The power of words
I was thinking the other day about a guy I worked with at the Freeman, a daily newspaper in Kingston, N.Y., back in the 1970s. I was told they’d hired a local radio guy to be the county reporter, and I was wondering if he knew how to write. Then I saw him — skinny, wearing tight black clothes, long dark hair, a large handbag hanging from his shoulder — and he smelled of too much cologne when he walked past my desk. “Hmph, a radio guy,” I thought.
In my retirement here in the 21st century, my pastimes include playing oldtime music each Sunday at a local nursing home in Lake Katrine, N.Y. I am joined by my wife and her parents in a group we call the Hat Band (we all wear hats). The three of them do it out of altruism — they’re all from Indiana and upright people. I do it out of selfishness — I started playing in local nursing homes 15 years ago because I wanted to improve my guitar playing and needed a captive audience.
There are times, however, when even my most dispassionate motives are torn asunder. As many times as we’ve performed it, I still can’t get through “Silver Threads Among the Gold” without having to push back tears:
When your hair is silver white
And your locks no longer bright
With the roses of the May,
I will kiss your lips and say,
‘Oh, my darling, mine alone, alone,
‘You have never older grown.
‘Yes, my darling, you will be
‘Always young and fair to me.’
Oh yeah, you say, those words aren’t so bad. But try to sing that song, with its beautiful melody, to a room full of people whose average age is around 85. (Hell, the average age of the band is around 75.)
That radio guy went on from Kingston to become a columnist at the Des Moines Register and somewhat of a celebrity in Iowa’s public life. In one of his columns, he reminisced about Kingston and particularly a series of stories the Freeman ran every holiday season about needy people. One of those people, interviewed by a Freeman colleague, was an 8-year-old boy being raised by his grandparents in a seedy walkup:
The only sign of Christmas in the apartment was an anemic plastic tree they’d found on the street, dragged home and propped up in a corner. The only sign that a child lived there was some overused toys strewn around the living room floor. They were the kind of toys they give out at the fast-food places when you buy kid meals.
The couple didn’t have much to say, but (the boy) did. He said he’d have a happy Christmas if his grandma could get a robe and if his grandpa could have warm slippers.
‘What about you?’ (the reporter) asked.
The kid said he didn’t need anything. But he was going to wrap up his old toys and put them under the tree so he’d have something to open on Christmas morning.
A year ago this month, Rob Borsellino died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. He was 56.
That radio guy could write. And his words are still with me.
– Sid Leavitt
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