You may be tired of seeing me write this, but I don’t care. We here in the Pacific Northwest may not have as many nice days as a few other parts of the nation, but our nice ones are better than anyone else’s. This past Sunday morning was a good example.
A short, half-mile stroll in the early morning sun to Safeway for a bagel and the Sunday funnies, followed by an hour or so sitting with the newspaper and a mug of freshly brewed coffee in the shade of a hazel nut tree that conveniently spreads its branches over my back fence is as fine a way to start a day as anything else I know.
It didn’t hurt to have my live-in companion Zelda (she of the Siamese feline persuasion) curled up next to me on the rusting cast-iron park bench. There can be no better demonstration of the word “idyllic” than that. That ended with her moving into my lap between me and the newspaper, but, hey, priorities must be observed. The funnies could wait.
So much for the good news; the rest of the day was miserably hot, as you well know.
A friend of mine died last week. That’s not uncommon for anyone of advancing years, but there was something special this time. I’ve known Di, and her husband, Burt Myer, since they were both still students, sweet on each other at Centralia College, well over a half-century ago.
My earliest memory of Di was an art project she displayed at the college. The setting was a very formal dinner for four with the title of something like “A Political Dinner.” On each plate was a collection of what are commonly referred to as “Road Apples.”
“Burt and Di” became synonymous for folk music, seafaring music, cornball music and everything else in the southern Puget Sound area, particularly in or near Olympia. Until the doors eventually closed for good they were leaders of a folk center named “Applejam,” where I was invited to bring my Mark Twain performance many times.
Di had a voice like none other: distinctive, pitch-perfect, clear and with one other rare quality. It’s something I wrote about not too long ago. Di was able to sing the story of the song; not just the notes, not just the words, but the underlying reason for the song to have been written in the first place. It’s a rare quality, believe me.
I’m thankful that I was able to once again tell her that, less than a month before she lost her long battle with cancer. Quite properly, the occasion was a gathering of musicians at an “open mike” session in Olympia.
Those musicians gathered again in Burt and Di’s living room, where Burt followed an old family custom. Di was laid out in a hand-made coffin in the center of the room, and the music that she loved went on around her until 5 o’clock the next morning.
She had requested cremation, and she was carried the next day to the crematorium in a long cardboard box, but not before each of us was invited to write a message to carry with her until the end.
She and Burt recorded many CDs with friends, but one cut stands out in my memory. When she sang the melody that accompanied most of Ken Burns TV series on the Civil War, “Ashokan Farewell,” every tear and every heartache was there.
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Bill Moeller is a former entertainer, mayor, bookstore owner, city council member, paratrooper and pilot living in Centralia. He can be reached at bookmaven321@comcast.net.
