Care-Free Youth, or, My So-Called Mid-Century Life

My childhood home was a "Care-Free Home," one of 24 built by the Alcoa Aluminum Company. It was a Mid-Century design utopia, though I didn't know it at the time. Two years after my family moved out of the house, I mentioned it in passing to the editors of Ohio Magazine, where I was working as an intern. They immediately asked me to write a story about it. Here's the story, from December 1992, and here is information about other Care-Free Homes in the US.

It was the residential equivalent of a ’57 Cadillac -- sleek, high-powered, brash and thoroughly American. The first “Alcoa Care-Free Home,” the Aluminum Company of America’s pioneer housing design, was built in 1957 near Lafayette, Indiana. It was a 1,900-sq.-ft. advertisement for aluminum building materials. There was aluminum in the sky-blue anodized roof, in the heavy gold-hued front door, in the textured iridescent purple siding, and in the Spanish-style grilles over the floor-to-ceiling windows. Inside, there were more Space Age attractions: a wall-hung refrigerator, a trim galley kitchen with interior walls that could be moved to create a different floor plan, toilet tanks hiding behind pastel-tiled bathroom walls, and linoleum squares that bordered the carpeting in each room. The walls of the living room and three identically sized bedrooms were finished in brushed aluminum paneling, intermixed with vinyl and cherry panels.

A Care-Free Home was also built that year on a wooded lot in River Forest, a brand-new subdivision in the then-sleepy village of Dublin, northwest of Columbus. This historic event caused a great local stir at the time. It has, however, long since been forgotten by nearly everyone -- except me. I grew up in that Care-Free Home. And lately, I’ve been curious aboutmy family’s past in that house of the future. From microfilm and memories, I was startled to learn how famous my old house had been long ago.

From the original Alcoa brochure uploaded to www.ourcarefreehome.com, photo credit Lee Salsbery.

The Care-Free Home came to Ohio when Alcoa invited Columbus custom home builder Richard Schoen to build one of the twenty-three houses the company wanted to scatter across the country. First, Schoen toured the original home in Indiana, designed by Washington, D.C. architect Charles M. Goodman. He brought along his wife and his banker; Alcoa meant only to inspire the builders, not pay them. All three were impressed. Schoen left with a set of plans and a feeling of euphoria.

Construction was a breeze. Schoen, who was already a twenty-year veteran of the building business, was especially impressed with the free-standing electrical outlets, which sped up wall construction. Everything was efficient. Carefree. The press followed the story in earnest. The October 1957 issue of Better Homes And Gardens featured the house in an eight-page spread. “From sky-hued roof to purple and blue panels and golden front door, you know right away that this is a house that’s exciting . . .different . . .new!”

The Columbus Dispatch interviewed the Schoens, and photographs of this Space Age house dovetailed nicely with the paper’s reports of the Sputnik launch. “Beautiful textured carefree aluminum panels,” sighed the ads. “Thrill after thrill awaits you at the Alcoa Care-Free Home. It’s the last word in modern living.” Columbus residents agreed. Four thousand had turned out on Sunday, October 27, 1957, the first day of open house. Husbands liked the idea of simply hosing down the house instead of painting it; housewives loved the futuristic General Electric appliances. The Care-Free kitchen was a “bright, efficient workshop,” declared the brochure each visitor received. “Mother’s no longer left out. “

Rise Cameron and Ron Casteel, teenagers in love

Twenty miles away, my mother was oblivious to it all. In 1957, she was living a carefree life of her own, as a popular brunette bobby-soxer who sang soprano in the Columbus North High School choir. Her “Mr. Wonderful” was my father, who played tackle for Worthington High and was learning to drive his family’s brand new Chevy. They had gone steady for two years, but Mom once said they’d started talking about marriage at age thirteen. In 1962, they married. By that time, the Schoens had sold the house and moved on to their next building project. The Alcoa Care-Free Home was now known as 5266 Ashford Road. It would be another fifteen years before the Care-Free home came into my parents’ lives.

Dad first saw the house on a hot summer night in 1977. For two years, our family had been living in what my artistic mother called “our nice tract house,” and she was itching to move. A realtor friend took my father on a tour of the Care-Free Home. Dad’s 1977 reaction was not as enthusiastic at Dick Schoen’s twenty years earlier. “It’s an awful ugly house,” Dad reported to us, “but it’s on a beautiful piece of property. And another thing -- the kitchen’s smack in the middle of the house.” He paused, then plunged ahead. “I think we should make an offer. It’s underpriced, actually.” A consummate salesman, Dad pitched the house as a dramatic, artistic statement. That was enough to convince my mother. Ours was the fifth bid.

My father, my mother, my sister Liana and I drove to Dublin to see what we were bidding on. After the Schoens had left, the present had rapidly overtaken the house of the future. The wall-hung fridge was history, and the 350-pound concrete squares that were once “attractive walkways” surrounding the house had disintegrated. The purple and blue siding around the outside of the house looked hopelessly dated in the beige Seventies. Someone had graciously painted the golden entrance door a muddy brown. There were baseball-sized dents in the aluminum walls and bullet holes in the windows. There were roof-high weeds, and an homage to someone named “Lucky Lynn” was spray-painted on the rear brick wall of the garage. Tire tracks crisscrossed the acre of dandelion-beseiged yard.

Mom quickly realized that the Care-Free Home had stopped caring a long time ago, but, “It was a dream house for a former art student like me, and l lusted after it. I saw potential,” recalled Mom, who is temperamentally optimistic. It still looked modern, in a dated sort of way, and visions of Frank Lloyd Wright besotted her brain. Luckily for her, the other bidders dropped out within a month, unable to contact the current owner, who had moved to carefree California. We owned the Care-Free Home shortly before Thanksgiving, 1977.

New Year's 1978 Sock Hop party in our Care-Free Home.

We welcomed our first guests on New Year’s Eve, 1978, when my parents threw a costumed Fifties “sock hop” for several couples. The house was a major part of the nostalgia and an instant hit. “From the start, our friends liked the drama of the house,” remembered Mom. “They called it ‘The Glass House.’ And your father used to love to tell them that the kitchen had movable walls. I think it fascinated him, as a builder, to be able to move parts of a house.” Dad’s builder friends were also amazed at the house’s symmetry. “Each room was 12 X 12,” said Dad. “It was so symmetrical, workers would get lost. They’d find themselves in the backyard, when they thought they had walked out the front door.”

Fitting right in at the New Year's Party, 1978

Cherry paneling, modern sleek fireplace (my sister banged her head on it regularly) and purple paneling

I was not, at first, enthusiastic about the new house. Movable or not, the kitchen layout made it impossible to sneak in unnoticed to taste the chocolate fondue on that New Year’s Even. So I decided to be a mature seven-year-old and walk, very quietly, into the kitchen to steal a fondue stick. I remember hearing deep, grown-up laughter followed by jokes I couldn’t hear. I smelled cigarette smoke and perfume. I heard ice rattle in glasses. I peered around the corner and saw a woman in poodle skirt and saddle shoes dancing the two-step inside a tight square of white linoleum that served as the Care-Free Home’s dining room. It seemed odd to see grown-ups being so seriously silly. It was a lighthearted house.

It was never my mother’s intention to restore the house to its original glory; she was too practical and yet too fanciful for that. In any case, who in the Seventies would have considered a ’57 Cadillac of a house worthy of “historic preservation”? My mother spent that first year tearing out most of the conveniences that had made the house a standout in 1957; they had become modern nuisances. “Those freestanding electrical outlets jutted out of the floors everywhere, and you couldn’t vacuum around them,” Mom said in disgust. “The white linoleum tiles bordering the carpet in every room got dirty if you looked at them funny. The toilet tanks were inside the walls, so you could hardly repair them.” The stake through her heart, though, was the formerly futuristic decorating. “For God’s sake, the walls were quilted lavender aluminum!”

Liana and me in the updated breakfast bar area, @1979

Over the thirteen years that our family lived in the Care-Free Home, my parents devoted themselves to improving the house’s livability. The garage at the back of the house was converted into the master bedroom, doubling the square footage of the house. The carpeting was extended to the edges of each room. The bathroom walls were pried open so the toilet tanks could be replaced. The dented aluminum walls were smoothed with Spackle and covered with wallpaper.

The Great Blizzard of ’78 was the first real challenge. Without electricity, the house of the future was cold. When I wasn’t huddled close to my family by the fireplace, I toured the house, marveling at the slushlike state of my favorite shampoo and making sure my goldfish hadn’t frozen to death. The bank of windows at the front did, however, give us an uninterrupted view of the whiteout outside. My parents listened nervously to the roof. “It kept making these cracking noises,” Mom recalled. “Your dad shoveled snow off of it because we were afraid it would cave in. By that time the roof had oxidized to a light blue color, and we didn’t know why.”

Free-standing electrical outlets, fascia strips instead of gutters. From the Alcoa Care-Free Home brochure, posted by www.ourcarefreehome.com

I knew why, eventually. By researching our Care-Free Home thirty-five years after it was built and two years after we’d moved out, I’d learned a lot -- from the nostalgic memories and from what I’d uncovered. I’d contacted the Schoens, who sent me a copy of the orginal Alcoa brochure. It was time to break the news. I slipped the brochure across the table. Mom read, wide-eyed. “Sky blue! Sky blue!” she laughed, shaking her head. ”Good Lord! You mean that color was intentional?” She called for Dad, who sat with us and studied the brochure with the same look of disbelief. Dad was surprised to learn that the “damn holes in the gutters” were intentional as well. He read aloud, “It says, ‘Dramatic high-lights along the length of house are formed by light through perforations. Aluminum strip rims the eaves to diffuse rain so it will softly spray the shrubs.’” He groaned. “I remember cleaning through those dead, clogged leaves every spring.” My sister and I remembered dodging the waterfall the trapped leaves created over our front door each time it rained.

My mother then recalled the “tall academic-looking” woman who’d appeared at our door two years after we moved into the Care-Free Home declaring that she lived in the only other Care-Free Home built in Ohio, near Cleveland. “She said she was trying to locate all of the twenty-four homes across the country, and she just wanted to see ours,” Mom said. “Also, the walled-up toilets in her house were broken, and she wanted to know where she could get authentic replacements. We, of course, had purchased efficient replacements, not authentic ones.” Apparently, the woman’s dream was to have her Alcoa home listed in the National Register of Historic Places. “Even though her house was sinking into the ground, she was fiercely proud of the fact that it had never been ‘altered’ in any way,” Mom scoffed. There is still no Alcoa home on the Register, and we never heard from the mystery woman again.

Efficient galley kitchen for one cook only. The toilet tank is tiled up inside the wall. From the original Alcoa Care-Free Home brochure, posted by www.ourcarefreehome.com.

After thirteen years in the Care-Free Home, we moved into a brand-new house not far away. Once again, Dad made a sales pitch, and Mom got a deal. Our new house was built and decorated exactly to our tastes. It had what the Care-Free Home lacked: storage space, a leakproof basement, a secure garage and a cost-efficient heating system. It had a lot less glass. There was nothing to replace or repair in our made-to-order home; there were no mysteries waiting to be solved. But the new house lacked one thing the Alcoa house had in abundance -- a hopeful eye toward the future. The Care-Free Home was built on a promise, a confident dream of convenience, efficiency and technology that would make the American future truly carefree. When I drove away from the Care-Free Home for the last time, I cried for the future I left behind.

UPDATE: When I visit Ohio, sometimes I do a quiet drive-by and take a peek at the Care-Free Home. I realize now that we broke most, if not all, of the Mid-Century Design Commandments in our renovations and alterations. The current owners have lived in the Care-Free Home for over twenty years now, and I wonder what they have done to make the house their own. Do they have Eames chairs? Is the refrigerator a vintage reproduction? Are the purple panels prominent again? Has anyone tried to move the kitchen? Do the toilets work? The trees we planted are gigantic, and the house hides behind them. So many trees; I raked an entire autumn's worth of leaves from the yard to earn a pair of rainbow suspenders that every Mork And Mindy loving kid was wearing that year. I see the forbidden backyard hill our mom warned us about -- it was full of glass from the previous owners' broken beer bottles. My three year old sister toddled there one summer day and I rescued her, carrying her away from the danger. I didn't even realize my mistake until I saw my own blood on the grass. I ended up with stitches -- because I wasn't wearing any shoes, either. Hindsight is 20/20.

It was a midcentury masterpiece, but I didn't know it then and it doesn't matter now. It was home. 

The Seven, Vol. 2

1. I wore high heels more than one day in a row and my feet are in agony. I have short legs compared to the rest of me, and I love to wear heels (even medium ones) to balance my frame. I'm worried; is this the end of high heels for me? Now what do I do?

2. Adding to my shoe anxiety: I've lost or misplaced a favorite pair of Danskos.

I know they're clunky and weird-looking, but my feet never hurt at the end of a Dansko day. So, I scarf them up wherever I can find them on sale, and I now own several pairs. I wore my tan pair of "Kate"s while gardening a week ago, and they got a little wet and muddy, so I took them off before I entered the house. I saw them the day after but didn't bring them in, and now they have disappeared. To my knowledge there are no Dansko-nappers in my neighborhood. I have checked all the outdoor spots, I have sternly interviewed the dog, I have begged my kids to help me figure out where they are, as I am the one who finds all of their missing shoes. No sign of them.

3. Adding insult to injury and fulfilling the Murphy's Law of Footwear, these missing Danskos are the ones that I didn't wear for several seasons, while trying to find a shoe repair store to fix their shot elastic. These missing Danskos are the ones that were finally repaired in New York City a few weeks ago, resulting in their rotation back into my wardrobe. If only I had kept them useless, I'd still have them.

4. Thanks to my iPhone OS upgrade, I got to hear the new Miley Cyrus album on the new iTunes radio station. My husband said, “You’re going to get on the Miley Cyrus bandwagon and jump all over her, aren’t you?” I promised I wouldn’t jump all over her. But I will say: * A fast vibrato (also called tremolo) can be a sign of excessive throat and tongue tension. * The lee-da-dee-da-dee interval Miley sings in “We Can’t Stop” is a sixth interval. Wide interval leaps are made more difficult by excessive throat and tongue tension. * Drug use can irritate the vocal folds and vocal tract, exacerbating throat and tongue tension. * Bad posture can reduce breath support and increase throat and tongue tension. * A singer’s vocal range can be reduced by throat and tongue tension. * The inability to sing high, clear pitches at a soft dynamic is often the result of. . . . you know.

However: Sticking your tongue out -- while singing -- can reduce tongue tension.

5. Rihanna, Ke$ha and Nicki Minaj have already marked the corners of the room Miley has just started sniffing. Oh well, she’ll be the crazy judge on “American Idol” soon enough.

6. There has always been a Miley. Let us now praise Samantha Fox, a topless model from Britain who had a hit with “Touch Me” in 1986.

Like Miley, Sam Fox had a strained vocal production, limited range, provocative lyrics, exhibitionist tendencies, and the ability to eroticize vomiting. You want to see more? Here are three minutes of your life you will never get back.

7. Three years ago this month, I married The Best Photographer In The World. He is an ideal husband, devoted father, steadfast friend, insane uncle, and the person you’d most want to sit next to in jail. And in church. I am such a lucky girl! This sums up our relationship pretty well.  [video width="640" height="306" mp4="http://www.edencasteel.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Young-Frankenstein-Sweet-Mystery-of-Life.mp4"][/video]

How's your week? EC

The Seven, Vol. 1

NB: I can't always add up "7 Quick Takes" and I can't always blog on a Friday, but here is my first attempt at Jennifer Fulwiler-style mini-posting. EC 1. I am trying to figure out why “Not A Day Goes By,” from Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along, is printed in the key of F in my music theater anthology, but always sung in lower keys in actual performance (at least on YouTube). Here is Her Curliness Bernadette Peters doing it in D major. [video width="480" height="360" mp4="http://www.edencasteel.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Not-A-Day-Goes-By-by-Bernadette-Peters.mp4"][/video]

And here it is in the printed key, F major, which makes it sound . . .different: [video width="640" height="360" mp4="http://www.edencasteel.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Not-A-Day-Goes-By-from-Merrily-We-Roll-Along.mp4"][/video]These kinds of mismatches happen all the time in the printing/performing world but this one is a headscratcher. I have consulted my colleagues at SomaticVoiceWork and they are also a little puzzled. One suggested that the song was switched at some point from a male to female character, and that would explain it.

2. I like it when women keep their fertility plans private. “2014 is the year of the baby,” announced Chelsea Clinton. Wow, I hope her ovaries wrote that down. It’s good to (quietly) prepare for pregnancy with vitamins and leafy greens, but what if the stick doesn’t turn blue when she has decided she wants it to? Conception is not an item on a to-do list, it’s the Major Life Event (and a blessing from God). I am happy when I hear someone is “hoping” for a baby, which is usually more accurate, anyway.

3. I’m reading David McCullough’s biography of President Truman, all 992 pages, and I am up to his second term in the Senate. I didn’t realize he was such a late bloomer -- he married Bess when they were both 35! He was just too poor to marry her sooner, and she waited for him.

4. My little girl loves to plan parties -- from decorations to food to activities. Her 9th birthday is in November, and one option is hosting a slumber party. Do you remember slumber parties? I remember many of them as slumber-optional and lots of fun. Both of my kids have not attended or hosted them, it’s just worked out that way with their friends. What do I need to do to prepare myself?

5. There is a lot of wonderful music in little Westerly RI these days! Salt Marsh Opera just performed Donizetti's Don Pasquale. It was a sweet, funny production with excellent performances all around.The surtitles failed in the middle of Act 3, just before the beautiful love duet, but in a way, it was such a treat -- we knew they were singing about love, and nothing else mattered. Go see it at The Kate if you can.

6. I'm really looking forward to seeing the awesome Kevin Short perform this Friday! Usually I only see him from my perch on the Chorus of Westerly risers (and that view ain't bad either, sister). This will be such a treat. And Chanticleer arrives later this month, too!

