Norman Gallman is one of those great characters that I met in a creative writing class I took at Indian River State College in Fort Pierce, Florida during the 1978-79 academic year. He was in that same class as Coley Worth whom I mentioned in a previous article, taught by the venerated and beloved Ada Coates Williams. The class included retired students alongside college age students like myself.

With Norman Gallman was Coley Worth, the retired comedian and guest star of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, Coley's wife Marcia, the adorable former Radio City Rockette, Phyllis Lawrence who had been in the US Diplomatic Corps for her whole career, Mike Haaf who had served a harrowing term in VietNam, Edith Balint the proud mother of a Seattle attorney son and an Egyptologist daughter, and so many others in addition to the southern lady herself, Ada Coates Williams.

It was a class where I learned so much and not just from our wonderful instructor. I was blessed (and that is the only appropriate word) to be with these amazing people of such vast experience and wisdom. But so many blessings carry a high price and the unbearably high price for this blessing was that they would pass away while I was still young. The cost of loving is paid in the losing.

When I wrote on Coley and Marcia Worth, I was surprised by the remorse that was evoked and the longing to have seen them one last time. Even preparing to write on Norman Gallman brings up the same feelings. But these were all such truly remarkable people that I gladly bear the price for the purpose of telling their stories again.

Norm Gallman was born in Wellsville, NY in 1909. His career began in the newspaper field in 1926 at the age of 17 years. He was hired by the Allegany County Democrat as a reporter-printer. Later, he served as editor of the Allegany County edition of the Hornell Tribune, and later still as news editor of the Wellsville Daily Reporter. He was a born writer and the newspaper field suited him well.

He met and married Leone Beebe in the 1930's. She was an adorable elementary school teacher and was almost five years older than he. She was the granddaughter of a Seneca Native American woman and she enjoyed talking with me about her grandmother, especially when she discovered my Seminole/Creek roots. Sadly, the only photo I have from them is one that Norm took of me with Beebe, which is what he called her. I never had one of Norm and I.

Norm was appointed State Motor Vehicle Information secretary in 1938, tax publications editor in 1939 and director of Publications and Public Relations in 1943, all within the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. While it seems like he had departed from his writing career, nothing could be further from the truth because, during the presidential campaigns of Dwight D. Eisenhower and Governor Thomas E. Dewey, Norm served as a press relations  consultant and speech writer. He also served in that capacity in the gubernatorial campaigns of Governors Dewey and Rockefeller and in the U.S. Senatorial campaign of John Foster Dulles.

In 1959, he was appointed New York state's deputy commissioner of Taxation and Finance and secretary to the State Tax Commission. In 1963, in addition to serving as deputy commissioner he was named administrative director of the department. In 1969, he was designated acting commissioner of Taxation and Finance and president of the State Tax Commission, by Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller.

Norm worked for a while as a board member of the New York State Conservation Commission and he and Beebe wrote a volume for that commission's magazine Conservationist (Vol. 30, No.1). It was considered one of the first and best insights into the role of government in the fight for conservation. They also co-authored the book Moment in the Sun on the same topic. Norm always remained a writer, first and foremost.

Finally, in 1971 Governor Nelson Rockefeller appointed him commissioner of the Department of Taxation and Finance. Norm retired from state service in 1973, aged 63, after 35 years of government service. Governor Rockefeller's letter to him read "your brilliant career has earned the respect of the people of this state and all who have been privileged to work with you."

At his retirement dinner, there were almost 900 people in attendance. There was a statement read at this banquet which said, "There are many measures of a man but perhaps none more meaningful than the respect and affection in which he is held by those who know him best, as friends and associates."

While he and Beebe kept their home in Schroon Lake, New York (near Saratoga), they also maintained a retirement condominium in Stuart, Florida. This was when I got to meet them.

As I said, we attended a creative writing class together. It was Norman who showed me that any writing for any publication can be creative writing. I had complained that sports writers were dull and he passed me articles by sports columnist Red Smith. Smith described the process of writing as "You simply sit down at the typewriter, open your veins, and bleed." That is probably the most fitting description of real writing that I have ever heard.

I loved Smith's writing but I told Norm that I completely disliked the way Smith had written and continued to write about Muhammad Ali. Smith had called Ali a "sorry spectacle" for Ali's refusal to serve in the military. I, of course, defended Ali but Norm dodged the argument by returning to the subject of writing and saying that Smith had achieved what he intended; I was talking about him and I was now passionately engaged in the topic, even though the topic had been resolved 10 years before. And wasn't that something in itself? I had become involved in a dispute long settled, thanks to Smith's writing.

We talked so much about the power of words to entertain, to inspire, to enlighten. "Done rightly," Norm had said, "You can do all three at once." He told me of his speech writing days and I became fascinated by the speeches of FDR and JFK and then was truly moved by the power and passion of Martin Luther King, Jr. "Ah, well now...King was just a world above anyone else. Read him to find the true example of cadence and pacing and let him be your guide into the beauty of the spoken word. More than Lincoln, more than Kennedy, more than Churchill even... Dr. King combined power and beauty."

When the class finished that semester, we had a dinner together and Ms. Williams, our professor, had arranged for it at the Pelican Yacht Club in Fort Pierce, Florida. Norm was the Master of Ceremonies for the evening and he arranged for each of us to compose and read something fitting for the evening. It was wonderful.

We begged for another semester together under Ms. Williams. She petitioned the Dean for a Creative Writing II class and the request was granted straightaway. Almost all of us returned for the second part of the class.

During the holiday break, however, Norm and Beebe invited me to dinner with them and their granddaughter, Valery Strazzeri. I think that Norm and Beebe had hopes of something happening which, of course, never did.

The second semester of that Creative Writing class was just as much fun as the first. The writing from Norm and the elder classmates was brilliant. I learned so much from just listening.

I finished my two years at Indian River and went on to finish my undergraduate studies out-of-state. I kept in touch with Norm for some time after that. It was Norm who wrote to inform me of the deaths of our beloved classmates. By the time my schooling was complete, I had lost touch with Norm. It was the days before the Internet and I could no longer find him. He was gone from Stuart, Florida and I could not find him at Schroon Lake, NY.

It was only a few weeks ago that I discovered that his health had failed and he and Beebe had moved to live with their son and daughter-in-law. They had moved to New Bern, North Carolina.

Norman Gallman died in New Bern, NC  on March 19, 1998. He was 88 years old and survived by his beloved Beebe. They had been married for 67 years. Beebe passed on February 25, 2003 at the age of 98 years. To my dismay, I found that they had lived only three blocks from my sister.

Here is a good story of Norm while he was still serving on the conservation commission following his retirement. He received the following letter and Norm's reply was vintage Norman Gallman.

"Dear sir,
     I'm writing concerning something I did about five to seven years ago. I changed my ways of living and I'm serving the Lord and I wanted to make a wrong right. I don't remember if the limit of fish during salmon fishing was five or six, but I caught my limit and one or two over the limit and I would like to make this known to you so if there is a fine I want to pay for it.
 Yours Truly, Rusty."

Norm's response:
"Dear Rusty,
     Thank you for your recent confession of a past fishing misdeed. Obviously it has bothered you since you still remember it after some five to seven years.
     I'm sure, Rusty, that there were days when you didn't catch any fish at all, so things have a way of evening out. As long as the fish weren't wasted, the offense isn't that dreadful.
     I have a suggestion. If you'd like to protect and enhance trout habitat, why not join Trout Unlimited? This organization works hard to protect trout and salmon habitat and has local chapters all over the country - including Pennsylvania. Among the projects they're involved in is the periodic cleanup of trash and litter along trout streams. In this way you could get together with other members at a designated place and time, pick up a garbage bag and do some real good.
     Do join and become an active member. It will be the best 'fine' that I could impose on you.
Respectfully, Norman Gallman."

That was Norm; firmly believing that "things have a way of evening out."

Norm, wherever you are, I'm glad I was privileged to spend some of the same time on Earth with you. Kiss that Seneca princess for me.

In 1977, I began my college career at Indian River State College in Fort Pierce, Florida. As always, I chose that particular school because of one professor who taught there and I wanted to learn from him. I was delighted to find not just one professor of interest in that small community college but three others.

One of those professors was a woman named Ada Coats Williams who was an English instructor. I will write about her in detail someday soon but this is not the day. However, I took a Creative Writing class under Ms. Williams and it opened a door that has never closed.

It wasn't just the instruction I received from Ms. Williams but the meeting and friendship of the students who attended that class that changed me; a boy only 18 years of age. Because attending that class were people of experience, wisdom and depth.

There was a former speech-writer for Governor Nelson Rockefeller. There was a hospice nurse, a Viet Nam vet, a member of the US Diplomatic Corps, a hilarious older Jewish mother who was infinitely proud of her two children, and there were others.

But then there was Coley Worth and his adorable wife, Marcia. This was one of the funniest men I have ever met and Marcia was always the perfect and willing foil to his humor, sometimes having the better lines of the two.

He was born as Coleman Rothmund. His father had operated a minstrel show where Coley, his sister and brother learned to perform before fleeing to join the vaudeville circuit.

Coley had begun his entertainment career as a vaudeville comedian in the late 1920's and make his Broadway debut in A la Carte in 1927. It is still possible to see his act listed in old Billboard magazines from the time period. Listings of him and the occassional review appeared of his performances from New York to New Orleans to Chicago and all points between.

His wit was political, it was sometimes caustic, but Coley had a way of making his real humor hidden beneath the joke. One reviewer for Billboard wrote: "Coley Worth hid his comedy value under old material. When he got off his ad libs - he showed plenty of zany potential, but the hoary routines weren't up to his smart delivery." In other words, Coley's improvisations were the mainstay of his routines. The jokes were just the platform and any old, shop-worn joke would do. The ad-libs suited him well and would continue to suit him for the rest of his career.

