A legendary fiddler passed away last week. Mr. Jim Brock of the small town of Aliceville, Alabama, was a much more influential figure than many who knew him casually probably realize. In recent years he had recorded a couple of CDs locally (Me and My Fiddle and The First 55 Years), but hadn’t been active on […]
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28 Nov
In Memoriam: Robin Metz
I first met Robin Metz when I hitch-hiked to Knox College in the midst of a November blizzard. In typical Robin fashion, he took it all in stride, found me a place to stay on campus, and proceeded to sell me on transferring. It would have been hard to do anything else after being exposed […]
10 Dec
In Memoriam: Dorcas Dorow
This week a major force has passed. Dorcas Dorow wasn’t famous, though she was well known in my home town of Osage, Iowa, and half-way around the world in Lermontov, Russia, our sister city, a relationship she was the driving force behind. And her influence spread through her work at Waldorf and with the many choirs […]
24 Apr
In Memoriam, David Hernandez, Chi-Town Poet
Yesterday, I learned that David Hernandez had passed away of a heart attack at the age of 66. He died in his beloved city, Chicago, on Feb. 25, 2013. (By the way, there is another David Hernandez, a poet from California, who is very much alive.) Reading this news two months after the fact brought […]
20 Sep
In Memoriam: Sam Moon
One of my favorite teachers and mentors passed away this month. Sam Moon of Knox College was 89. I knew him, when I first came to Knox, as the founder (with Robin Metz) of the creative writing program. He let me in my first poetry workshop (though I didn’t have the prerequisite) and taught me […]
25 Jun
In memoriam Bill Whitehead, 25 October, 1937 – 24 June, 2010
Bill was the strongest, most caring of men–a wonderful father to Kim and her sisters and grandfather to Aidan and his cousins. He was a millwright and in later years, a farmer. He passed away tonight at about 11:00 p.m. For the past year we knew he suffered from ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig’s […]
25 Oct
More on Jim Brock
Richard Thompson of Bluegrass Today wrote a fitting tribute to Jim Brock this week. I was glad to contribute what I could, and glad to learn the parts of Mr. Brock’s story that others filled in.
24 Jul
My First Decade as Occasional Blogger
Recently, WordPress was kind enough to inform me that this month is my 10th aniversary of writing this blog. As I looked back, I noticed the very first first post was July 24, 2009. What a long, fun, and a little crazy trip it’s been. I started blogging mostly as a dare to myself. I’m […]
8 Apr
Remembering a Mentor
This weekend, I drove from Mississippi to western Illinois for the memorial gathering of one of my main college mentors, Robin Metz. The many hours by myself in the car on the the way there and back gave me lots of time to reflect, and seeing so many people come out for the memorial was […]