7. Yesterday, I played a funeral for a nice lady named Helen, married 52 years, who prayed the Rosary daily. The music was the usual mix [shoulder shrug]: Ave Maria, On Eagle’s Wings, One Bread One Body, How Great Thou Art, Amazing Grace. Helen, I’m honored that I got to play for your funeral, but I’m ecstatic that I didn’t mess up the pedals on your hymns and songs, and I fired all of the stops in the correct order (okay, they were presets, but that's a big leap for me!). I'm playing my first Catholic wedding next weekend, and playing your funeral helped boost my confidence. Your Communion hymn sounded soft and melodious, and your concluding hymn sounded triumphant. Helen, I hope I helped play you to Heaven.

Jamming with the Q Band

Once a year I get to jam with the neighborhood band, in my own back yard. They come to support my husband's fundraiser for Fred's Team, a charity that supports the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. We eat, we drink, and make noise. Our set list includes "Kansas City," "The Girl From Ipanema," "Route 66," "Oye Como Va," and anything else we can convince the rest of the band to try. We rehearse about four times a year and play a few local parties each summer. It is great fun.

 Here we are performing "Your Cheatin' Heart" by Hank Williams, in the key of Patsy Cline. I think I look a little too serious here, but I was concentrating on playing the bass line, trying to fill piano riffs and singing lead. (Oh shut up, Eden. Elton John can do it, so can you. Bring me another White Pumpkin Russian and I will!)

My Happy Apps

I am selective about my smartphone apps: No to Angry Birds or Tetris, yes to Couch to 5K. No to Minecraft, yes to Vine. I only keep apps that I really like and use frequently. These apps make me happy!

Pandora reminds me of the summer I sold actual physical CDs and cassettes at Camelot Music. We sat around the break room digging through the large cardboard box filled with free promotional cassettes and CDs (okay, only I did that). I scored Madonna's Immaculate Collection, which was a big deal at the time.

I'm always justifying looking for apps for music education. My hardworking ClearTune app helps singers (including moi) figure out how to make the small changes that lead to more accurate pitch, and it's a godsend for nervous new sight singers and pianists ("Was that an E flat? It wasn't? I could have sworn it was. Are you sure?").

Being from the Dark Ages, I learned music theory the traditional way, with workbooks and flashcards. Writing out the scales is always a good idea, but apps are great for drills on note names, intervals, and chords. I like Musicopoulos for straight theory and straightforward practice. If you don't have a smartphone, Theta Music Trainer is a good place to practice.

My perfect pitch made ear training very easy for me, but I have begun to recommend these two solid apps for musical mortals: PlayByEar asks you to sing or play back chords and melodies accurately. EarTrainer shows intervals being played on a piano keyboard.

For sheer fun, the best ear training app is The Blob Chorus. Groups of blobs sing individual pitches, then a purple King Blob repeats one of the previous pitches. Match the blobs, and King Blob gets a crown. Get it wrong, your blob explodes! This is great for singers who are learning to hear their part inside a choir.

I have loved the public radio show Music From The Hearts Of Space since I was a teenage waitress at Elby's. The program aired on WCBE every Sunday night at 10pm as I drove home from the night shift, and I would keep listening as I changed out of my 100% polyester uniform and speed-read some Faulkner for the school week ahead. I use the show's app frequently and also listen to their online archive at www.hos.com

My senior high prom date turned me on to the SomaFM website years ago, as we exchanged one or two perfunctory emails to catch up and therefore avoid meeting up at reunions. He remembered my teenage love of Hearts of Space and recommended this. It was the last I heard of him but thanks, Dean, and I bet you have the app now too! SomaFM is a collection of 15 quirky, well-curated online stations (and that's the last time I will use "curate" in a post) ranging from NASA beeps and blips to bachelor pad jazz. I always wrap presents from Santa while listening to "Xmas in Frisko," their not-safe-for-children radio station.

I just downloaded the Inception app and . . woah. Wierd and wonderful to have music played according to your own movements! When I miss Michigan or DC, I listen to the local traffic report through my iHeart Radio app and then I'm glad I don't live there anymore. I also use a couple of lolofit apps, including the 7-minute workout and Jeff Galloway's Easy 10K. They always make me feel like an Olympian, no matter how infrequently l use them. I wish the 10K app had more variations in run-walk ratios. I don't see why I can't run for one minute and walk for ten, and still have Jeff tell me "great job!" in his Southern twang.

Even on the worst day, my Random Gratitude app asks me to think of something good and type it in. The best feature of this app is that it randomly scrolls through my previous posts, reminding me of so many wonderful little things that I might have otherwise forgotten.

So, what apps should I add to my collection?

Summer of '13: The Summer of Love

This website is still under construction, but I've been hammering away elsewhere! I taught a camp for young actors and oversaw the vocal health of 120 singers, wrote and directed a musical for the third time, played organ at church and filled in as a singer here and there, became the vice president of a pancake company, hosted friends and relatives, and have spent time with my family here, in New York, Ohio, and Indiana. It's truly been a Summer of Love, doing what I love to do with people I love to be with. What a blessing!

The Last Five Years

My website design is almost five years old. That's got to be 10,000 in cyber years. Back in the fall of 2008, I had a dormant website (a gift from my dad) and a bubbling career. I wanted to highlight my singing and libretto writing, hoping to do more of both. Alex Linebrink gave me some gorgeous custom features that we now take for granted. ("Grunge Garden" design! A blog! Widgets! Media players!) I wanted a personalized "Eden's Garden Of Ideas" theme full of flowers and music and glamour shots of me. I hired an old college buddy to photograph me cavorting in a few private Toledo gardens. He was in town for his high school reunion and squeezed me in, no charge.

Alex is now CEO of his own company in Detroit, the career is still bubbling, and I married the photographer in 2010.

After five years, it's time for the website to get a little facelift. I've started the revamping process by looking at hundreds of templates. When I needed to quickly build  a site for the musical I do every summer, I chose WordPress' Bueno and it was quick and painless. I'd like my own site to be that easy to build and manage. Technology says it can be.

My decision-making style is . . . deliberate. Ask my "go ahead, pull the trigger" husband and you may get a different answer. I gather information, I ponder, I investigate. Then I go back and do it again. And again. Finally, when a deadline approaches, I make a decision. I knew four years ago that I wanted a tree in my front porch area. I was not studying the light or waiting to find the perfect specimen - I was investigating at garden stores, walking several local garden tours, and observing. I tore out other plants in the spot to make room for my tree, then left the ground bare for two years while I pondered some more and spent my tree money on things like house inspections. Then one day in April, I walked into the local garden store and made my choice. I'm very happy with it.

In the meantime, it will be a wonderfully active summer for Eden Enterprises. I'm gigging and playing organist du jour at a local church, I'm researching new scenes for the musical, I'm learning Sibelius 7 and preparing my children's cantata Francis Makes A Scene for a second performance. I'm developing a children's theater workshop, I'm writing songs for two Very Special Clients, I'm making new garden beds for the plants that seem to triple in size each summer, and I'm getting to see more of my family. As my dad says, "I'm too blessed to be stressed." I wish the same for you.

Until then. . . under construction.

Rebel 1993-2013

Sunrise. I awaken, climb the stairs to the second floor, and sit. It is time. My barbaric yawp echoes down the hall, wakening everyone from a sound sleep at 5 am . . and then again at 5:24. .  . 5:35. . .  6:01 . . . where are they?

Feeder stumbles out of bed and open the door and greets me. "Where have you been? I'm famished," I say, blinking my light green eyes. If she gets back in bed, I jump up and politely bellow until she gets the drift. I follow her down the stairs, my padded white paws (she calls them my bunny feet and I allow this, for she is nice) lightly thudding as gravity helps bring me down.

I stare at her disapprovingly as she makes coffee before tending to my breakfast, but I allow her this privilege. The other three cats, Boo-Boo Napoleon, Lou-Lou and Cecilia, begin to circle and stare at her too. I am their spokescat. "Feed us all -- but feed me first," I say, benevolently. Hey, if they want to speak up, they can. But they always leave it to me.

We all descend to the basement and she tries not to trip over us. Sometimes she will carry me down so she has less to trip over. I like being carried around, always have. Don't judge.

There are three large litter pans lined up on the far wall. They are stinky but it's not my fault. I use cat pans on the main level of the house now, because I am 20 years old. Sometimes I just gotta go, and I don't have time to get to the basement. This is a perk of being the Senior Cat in Residence. The other humans fail to see this as a perk.

She pours dry food into the bowls and cracks open cans of wet food for me. I love chicken gravy dinners! I greedily lick the gravy from the wet food and then start in on the meat, while Boo Boo crunches his kibble, Lou Lou watches cautiously from a corner, and Cecilia waits for me to get done so it can be her turn. In the cat world there is no such thing as ladies first.

Wait! Where did Feeder go? She went upstairs to get her coffee. With cat-like tread (obviously) I climb the basement stairs (I am rather agile for my age, thanks to occasional steroids for my kidney disease). I know she has that other, special cat food up there.

She pours her coffee and turns around, and I am there, paws primly pressed together as I sit at attention. "More!" I bellow. I can't hear my own meows that well these days, so I am extra loud to make sure she knows what I'm talking about. Feeder scoops out some dehydrated, all-natural powdered food from Healthy Kitchen and mixes it with water. I love this grassy stuff. It is like munching on the lawn in early spring. I gobble my second course while she trudges upstairs with coffee for the other human. I like this food so much I was a model for the company.

I love Honest Kitchen dry cat food so much, I wrote a letter to the company. They sent me more food.

Ages: Feeder 23 years . . . and me, 8 months

Feeder found me at a shelter in Virginia in 1993, when I was 8 months old. I started meowing excitedly as she walked by my cage, looking for a furry companion. I could tell she had loved cats before, and knew what she was doing. We were instant friends.

Get me down! And STOP LAUGHING!

In the early days, I was rambunctious and played with cat toys, and climbed trees and caught birds. I only got stuck in a tree once, but it was memorable.

Now I'm the Methuselah of felines, and my pleasures are simple, yet wonderfully frequent. I love to sit with her while she is reading, and pretend to read along. I just like being warm and cuddled next to her. I can't be aloof around her, she is too loving for that. She opens her left arm and I circle around a few times, then collapse into that soft spot with a happy thrum of purring.

She is getting out of the shower. I am sitting at attention, paws primly joined, on the bathroom rug. This rug is a great extra litter box when I am on the third floor and desperate . . and even when I'm not. Hey, at least I didn't use the heating vent, like I did that one time. Kidney disease! My bad!

I like drinking water from the bathtub. Always have. I pretend I am Lion King, licking out of a jungle lagoon. Feeder opens the shower curtain and exits, and I jump in and sit for a moment, peering at her as she towels off. She knows what she has to do. She closes the drain, turns on the faucet for ten seconds, and then shuts it off. Instant lagoon! I drink greedily.

Noon. Fed and watered and relieved (in a proper receptacle), I head downstairs and saunter over to the matching club chairs in the living room. She has draped them with elegant shawls, which I have covered with orange and white fur from hours of happy sunbathing. I take one chair, and Boo-Boo takes the other. Boo-Boo is an obsequeious ninny who purrs at everything, even the Dumb Dog. I do not like the Dumb Dog. I do not like any dogs. But I don't mind Boo-Boo giving me a little extra warmth, I guess. This is where I will spend most of my day. Time to nap.

Cat nap.

Every time Feeder walks near the kitchen, I track her like she's a bird in flight. I jump down from my perch and see what she's going to make me for snack time. I love chicken, ham, milk, cream, cheese, and a little yogurt. I can't be bothered with tuna and salmon. I eat and head back to my cat spot for my next nap.

Afternoon. Sometimes, when the weather is nice and the breeze blows through the window, I like to sleep on her desk. But today it's cold and she is wearing black corduroy pants. What a perfect opportunity to sit on her lap! She never turns me down. I purr contentedly while she types.

Scholar cat

I like to help them all with their projects. I sat on her first husband while he wrote a book; he called me Scholar Cat. I sat on her as she typed her first libretto. I sit on her son as he does algebra. I watch the girl do her homework. When Feeder teaches voice lessons, I sit on the piano bench and help the students learn how to listen to the cat. It's the least I can do.

Evening. Feeder and I are watching Netflix. I am not a cineophile, but my favorite movie is Milo and Otis, about a cat and dog buddy team. When I was younger and more impressionable, I used to stare at the screen and think I was seeing myself. I watched with rapt attention.

Here is the part I don't like. For seventeen years, I slept on the bed at her feet, or curled up against her left arm, but now her husband carries me out of the bedroom. The Dumb Dog gets to stay, but I don't. When I first met the Dumb Dog and realized that I would have to share the house with him, I had a bit of an episode. I hissed at him, then took off for the basement, where I stayed for nearly three months. I would not come out from under the oil tank. Feeder brought me treats and gradually helped me recover my equilibrium. He is an irritant to me. I don't have to like him and I don't.

I descend the stairs to reclaim my spot on the living room chair.

Sometimes I sleep with the hairless cat who used to be smaller than me. I am a big part of his life too. In fact, his first word was 'cat', though it came out 'ta.' I wasn't sure about him sometimes, but now I think he's okay. The girl is okay, too and her bed is very soft.

I'm going to get a snack later, but I'm sleepy now. It's been a good day. I have kept Feeder company, the way I always do. I have partaken of Fancy Feast Chicken Appetizers. I have demoralized the Dumb Dog. I have inspected the house and laid a fresh layer of fur over every chair and carpet. I have eaten grass in the courtyard. In short, I have spent the day doing exactly what I'm supposed to do, and loving every second of it. The fireplace is roaring, the house is dark. Every pet is in their spot, including me, I guess. Good night until whenever I say it's morning. . . .I'm thinking, 5:31 am. Signing off.

. . . and then, on a cold Friday in February, we said goodbye. I am glad you were not sick for long. Oh, how I miss you, dear Rebel. Thank you for twenty wonderful years of friendship. 

Grief is the price we pay for love. You have left a cat-sized hole in my heart. XO Feeder 

Resolutions

Goals for 2013 I want to learn how to prepare a few more healthy foods. I always think it's going to take too long to make the good stuff, and I'm always surprised at how easy it is. I want to figure out how to make those Thai wrap up roll thingys with julienned carrots and peanut sauce. I always worry I'm going to rip the wrapper and wind up with salad all over the place.

I'd like to add some kind of decor to the white IKEA shelves in my office -- cheaply. I could paint the backs of the cases some hip color. What would Martha do?

Despite my continual reading of Color Me Beautiful in the 1980s, every once in a while I buy an item of clothing in brown. I tell myself that it's an alternative to ubiquitous black. I have loved ones who look great in brown, so I guess I figure that love will make me look good in brown. And so I put it on at home, and I look terrible and pale and sick in it, and I take it off and put it in the donations box. And I always recall this poem. It's time to say goodbye to brown clothing -- forever. Khaki, you're next.

Memorize as much of my Feb. 8 recital as possible. I'm working on this now and it's going pretty well. It really is harder to memorize when you're older!

I love teaching, and I love breaks from teaching just as much. Keep doing this.

Pray more and more and more . . . because prayer works.

Run a half marathon. Run a 10K. Run a 5K. Run. Or just tone up. Or just look like I've lost 10 pounds.

I'm writing a short children's musical about Saint Francis using music from his era. If I include every wonderful thing he ever did, it will be longer than The Ring Cycle. I have to turn in a draft by Ash Wednesday (Feb. 13), and a final by Easter (March 31). I have done a lot of research and collecting, but no writing.

I'm also writing "Quonnie: The Musical 3.0", but I won't even start that until June. That's an eternity away. Right? By then I'll have lost 10 pounds and run a half marathon.

I'd like to procrastinate a little less than my kids.

Restrict Facebook and other cyber time wasters. I turn to social media when I am bored or restless, when I should really be doing something else -- anything else. I use the Self-Control app to force myself to take a break. Occasionally I'll keep electronics off for a period of time. I'm always happier when I do, even if it's only half a day. It gets easier to do the more I do it. So, I'm going to do that more.

Say a long goodbye to my 20 year old cat Rebel, and have him make a peaceful trip over the Rainbow Bridge. He's holding his own now but I know it's coming. I cherish every cuddle.

Paint some landscapes. I aspire to be Winston Churchill. Paint some walls, too. And the garage doors.

Travel more. Last year I enjoyed short trips to New Orleans and Montreal. This year: Colorado? Key West? Graceland? India?

Plant ALL the flower bulbs before the frost. Even the ones you forgot in the garage.

Figure out that contact lens prescription once and for all, and write it down so I can find the right contact for the right eye. I think I keep mixing them up.

Plant a smaller vegetable garden, to make room for more flowers and trees.

Continue to celebrate the end of orthodontia payments, car payments, and house payments (ALMOST!). That process may take a year. I can live with that.

Be at peace.

Positively Perfect Pitch

It's true. I have perfect pitch. I can look at a piece of music and hear it playing in my head, in the correct key. In rehearsal you don't have to play pitches for me, because I already know where to begin. If you play a B flat on the piano, I can tell you it's B flat without peeking. If a siren is wailing I can tell you what pitch it's on.  If we're listening to music, you can ask me what key they're playing in and  I will tell you and I will be right. You can test your pitch ability, too. (I just tried it. 12/12. I've still got it.)

Perfect Pitch. Still a dork.

We don't know for certain what causes perfect pitch, but it may have something to do with the area of the brain that processes language -- somehow my language and my listening may have been tied very close together, so I was able to label sounds with ease. There is also probably a genetic factor -- I come from a musical family. We're not the Bachs, but we are musical. I was sitting at the piano, playing melodies by ear, at age 4. (My teenage son has always had excellent pitch accuracy. He always sings a melody in the correct key, even when he has not been given a starting pitch. But, he can't accurately name pitches out of the blue. I wonder if that skill will improve as he gets older.)

When I was little, I thought that perfect (or absolute) pitch developed from taking piano lessons, which I started at age 5. My voice teacher, Prof. Paul Hickfang, was the first to "diagnose" me, when I was 13. We met for lessons on Saturday mornings, in the choir room of his church in Linworth, Ohio. He sat at the upright piano and I stood on the opposite side. I was learning "O Mio Babbino Caro" and we had stopped to go over a phrase. He played a piano key to indicate where I should continue singing, and I asked, "You mean on the A-flat?" He stopped and looked at me. "How did you know that was an A-flat?" I said, "It just is. Doesn't everyone know that?" He smiled slowly. "No, Eden, everyone doesn't know that. But my wife does." His wife Laura Lee also has perfect pitch. He played a few random notes all over the keyboard, and I named each one instantly.

