads. Bright moments and happy reading,

The 2008 Westerville Music Project

The 2008 Westerville Music Project was something I conceived during the spring, as a tribute to the Westerville Sesquicentennial and the city’s legacy as the home of Benjamin R. Hanby. The project builds on the 2007 Westerville Schools Leadership Summit and the Mark Twain Elementary Music Summer Camp, that was administered by Dr. Scott Ebbrecht, principal.

The objective of the 2008 Westerville Music Project was to write and record as many songs as possible with Westerville school students and prepare a series of compact discs and a book to place in the community’s sesquicentennial time capsule. The project involved students in the multidisciplines of song writing, performing, recording techniques, as well as the history and music of Benjamin R. Hanby, Westerville’s most noted historical figure, who was an educator, as well as a composer.

Beth Weinhart, of the Westerville Public Library, expressed an interest in providing Hanby music resource materials from library and Otterbein University archives. Mary Bigham, a volunteer with the Hanby House, also offered to duplicate and provide Hanby scores from her private collection of songs that Ben Hanby used to teach students.

I guess Ben Hanby and I do the same thing, only separated by one hundred-fifty years. I love history, music, kids and I have been having the most wonderful experiences with Westerville students since Bob Abbott brought me and my Creole Funk band to John Greenleaf Whittier Elementary in 1987.

Ben Hanby is said to have written more than eighty songs in his short life (1833-67); most devoted to educating his students. As time passes and the population Westerville community grows with newly arriving families, his name is still present on a school building and the historical Hanby home site, but his life work has been forgotten in the rush of our modern life.

I hope this effort to bridge the one hundred fifty years since Ben made his songs will carry his legacy at least another fifty years. Who knows what young Westerville composer and songwriter might be in the hearts of music lovers in 2058 when Westerville celebrates its bicentennial, opens the Ben Hanby Songs book and listens to these recordings.

I have performed countless events in the Westerville communities; the Music and Arts Festival, Alum Creek Park, Heritage Park, Otterbein College, Central College Presbyterian Church, the Library, the Scoreboard Restaurant and every school building in the district, weddings and parties for local families.

Because of the Westerville Music Project, Benjamin R. Hanby is in the hearts of Westerville students today!

Kidding Around II Released

I do a lot of very cool things in life, however, composing songs with kids is a big motivator. Knowing that before the morning is over there will fun new songs in the world, makes me get up at six in the morning and have a smile, as I carefully rush down the highway to schools in Central Ohio.
My first recording collaboration with youngsters occurred in 1997, Arnet Howed’s Cruel Funk Band, Kidding Around. My second was with students in Grandview Heights, Ohio, I’m a Walkin’, Takin’ Pair of Pants, in 2003.
The lastest collection of rhythms, rhymes, melodies and body noises, Kidding Around II, comes from projects that began in 2006 with the Lancaster Teens C D Project and Schultz School Jazz. The main 2007 event was the Mark Twain Elementary Rock and Roll Summer Camp and 2008 has found me writing songs with imaginative kids at Mark Twain, Pointview and Annehurst Schools in Westerville, Ohio, as well as Pickerington Elementary, in Pickerington, OH.
I was sixteen when I made my first recordings and I hope my fellow musicians on this disc, from aged five to seventeen, can boast (like I continue to do) about how young they were when they made their first appearance in front of the microphones. Music is a love force; long may you sing your songs!

Fred Holdridge in Grant Hospital, Columbus

Dad,

Even though we miss you, you haven't missed much a' anything since you been in 'da' joint.' Terry Dickey's sixtieth birthday party was a real good time; her sisters came up from Dallas and they were not only very attractive, tall women (you know I'm a sucker for a pretty face and long legs), but they could shake it too. The bash ended too early; the old crowd don't party like we used to twenty years ago. But there were some mighty good meatballs; Dave, my bass player, took home the leftovers.

You did missed a lot of good music during Easter week. John Carter and I sounded real good together, although I blew the last three measures of a hard piece on Easter morning. I hope Barbara Zuck isn't too severe in her criticism of my performance.

