Something of a train wreck at the personal level, but he leaves behind some lovely music. Rest in peace. https://youtu.be/OVAA9Ov-z0k
Category: Ave Atque Vale
My Lily of Laguna–My Lily and My Rose
It's always a risk to go sailing down rabbit holes, because you never know what you might turn up when you hit bottom. Thus, after a recent conversation with a family member about the previous paternal generation of Rights, and its love of the early 20th century music-hall oeuvre. My father and his siblings were… Continue reading My Lily of Laguna–My Lily and My Rose
…To Absent Friends and Loved Ones, 2022…
Every year, for almost more years than I can count whether we're together or apart, my family has raised a glass each Christmas season to those we love but won’t see again in this world, and to those we love who are still with us, but who are not able to share our celebration, because… Continue reading …To Absent Friends and Loved Ones, 2022…
Ave Atque Vale: Goodbye, Miss Chips
My head kept telling me she wouldn’t live forever, but my heart simply would not believe it: Patricia Helen Mead Muffett, July 13, 1923–December 10, 2022, Rest in Peace. It’s the first time for a little more than one-hundred fifteen years, that neither my Dad, nor at least one of his siblings, has walked the… Continue reading Ave Atque Vale: Goodbye, Miss Chips
R.I.P. Christine McVie
Xuxa!
She is, unequivocally, the most charming puppy it’s ever been my privilege to know. (For those interested or even just wondering–or perhaps choking a bit over the unfamiliar word–it’s pronounced SHOO-sha, being a Basque girl’s name, native to the Pyrenees.) “She has such a feminine head,” said my veterinarian, when I texted her a photo. And… Continue reading Xuxa!
Loretta Lynn, R.I.P.
Loretta Lynn has died at the age of 90. Some who know me might find my love of American country music a bit odd. Mr. Right never did. He understood that it hearkened back to centuries ago, to the traditions of English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish ballads, and to the stories those songs told, stories… Continue reading Loretta Lynn, R.I.P.
“Grief is the price we pay for love”–September 11, 2022
Those words were spoken by Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, to the family members of those who perished on September 11, 2001. And I’ve often thought she must have been channeling C.S. Lewis at the time: To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.… Continue reading “Grief is the price we pay for love”–September 11, 2022
We Saw Her. We Believed. And Now She’s Gone.
“I have to be seen to be believed”–Queen Elizabeth II The only British monarch of my lifetime died today. She was crowned in June 1953, slightly more than a year before I was born. I was named after her, “Elizabeth,” and–for my middle name–after my grandmother who was to die when I was only a… Continue reading We Saw Her. We Believed. And Now She’s Gone.
Rest in Peace
Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith. God Save the King