It's been very helpful in choral situations. I can provide pitches for all parts faster than you can extract your pitch pipe from your pants pocket. I can labor mightily to keep my section from going flat, by my sheer pitch-itude. I can quietly help singers find their way out of the tough spots. But sometimes they're so flat, I just have to go with 'em. (I was a pitch bitch in my earlier years, bemoaning the effort of staying in tune as the rest of the section sagged. I hope I'm nicer now.)

Absolute pitch can sometimes be a bit aggravating. Transposing on sight is difficult for me, because I "hear" the music in one key while I'm trying to sing it in another. If I have the chance, I'll write in the letter names to make sure I don't start singing the "wrong" pitches. (My freshman roomie completed music theory homework while listening to jazz on the CD player, which astonished me; I had to have silence so I could accurately "hear" the music I was reading.) Once I know a piece, it's easier to transpose.

In high school music theory class, we had a test on melodic dictation -- it's like a spelling test for musicians. We were expected to listen to a melodic line and correctly write the music on staff paper. To be helpful, Dr. Keller told us the first note was a C. He played a cassette tape with several melodic examples, that were all supposed to start on C. But . . the cassette player's batteries were almost dead, so the tape was playing slow, and the first pitch was not a C, it was a B-flat. I knew it was a B-flat. I looked up, bewildered. How was I supposed to write what I was hearing when I knew I was hearing something different than what everyone else was hearing? I looked around the room. All the heads were bowed over the papers, but John Justice was looking up, too, and shaking his head. We nodded knowingly, then just shrugged and tried to figure out how to write what was expected, instead of what we were hearing. Perfect pitch pals.

Perfect pitch affects the way I teach music theory. I understand why scales are taught as a series of half and whole steps, and I understand why Guido d'Arezzo developed solfege, but I don't need either system to secure a pitch. I know they help everyone else more than they help me, so I use them and teach them. I can quickly identify intervals. I just know when a minor 7th is a minor 7th, but I have had to search for ways to explain this to a group of kids with regular ears.

Sometimes I think it would be fun to have "absolute car repair" or "absolute ultramarathon stamina" as a God-given gift. But I have perfect pitch, as did Mozart, Hendrix, Beethoven, Nat King Cole, and Chopin. Stevie Wonder has it too -- so that's how he finds his way around the keyboard!

Apparently some "absolutists" are so perfect, they can hear pitch in cycles per second. I can't do that, and I'm glad. I think that would be torture, to hear 20 violinists at 20 slightly different pitches.

By the way, Unforgettable is in F major. Watch the first 20 seconds of the clip, and you can tell that Cole just knows it.

. . . and they lived happily ever after

They met at age 13, at Indianola Junior High. They are only 2 weeks apart in age. She sat in front of him during homeroom. It wasn't love at first sight, but their oldest friends and family cannot recall a time when Ron and Rise weren't "Ron and Rise." (that's "ree-sa". It's Norwegian. But she's not Norwegian, she's Scottish with opera-loving parents.) To make money for college at Ohio State, he played piano in bars on Saturday nights and played organ on Sunday mornings. She worked as a secretary and became an elementary art teacher. They married on Sept. 2, 1962, at age 20, back when kids did that kind of thing. Most of their friends got married young, too.

After college and a stint at Ohio Bell, he joined the Navy, and she followed him around the world. They had me when they were 27, and my sister almost six years later. They built businesses. Some grew, some withered. They lavished love and care on their families, as their families did for them. They consoled and supported each other through the loss of precious babies, beloved parents, close relatives and friends. They celebrated success in business, and took delight in the happiness of their children and grandchildren. They were side by side at school, at home, at church, and at work.

It's different now. They no longer live in their dream home. No hospital wing will be named in their honor. My dad works a lot. My mother deals with a lot of health issues. I live too far away. We don't see each other enough.

But they still have faith, in God and in each other. They are still each others' best friend. They still have wicked senses of humor. They are proof of the enduring power of love. That is the precious, priceless gift of a Golden Anniversary. I don't know if I will ever see mine, but I am proud beyond measure to honor theirs.

This weekend Ron and Rise are celebrating quietly in Canada, where they celebrated their Silver Anniversary with their daughters, just yesterday.

Liana and I are so blessed to call them Mom and Dad. Happy Anniversary.

Love, Bink and Pon

Music for Funerals

When I lived in Michigan, I had an informal agreement with the organist at my parish, regarding music for our own funerals: One of us would make sure that the other got really good music. We worried that our relatives, prostrate with grief, might program some lousy music. We even made a little list for each other. We did a lot of funerals together, and sometimes we would whisper, "I want THAT hymn!" or, more often, "Please make sure that song is BANNED at my funeral, ok?" On Eagles' Wings did not make the cut. And now I have stated it here on my blog, too. Take note, family! I love the Faure Pie Jesu for funerals. It's short and beautiful. But, I think for my own funeral I would rather not have a soprano soloist. I'd like to be the Star Female one last time. So . . how about The Call, by Ralph Vaughan Williams? I love choral music, too.  . . the In Paradisum from the Faure or Durufle Requiem would be lovely, but I'm practical. I know there won't be a lot of time to rehearse anything. Do the chant version of the In Paradisum and I'll be happily on my way. Do Be Not Afraid and I'll haunt you. I'm tickled at the thought of having a New Orleans Second Line, but that's hard to come by up here!

The last time I sang the Pie Jesu for a funeral, it was for a baby girl who died in her mother's womb a couple of days before she was supposed to be delivered. I had just formed a small children's choir at my parish, which included some of the girl's older siblings. The parents asked if the children would sing, and they sang God Who Touchest Earth With Beauty. It was heartbreaking, and yet also hopeful. I could feel the sadness in my own voice as I sang, but I held it together. At the request of the parents we also sang Ye Watchers And Ye Holy Ones, a great hymn looking forward to happiness with the Communion of Saints.

My dad played the organ at both of his parents' funerals, and he accompanied me as I sang Albert Hay Malotte's The Lord's Prayer. I know it brought him comfort to be able to play. He also delivered the eulogies. My mother sang at her own mother's funeral. I don't think I will be able to do anything but hold my sister's hand at that time, but we'll see. When your heart is broken, sometimes music is the only way you can bear it. If I have to sing, I'll sing.

