We are celebrating
Thanksgiving a day early, to continue our time with daughter Mary Beth as she
recovers from surgery, and I am thinking of the people for whom I am thankful. One
of those is Joe Frazier.
What Dave Van Ronk called “the
great folk scare of the 1960s” featured four great trios. I enjoyed Peter,
Paul, & Mary, and The Kingston Trio, and The Limeliters, featuring “the man
with the voice of an angel,” Glenn Yarbrough. My favorite, though, was The Chad
Mitchell Trio, with Chad, Mike Kobluk, and Joe Frazier.
After his time in folk
music, Joe became an Episcopal priest. In our roles as fellow clergy, Joe and I
became friends. That friendship was short, because it came late in Joe’s life,
but Helen and I gained much from it, and we cherish the memory of Joe.
We were talking about
teleology one day, and I mentioned that the students at McCormick Theological
Seminary in Chicago did not refer to “the grim reaper,” but to “the
international harvester,” since the school was named for Cyrus McCormick, who
invented and manufactured The International Harvester. That, of course,
produced a story from Joe.
“When I was studying at
Yale Divinity School, I worked nights in a care facility for the elderly with
mental problems. Cyrus McCormick was one of my patients. I was there when the
international harvester got him.”
JRMcF
johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment