I recently was privileged to play “Uncle Billy” in Richmond Civic Theatre’s production of It’s a Wonderful Life: the Musical. As with many productions, the cast and crew bonded as we worked together over three months. We hugged a lot. “Love ya” was often heard backstage and in the dressing and makeup rooms. When the play ended and the set was dismantled (struck, for us theater geeks), we disappeared from each other’s lives, at least until a future show. Since then, I’ve kept in touch with many of the cast, the crew, and the orchestra. I still tell them how honored I felt to work with them. I still love them all, and I’m not going to stop letting them know. I tell or show a lot of people that I love them. Not enough, probably. Not often enough when it comes to family, but still a lot. My most feared nightmare is standing before God and having not told someone that they meant a lot to me. This morning, I asked myself why I do that. Why, on social media, am I so quick with a ❤️ or a 💜 or a 💛? Why do I offer a ride, a few dollars, a hug to people, some of whom I barely know? Why am I driven to let people know I care? I blame one song I heard back in 1970. Scott, an East 93rd Street neighbor and one of my best friends, burst into the living room with a record album in his hand. “You gotta hear this,” he exclaimed. “This” was the LP Second Thoughts by the band McKendree Spring. The album consisted of covers and original songs with pure, clean vocals by Fran McKendree and background music featuring electric violin and viola, theremin, and the newly introduced Moog synthesizer. I’d never heard anything like it. I quickly memorized the lyrics of For What Was Gained, the almost-eight-minute song that became my anti-war anthem. The haunting strings and synthesizer of Oh Now My Friend drove me to the encyclopedia to find out why Duluth is described as “walls and iron seashore.” And then there was Cairo Hotel. The song existed before McKendree Spring recorded their version. Adam Mitchell wrote it with The Paupers in 1968, but few people knew about that. Of course, only slightly more people ever knew McKendree Spring’s version. While musically influential, they were never a “popular” band. Cairo Hotel is the story of the death of a lonely man and the life of a lonely woman. They know each other, but the man feels unloved, and the woman doesn’t know how to confess her love for him. It’s a song about thoughts unexpressed and words never said. Though she never really told him Now she wishes that she had For she loved him in her own peculiar way In her hand there is a photograph A scarf upon her knee She was knitting it to give him Christmas day And she wishes she had spoken to him Long before she did Then perhaps he might have been with her today Something about that song touched me. I’d been raised to believe that as a Christian I should love everyone, like Jesus did. But loving everyone can equate to loving no one if you don’t tell or show them. A tiny spark was lit that day. It grew after I purchased Second Thoughts for myself and played Cairo Hotel over and over on my little stereo. It flamed as I turned an on-the-job prescription drug delivery into an after-work housecleaning adventure for an elderly woman who couldn’t do that for herself. It flamed higher as I started mowing lawns for people unable to operate their own mowers. It became a conflagration as I began to really listen to friends and strangers. I believed I had to do those things not so much because Jesus would have but because I may never get the chance to love those people otherwise. In the years before his death from cancer in 2021, I got to be friends with Fran McKendree. We jammed together at Earlham School of Religion. He stayed in my home. I attended his memorial service in North Carolina and visited with bandmates Marty Slutsky and Chris Bishop. But I never told Fran how much that cover of Cairo Hotel meant to me. I wonder with how many other people I missed the chance to say thank you, to say goodbye, to say I love you. Today, I’m going to read this little memoir episode to a church member who is unable to get out on Sunday mornings. She lives in a beautiful care facility with great food and great neighbors. But she lives primarily alone. I know she hears almost every day that she is loved by her children and grandchildren. I know sometimes even the nursing assistants and other staff tell and show her how much they care. It’s not enough. I need to tell her myself. (Note: I did.) We’re all living in the lonely, rundown Cairo Hotel. We love each other ”in our own peculiar ways.” But we need to say so and do so. Fran McKendree, I love you for your song Cairo Hotel and for your friendship. I’m sorry I never told you that. I won’t let it happen again. ______________________________ I do hope you’re enjoying Tales of a Canarsie Boy. I expect to add new episodes in the months to come. By the way, if you’re from Canarsie and have a story to share, please contact me via this blog or email ([email protected]). I’d love to include you as a guest blogger. To hear this episode, please click the YouTube link below. |