Well, now that I think about it, you woulda' enjoyed the Cols. Jazz Orchestra last weekend. Their guests, Ken Peploski and Peter Appleyarn, brought back those good old Benny Goodman clarinet days when Lionel Hampton played vibraphone. They played Airmail Special and Flying Home and I never get tired of hearing those songs. Thankfully, we didn't have to suffer through another version of Sing, Sing, Sing, for the ten thousanth time.

The rich people over on City Park returned from boozing, whorin' and drugin' around Amsterdam and we did go see a strangely beautiful Israeli film, The Band's Visit; about an Egyptian Police band that gets lost in the deserts of Israel, in the town of Beth Tivah. Sorry, we didn't eat any popcorn in your honor; I been eatin' way too much of it lately at OSU basketball games.

Byron and Milli Kohn had their fifty-seventh anniversary last Tuesday, with lunch at Shaw's Restaurant in beautiful, Downtown Lancaster. We talked about you; I told 'em you was a mess but too stubborn to kick the bucket and too hard headed to heal.

Well, this is week two of my six week creative period; taxes are due in two weeks, so I guess I can't put in off no longer. One book is done and one more to go, as well as two compact discs. I'm too creative for my own good.

I play a party at Cooper Stadium, Friday. I'll get a box o' corn for you, after I finish the National Anthem! How many of them dime dogs you want?

Sorry, we're not havin' any real fun while you're on vacation. Maybe we can get the warden to give you a furlough; we can go put a cherry bomb in Greg and Catherine's mailbox and wheelchair like hell.

Bright moments from Creole Village from your loving 'sun'!

A

March 2008 Trips to Florida and Indianapolis

Florida Trip Report, 3/8/08

Greetings from Creole Village, where it is as quiet as it is gong to be this year. Ohio has just been through a thirty-two hour winter storm/snow blizzard. I woke up in Indianapolis, where we partied with the Indiana Department of Transportation’s Entrepreneurial Development Institute, administered by Linda McHenry, esq. and Dr. W.C. Benton.

Each year I write a jingle for EDI that is based on the conference theme and this year’s song, Innovate Indiana: Are You In?, was a masterful piece of jazzy, funky rap, that I whipped up in a whole four days. Linda is the song’s commissioner and I think she’s been sailing on a cloud since 2007’s theme song, Nothing Happens ‘Till You Decide (That the Future Is Now in Indiana). ”It kicked everybody in the pants real good.

Same results with this year’s song and the EDI Party Animals swamped the dance floor on the second selection’s opening rhythms, “Say Hey! Indiana! EDI want’s to know, ‘Are you in? (Are you in?)." The fellows in the band reminded me that we did three remixes during the evening, the last being a rockin’ reggae to finish the party like it started, with everyone in the call and response choir. Sail on Ms. McHenry and Dr. Benton; ya’ll pulled it off, storm or not.

I returned from Tampa/Land O’Lakes/Lutz/Kissimmee on Wednesday, after a week of serious sun worshiping/maxing and relaxing in the hospitality of Eve Feber, comedian, sexy senior naturist and, now author of Bare Naked Humor. Eve and I celebrated twenty years of our family as entertainers. We met entertaining at Hedonism II in Negril, Jamaica after 1988’s Hurricane Gilbert.

Eve is eighty-eight and still spoiled rotten. I played for her twice at Ukuleles Bar and a Sunday spiritual service around Moss Lake at her home in Lake Como Family Nudist Resort. I had come to 2008 Superbowl South, the annual nude volleyball tourney, that is Lake Como's welcome winter break for snowbird players from around the U.S and Canada.

Eve and Ed, her young eighty-three year old companion, invited me to join them in Clearwater Beach at the beautiful Ruth Eckert Hall, to see two old comic entertainers, Joan Rivers and Don Rickles. I had never seen either before, but Joan has the raunchiest act and the foulest mouth; she dropped a couple of f-bombs even before the curtain opened. In a non-stop hour-long set to open the show, Joan stalked the stage and whomever in the audience she could view and she abused every ethnic group possible, except Blacks; unless you call musician/aledged child molester, Michael Jackson, a Black.

Joan Rivers is a very bad but funny woman. Compared to her act, Don Rickles was pale, hardly as entertaining but he sang, “I’m a Nice Guy,” between his legendary sarcasm.

But the sun rose early on Saturday morning and I maxed my sun time in the company of a like minded community. I would just describe the experience of a nude community as exhilaratingly free; a soul can wake up and not worry about closing the drapes, garden au natural, throw a book, some money and a towel in a bag, go for a walk and greet everyone with a word or a wave. Breakfast was usually an hour at the Bare Buns Cafe for a short stack of banana, pecan pancakes and crisp bacon.

The opening weekend of games was on grass courts and teams played in threes and fours; mostly men, several coed teams and plenty of sun and temperatures as the balls and bodies bounced. There is nothing erotic about nude volleyball; players of all ages and sizes dig, set, bat, spike and chase the constantly moving ball, hour after hour, game after game.

The volleyball community that I have been a part of for five or six years, although I don't play, is a group of friends that I am excited to spend time with; they are a free spirited bunch who are way more fun than your typical, tight-laced, textile person, who always resorts to self-abuse when body freedom issues are topical. ‘Nuff said; fun is where you find it!

Lake Como has a perfect hot tub facility; clean showers and a large, 104 degree jet powered soaker, that, once you can get fully in, you don’t don’t wanna’ get out of. The Lake Como community also has horse shoe and pettanque courts. Pettanque is an international game, like bocci ball, but using a small and heavy ball to throw closest to the targeted "pig" and I was welcomed onto the court by Dennis 2 (there were two Dennis’). Eve played; we made jokes about retrieving her balls from the back seat. I enjoyed the play and should invest more time in the game of pettanque, because it’s not murder on the knees like volleyball.

Bob and Carla, Eve’s next-door neighbors got married on Sunday afternoon and the event was a fashion paradise. My senses haven’t gotten overwhelmed like that afternoon since my second visit to wood sculptor David and Susan Hostetler’s Athens, Ohio home in December, 2007. David would have been inspired for months, if not years (although Susan keeps him pretty inspired by herself).

Photographing activities at Lake Como Resort has well defined rules that I intended to follow. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and forgive me, for I sinned and took more than a few pictures of all of the friends that gathered to witness for Bob and Carla. I also took interior shots of the “Ho Tow,” the 1969 Airstream trailer that Bob plans to haul Carla around the U.S. in as they enjoy a honeymoon this summer.

Although I called Patty Wagstaff and Rob Lock while I was in Florida, I never got to get into the air with either of the two members of my aviation family. I did get to spend a night in Kissimmee/Poinciana at Sola Vita Resort with Arnold and Mevelyn Estis, part of my Plain City family. George and Ethel Ware, fellow Plain City folk, join us for breakfast, before I hit the road for an eighty mile trip back to Lake Como.

Curt Zeigler, a volleyball player from Columbus, met me and a few of us Cols. boys went to see filmmaker Spike Lee speak at the University of South Florida. Afterwards we found a serious Jamaican eatery called the Jerk Hut on Fowler Street, close to the USF campus; they had chicken dishes and I had escoviche fish, baked with the head on. Ital, righteous foods, good beer and an atmosphere feeling of the real island experience.

I didn’t want to dress for the airport Wednesday morning; long pants and a shirt replacing no pants or shirt, hard shoes are less comfortable than a week in sandals. But I covered myself, loaded my bags, turned in my well-used gate pass and aimed the rental car towards the cold Midwest via Tampa International Airport. I was scraping iced windows by 6 pm. Wednesday.

Maxxed, relaxed, brown, beautifully destressed, not depressed,

Yours,

A

Gracie Annette Brack Williams

Celebration of Life, Tuesday Dec. 18, 2007, 11 am., Bethany Lutheran Church, Forestville, Maryland.

I must have made five hundred trips to Cleveland, Ohio through the decades and ninety percent of the destinations ended up at 841 Linn Drive in Glenville. My vehicles could make the drive without me, they knew the route through those mean streets so well.

