My encounter with Aretha Franklin

I was sad to hear a few days ago of the passing of Aretha Franklin. She died so young. And it gets me on a personal level, because of the time my path crossed hers.

It was a unique encounter! The saga began with a phone interview I did for The Buffalo News.

This particular call was an accident. Our pop music critic, Jeff Miers, happened to be on vacation when Aretha's publicist called offering the interview. We did not want to say no to an interview with Aretha Franklin, seeing that she lived in Buffalo as a girl. So I stepped up to the plate. I put myself through a quick crash course on her career -- I was an expert on Leonard Pennario, not on Aretha Franklin -- and then the diva and I spoke.

Here is the interview I did. Reading back on the interview I smiled remembering how when I mentioned I played the piano, and began asking her about her own playing, she seemed to relax and brighten. Pianists love to talk to other pianists!

But the real fun began afterwards.

It was right as I was telling her goodbye -- isn't it funny how that is when people come out with stuff? Aretha began talking about the friends she had as a little girl in Buffalo.

She wondered if I could help her get in touch with this family. And so I did. First I put together a story, a kind of shout-out to them. Blassingame, the name was.

Subsequently I was able to get a hold of Wayne Blassingame on Facebook. We had a bunch of friends in common and so I was able to message him. Aretha had remembered him as the baby of the family. She had been sort of sweet on his older brother, Gordon.

Aretha came to town and as you can see in The News' photos, was delighted that she was able to meet Wayne, who still lives in Buffalo and, may I add, is still my Facebook friend. Meanwhile, I got to talk with Gordon Blassingame.

We ran that story under the subtle title, "Aretha Franklin's Childhood Crush Tells All." I believe I wrote that headline.

The whole experience really touched me. You could tell Aretha was taking stock of her life. You could tell she was looking back wondering what things might have been like if her life had been different. This boy Gordon Blassingame -- well, he was now, like her, in his 70s -- she had tried to reconnect with him a couple of times in his single days, after their paths separated. Once, when she showed up looking for him in a limo, he was out of town.

He struck me as a salt-of-the-earth guy, the kind of man every girl would be lucky to marry. He had been in the military, joining the Marines. Then he had settled down to a job in public transit, and retired with what I imagine must be a good pension. He had been married to his wife for 41 years and hoped to top his parents' record of 50 years of marriage. He chuckled that he and his wife joked about Aretha from time to time, affectionately.

No wonder Aretha had seen something in him. A celebrity's life can be lonely and I bet you wish for that kind of normalcy, for a good faithful man to stand between you and the world.

My Aretha Franklin story did not end when her concert did.

A few days later, this gigantic bouquet of flowers arrived at work. That is the bouquet in the picture at the top! Howard found it. The flowers were from Aretha, with a note thanking me for helping her reconnect with her friends.

I think we did an email back-and-forth after that. I know I wrote her to thank her, and she mentioned to me that when she next came to Buffalo maybe I could give her a tour of The Buffalo News. Which, we all would have loved that. But she did not come back here, at least not that she knew. She did come back from time to time, we heard, to visit her mother's grave in Forest Lawn.

It got so I liked to go to Forest Lawn too! Too bad we never realized we had that in common.

I sort of thought I would get to meet her one day. She had invited me to say hello at Artpark, but I think I had to be at the Philharmonic or someplace. Plus I learned a long time ago not really to listen when artists invite you to meet them backstage. Who needs another stranger backstage, you know? And those situations do not bring out the best in me.

I still cannot actually name one Aretha Franklin song aside from "R-E-S-P-E-C-T." But I began jokingly to think of her as my buddy. My buddy, Aretha. I said a prayer for her when, in the car, I heard she had died. We should all say our prayers for Aretha Franklin, pray that she makes it to heaven. I have a feeling she will.

She was more than the Queen of Soul.

She was a gracious lady.

Allergic to allergy pills

About every 10 years, zut alors, I get allergies. Something turns up floating around in the air, some peculiar pollen maybe, and it gets to me.

That happened yesterday. The night before, my eyes had been itching, and yesterday morning it was driving me crazy. Eye drops didn't help. Nothing helped. I was desperate to make it stop. So I did the dumbest thing. I took allergy pills.

Nighttime allergy pills! As in, "Don't make any plans."

"Why did you take those?" Howard said. "They'll put you to sleep."

"Too late, I already took them," I said.

Did I ever regret that!

I had to go into the office and I had a dozen things due. Plus two interviews! La la la la la la la la.

The bright side was, my eyes had stopped itching. But I was drugged. This one guy I was interviewing on the phone asked me a question about did I know so-and-so and there was just this silence while I sat there. I had to say something so out of desperation I just told the truth.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I have these allergies and I made the mistake of taking these pills. I am afraid I am kind of a zombie."

This was a comedian I was talking to and he did not laugh! Oh well. Pennario would have thought it was funny. He used to laugh at my jokes, one of the many things I loved about him. I was not technically joking about the pills but it was kind of funny, you know? Well, I thought so.

One of my co-workers at the paper took this picture of me.

Luckily as in the case of Nyquil, these pills are like a parking meter. Eventually your time is up. A few hours later, around 1 p.m., I started coming out of it. I was on the phone interviewing my second interviewee and I felt the fog lifting. Gradually I awoke. And my eyes began itching again.

Systems normal! Well, almost.

I have learned from this mistake! No more Glenn Gould behavior.

No more pills!

The wicked stepsister

Ay me, things have been busy at the Leonard Pennario desk!

We have the University of Southern California including Pennario in a display they are doing of their august faculty. Pennario did not teach there but two of his most famous colleagues, Jascha Heifetz and Gregor Piatigorsky, did. They asked me for a picture of the three of them together, with the violist William Primrose.

Then there is a doctoral student at Juilliard who is working on a thesis concerning Pennario's performance of Ravel's "La Valse." It is wonderful that students are beginning to rediscover his work. This student emailed me about her thesis and I am conferring with her on it. I do not know why I think it is a she. The name is Asian so I cannot tell.

What else?

That round of letters I sent out at the evil Post Office are continuing to bring results. I just heard from the assistant to Pennario's manager at Columbia Artists. I have been wanting to get a hold of her so that is a big breakthrough.

Tomorrow is the day I talk with Kaye Ballard!

I was over at my friend Gary's house and he was excited at the idea of talking to Kaye Ballard so he played one of her records. It was "Ha Ha/Boo Hoo"! The cover has two pictures of Miss Ballard, one happy and one sad. She is an excellent singer and a great comedienne it will be an honor to converse with her.

Kaye Ballard played one of the wicked stepsisters in the Julie Andrews "Cinderella." Here she is in this picture. She is second from left.

Here is a clip where you see her at the beginning hilariously trying to get the prince's attention.

Then the clip goes into "Ten Minutes Ago." What a beautiful waltz that is. You could be corny in musicals back then. You were allowed to be.

Now I feel as if my life is a movie, talking to all these people!

Except for while they might never come down to earth again, I sure have to, on this rainy Tuesday morning. What is on the agenda today? Is not today the day they are planning some stupid send-off for our Memorial Auditorium?


It is a little late for nostalgia, you know?

Or, as this goofy German exchange student we used to have used to say: "It is not interesting." You should have heard that in his sleepy, condescending accent. My father nicknamed him Klutz. I feel like calling Klutz on the phone right now, just to hear him say that. Just to hear him say, "It is not interesting."

I do not want to see that silly Aud send-off. I want to watch that scene from "Cinderella" again.

"Ten minutes ago..."

Ay me!

Now, Voyager

This huge freighter went steaming the other day out of the Buffalo harbor, right outside my office window! So I had to stop working and take a picture. There is the ship up above. It is the Adam E. Cornelius!

Isn't it the biggest ship you ever saw in your life?

Susan Martin is the Home and Garden Editor and she sits next to me and she suggested I look up the Adam E. Cornelius on the Internet which I did. I found this great site called www.boatnerd.com where you can read about the ship here. I learned it was built in 1973 at a cost of $14 million.

Adam E. Cornelius was one of the two founding partners of Boland & Cornelius which was the forerunner of American Steamship Lines. There was another ship called the Adam E. Cornelius built in 1908 but it was scrapped.

Here is a picture of the Adam E. Cornelius taken once when it was laid up.


Welcome, Adam E. Cornelius, to Buffalo! And Godspeed on your future journeys on the Great Lakes.

I wonder if anyone is writing a biography of Adam E. Cornelius the way I am writing one of Leonard Pennario.

Perhaps a few months before Adam E. Cornelius died his phone rang and a woman's voice said, "Is this Adam E. Cornelius? Mr. Cornelius, hi! I am a writer for your hometown paper and I would like to ask you a few questions."

That is something to think about.

Meanwhile my journey as Pennario's artistic executor continues. There are still some people left whom I have not been able yet to interview and so this weekend I am writing letters to all of them. I am up to H. The last letter I wrote, which I am looking at right now, is to Jay Heifetz, Jascha Heifetz's son. There are some things I would like to get his take on. Pennario had such colorful memories of Heifetz, Jascha I mean. Pennario called him Jascha. That is how cool Pennario was.

He would talk about Heifetz and we would sit around and laugh and laugh. I wish I could do that again, you know? I wish I could go back for even just five minutes. Well, we all have people who are gone we wish that about.

After Jay Heifetz the next person will be ... let's see.

Paul Hume from the Washington Post is dead. So is the pianist Eugene Istomin.

Now we are into the J's. Louis Jourdan ...


... is still alive! So Louis Jourdan will be next. That is Louis Jourdan above in "Gigi," with Leslie Caron.

But ay me! Pennario has a Beverly Hills address for Louis Jourdan and I am pretty sure he now lives in France. I think I read that somewhere.

Well, no matter. I will write to him in France.

Perhaps I will sail there, on the Adam E. Cornelius!