From the frozen north

 This is a wonderful world and new people who knew Leonard Pennario keep appearing as if by magic. Yesterday a man wrote to me from the Arctic Circle. Norway is in the Arctic Circle, isn't it? I am looking at this map and trying to figure that out.

Hmmm. Come to think of it Buffalo is pretty darn close to the Arctic Circle itself.

Tonight Howard and I went to dinner at Della Terra. That is the restaurant at Avant! And our boots went crunch, crunch, crunch in the snow. That only happens when it is really cold!

That and you can see smoke coming out of the smokestacks of Buffalo factories, not that we have many of them left with all the government interference. But when one is still in business, you can see the smoke. See this lower picture of the Kurtzmann piano factory? That is Factory (B). There is this one factory I pass on the way to work that on cold mornings looks just like Factory (B).

Back to this Pennario fan. He is in Norway with his wife and their baby son. I wonder if he knows Ole Bull State Park. Remember Ole Bull State Park? Anyway, he told me that he knew Pennario when he was growing up. His father had been with Pennario in the Army, in China and Burma and India.

One thing he writes:

He loved bridge, and Mom and Dad would try to set up a game for him, when he came through. One of the last times, when I was a teenager, he and my family went over to the Hubbards' house to use their piano. Mary Lou and Karen Whitmore - both very pretty girls - were there, and they wanted him to play some rock and roll tune for them, which he did with great elan. 

Ha, ha! That is Leonard. America's greatest pianist!

I would love to know what tune that was.