I had my own set of keys to the building and occasionally Grandad and Annette would be out when I arrived; no problem. I think they married in 1969; if I recall, they met in Charleston, West Virginia and played cards with Tom and Roberta Watkins, Grandad's long friends.

I often wonder how they stayed so happily together in that tiny, two bedroom apartment? I guess when the price is right, you make do with your surroundings. Grandad was the building superintendent, trading his maintenance and management skills for the rent and didn't dent his meager miner's pension with housing expense.

But the apartment space was so close they had to utilize every square inch to store a lifetime of collectibles. I remember that the closet in the guest room was full of extra suits, dresses, hats, scrapbooks, sewing equipment, the sweeper, extra canned and boxed goods. The drawers of the dresser were crammed with tools, papers and general stuff.

Even though the kitchen wasn't as big as a minute, there was room for a China cabinet for her collectible glassware items, a large fridge, an electric range and a table by the window that would seat three, if forced to. Many of my favorite moments on this Earth were spent in that humble twenty-four square feet of yellow painted wall space.

The foods that were served in the Williams' kitchen had soul. Cornish game hens, ham, capon and an occasional chicken were baked under those glowing elements, as well as packages of dinner rolls and tins biscuits. Mashed potatoes, eggs, potatoes and onions, bacon, green beans, peas and gravies came to life on the top of the range.

I never learned the recipe for the sweet tea that Annette served; nothing I have tasted in this world rivaled its mellow flavor. Now that I know that she has passed on, I'm starting to get teary, for I shall never fill another eight ounce glass with that wonderful blend of Lipton, sugar and lemon.

My tastebubs have memories of moist turkey dressing, slices of white meat and potatoes swimming in perfectly prepared gravy. Green bean with the smoked taste of a salty ham, sweet potatoes and candied yams to died for. Rolls and soft tubs of margarine, dreaded trips to the neighborhood market, because the meal wouldn't be right unless we had cranberry sauce. Wheaties, ripe bananas, toast from a vintage toaster, grape jelly...

In that space at 841 Linn Drive, I would feel no guilt about having, seconds and just a dab of thirds. For me, soul foods delivered there were like nowhere else. Tony Bennett's heart is in San Francisco, but God knows that mine is in Glenville in my grandpeople's greasy kitchen.

I remember the summer of 2003 was Bob and Annette's last on Linn Drive. The building was not the same strong building as when Grandad inherited its upkeep in 1969. I had gone up for a Cleveland Rockers basketball game in August and when I pulled into the parking lot on Prospect Street, the lot attended told me that the game had been canceled because the power in the city had gone down.

I made a risky beeline (no traffic signals) to Linn Drive, because that August day was stiflingly hot. When I arrived, it took two sweltering hours to talk the old folks into packing an overnight bag and coming south to Columbus or at least to a local motel in the suburbs, where there might be electricity and air conditioning.

We, and the thousands of other victims of a power outage that blanketed the Midwest, East Coast and parts of Canada, drove for three hours, before we got to the nearest available motel in Ashland, Ohio, eighty miles south of Cleveland. I got two rooms and we were comforted. We got up the next morning and power had been restored, so we drove back to Glenville.

With grateful heart, I am thankful for the years that Grandad and Annette comforted and loved each other and the many miles that they traveled safely on the highways visiting friends, attending school reunions, church functions, attending funerals and family holidays. Their favorites were Memorial Day, to decorate the graves of her loved ones in West Virginia, the Gary District High School Reunions and the Pig Roast and Family Days in Plain City, Ohio. They would gather up a carload of the Cleveland Family and strike out for a long day trip to the country and the fellowship of our extended Frazier Family.

When they stopped coming to the Pig Roast during the 2001 Labor Day, I knew that Father Time had caught up with them. But Bob and Annette Williams sure gave the Old Guy a great run, staying active well into their eighties. Perhaps their time together in heaven be full of friends, card games, soulful meals and nice cars. I hope so.

Bright moments from your loving grandboy,

Arnett