This week my True Love and I attended a funeral at the same parish where we were married. It was a service of thanksgiving for the life of Laurie, a woman I had never met. The church was packed. The choir sang Herbert Howells' Pray For the Peace Of Jerusalem. At Communion the choir sang several short motets, including one of my favorites by Theodore DuBois, Adoramus Te Christe. (It's on my list. It's quick to learn, too.) We used to sing it at the Altar of Repose on Holy Thursday.

The final hymn was For All The Saints, and we sang all eight verses. I noticed that as I sang each verse, my voice was stronger and stronger, and I was happy to help sing this beloved woman to Heaven. The organist played a dazzling fanfare, and we began the final verse. The choir soared past all of us, with the descant reaching higher and higher. The music in the hymnal got blurry as tears came to my eyes, and I choked up so much I could no longer sing, just listen and be thankful.

The entire congregation stood as the grieving mother and children processed to the back of the church with the casket, while the organist played a triumphant postlude. A few people left the pews, but most just stood and watched. The choir was invited to recess but they remained standing in the loft, motionless. The organist kept his eyes on the music and completed the postlude, and everyone remained standing, weeping silently for the gift of the beautiful woman and the gift of the beautiful music.

Laurie was the organist's daughter. He played her to Heaven.

Laura Kent Hynes 1962-2012

The business of "The House Of Eliott"

Entertaining the idea of an MBA? Watch The House Of Eliott and you'll learn everything you need to know about business.

The series, which aired on the BBC in the 1990s (and is now available on YouTube), follows a pair of sisters who launch a fashion house in 1920s London. The plot twists are pure soap opera, mixed with leftover costumes from Brideshead Revisited. But the foundational story is the process of growing a business from scratch.

The sisters -- plucky, Kate Hepburn-esque Beatrice and luminous young Evangeline -- discover that their selfish father's bad business decisions have rendered them destitute, while their sheltered upbringing has left them unable to find work. Talented at sewing and little else, the sisters began to turn their deceased father's expensive old clothes into fashions for themselves. The naturally organized Beatrice finds work as a photographer's assistant, a few society ladies see their creations . . . and the House of Eliott is born.

As the opportunities grow, so do the challenges. They hire additional help to keep up with demand. They debate closing the doors to become designers at a Paris fashion house (they decline, and then Evangeline has an affair with the boss). Beatrice and the photographer fall madly in love.

Successful but cash-poor, The House of Eliott is under constant stress. Beatrice and Evangeline negotiate loans with condescending bankers who steal from them. Their workers fight. Their first ready-to-wear line is undermined by cheap copies. The photographer, who becomes a filmmaker, is elected to Parliament. The Great Depression begins to affect sales. Even though both sisters marry and Beatrice becomes a mother, the House of Elliott remains their most precious creation.

Like Beatrice, I'm a mom in a creative profession, married to a dashing photographer! We're working and learning about growing a business together -- his photography and printing, and my voice studio. We've already faced some of the same challenges the sisters faced, and we've also enjoyed some of the same happiness when things actually go right. (I also have a beautiful younger sister, but she's an RN and wears scrubs.) The House of Eliott is a great way to unwind after a long day at the home office. Yes, there are other shows about family businesses, but they don't have such fabulous gowns.

Intrigued? Here's another British-accented actress dispensing business advice. ;)

Goodbye 2011, hello 2012

A few of my favorite memories of 2011: Taking a vacation to Provincetown MA, and meeting up with my extended family at the Grand Canyon in honor of my Aunt Lee's 80th birthday. 

Teaching students, and learning more about the art and science of singing. You all enrich my life.

Joining The Chorus of Westerly. I'm honored to be part of this community of high-quality choral music makers! Thank you, George Kent and Chorus, for just being you. (Mr. Kent is retiring in 2012, a mere 53 years after he founded the chorus. Godspeed!)

Having my little girl ask me to braid her hair.

Writing, producing and directing Quonnie: The Musical! And releasing it on DVD and in songbook form!

Having my son play DJ in the car with his iPod. Even when I don't like it, I like it.

I'm so blessed to love and be loved by these three people -- one tall, one medium, one short.

What's coming up in 2012:

In May, I'm teaching a week of master classes at my old stomping grounds, Dublin Coffman High School in Dublin OH.

I'm going to cheer for my husband in his second NYC marathon. I'll run some kind of race, but probably not a marathon.

I expect to continue to practice important life skills I learned from Kenny Rogers.

Quonnie: The Musical gets an encore production in August. I'm going to tweak several scenes.

I really hope this is the year I sell my house in Michigan.

I'll be singing more, teaching more, creating more. . . living and loving more! I wish the same for you. Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy 2012. XO EC

Ac-cen-tchu-ate The Positive

Well Hello There . . . I've had a lot of "Deep Thinking" this week . . . thinking a lot about music and liturgy, and faith, and life and love. This week marks the second anniversary of the death of my beloved teacher and friend, Prof. Paul Hickfang. I miss him more now than I ever did. He taught me a great deal about music, and life, and love. The more I teach, the more I wish I could pick up the phone and talk with him about my students and my life now. But, I believe he is happily watching me, and I talk to him anyway. That's not unusual.

In addition to wishing I could still have Prof. Hickfang on this Earth, I wish I could just walk into a parish down the road and open up the Liber Usualis and start chanting along with 200 other people, or even find a few sangin' friends and start a South County version of The Anonymous 4. But that's not likely to happen. So, I'm focusing on what I can do:

1. Play really good classical sacred music at home and in the car, and sing along. Or, when I'm feeling silly, I'll play the Dogma Dogs.

2. Volunteer for Catholic Charities, because works of mercy happen outside of choir lofts, too. I've volunteered for Salvation Army in the past and have supported seminary and pro-life fundraisers, but I think it's time to be a little more involved in the Church Universal.

3. Keep casting the net for like-minded musical friends, because even though I feel isolated sometimes, I can't be the ONLY person in a 50 mile radius who likes to sing traditional hymnody and chant!

4.  Relax and realize that all my frustrations are but temporary. The best is yet to come.

XO Eden