Beverly Sills, the great soprano of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, mentioned Coley in her autobiogarphy Bubbles. She wrote of Coley's ad-libs from the 1960's-70's that would catch her off-guard and make her pause until she could compose herself. She once referred to Coley as "the funniest man I ever knew."

While in New York City in the late 30's, Coley took in a performance of the Radio City Music Hall "Rockettes." These were the high-kicking dancers that spawned so many similar acts. They performed en ensemble with 20-30 dancers or more.

Out of that collection of 20-30, Coley spotted one particular raven-haired beauty and he was determined to meet her. They met, they fell in love and they got married. Marcia Ray was her name and she became Marcia Worth. She eventually joined Coley's vaudeville act and they became known as "Coley Worth and Marcia." All the reviews of the time agree that adding "the statuesque Marcia" was the best thing he could ever do for his act.

According to Coley, adding Marcia to his life was the best thing he ever did. Even in his seventies, Coley would look at Marcia and he still saw the Rockette.

In the 1960's, Coley performed on Broadway in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum as well as in the travelling stage show of Hello, Dolly! with Ginger Rogers in the lead role. Later he was in the same production but with Betty Grable in the lead. He was also in Man of La Mancha during the same period.

In 1967, he appeared on television as Professor Gustav Steinhart on The Jackie Gleason Show in the "Hair to a Fortune" episode. It is on DVD.

In the early 1970's he returned to Broadway in 70, Girls, 70 but had drawn the attention of the Metropolitan Opera of New York a years earlier. The Met had cast him as the Major-General in H.M.S. Pinafore and as Joseph Porter in Pirates of Penzance. 1977 saw a revival of Anything Goes with Coley performing.

But without a doubt, his most famous role was as Frosch, the drunken jailor, in Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus (The Bat). This was a role he played 15 times or more. One reviewer in the Toldeo Blade, said that Coley "carried off the role hilariously." In fact, Coley has become the standard by which all other actors approach the role of Frosch. Lee Cass was the actor who took the role after Coley suffered a stroke in 1978. In an interview, Cass admitted that "Most of what I do is taken directly from Coley Worth."

In one performance of Die Fledermaus, Beverly Sills recalled the scene where she wore a low-cut evening gown and was smoking a cigarette with a cigarette-holder. Coley walked up to her and said "Smoking, I see." Then, looking down her dress,  added "And filter-tipped, too!" She had said that it was difficualt to recover from that.

It was just after his performance in Anything Goes that I met Coley Worth and Marcia. As I said, we all took Ms. Williams' class together.

Marcia still thought he was funny and she always smiled brightly and laughed at his jokes. Even the old ones. 

That is in no way to suggest, however, that Marcia was a witless trophy wife of a by-gone day. She was funny. She had a very quick wit. But she was great at giving him the set-up lines.

I'll have to admit that Coley upset me once. When we had written our assignments, Ms. Williams would have us read them to the rest of the class. On one assignment, I had written what I thought to be a moving piece that was sure to bring forth tears from my hearers! As I was reading it, however, Coley was absolutely howling with laughter. And I mean howling! I can still hear it in my head. The difference is that now it makes me smile to hear it.

At the time, I was annoyed beyond belief. Ms. Williams was emabarrassed for me. Marcia scolded him. I fumed. In fact, I asked him what was so funny. He answered, "Sorry, kid. I know you want it to be serious but here's why it's funny..." and he then showed me that the way I wrote it left these hilarious underpinnings that he loved from the beginning of his career. He showed me what funny really was. He changed the way I wrote in profound ways. Ms. Williams showed me how to use the tools but Coley Worth showed me how to craft.

We loved that class so much that we begged for a Creative Writing 102 where none had existed at that college. We did not want to separate from each other. Ms. Williams went to the curriculum committee and they granted her petition for a second semester of Creative Writing. So, in 1978, most of us enrolled in the new class.

In between the classes, however, Coley suffered a stroke that left him in a wheelchair and with slurred speech. I know I shouldn't say it like this but... it only made him funnier! And he knew it. He said the most God-awful things and then, when he was reprimanded by Marcia or Ms. Williams, would blame it on "that damned stroke."

He told stories of all the old actors and the old playhouses. We went to see Ginger Rogers performing at the Burt Reynolds' Dinner Theater in Jupiter, Florida. This was the place for actors whose careers were in twilight. It was fun to see them perform, but a bit sad, too.

After the show, Coley and Marcia took me backstage to see Ms. Rogers who had been in so many performances with Coley so many years before. When she saw Coley, she brightly asked, "Well, Coley? Any advice?" "Yeah," replied the chair-bound Coley, "Get out of show business. You look ridiculous." She was stunned. Marcia was horrified. I wanted to hide.

Coley pressed on with "Don't be remembered as a dottering old has-been!" And we knew that he was talking about himself.

I went on to another college in 1979 and never got to see him again. He left us in 1987.

The New York Times carried the news of his passing. It was the October 14, 1987 issue; my birthday.

New York Times: Coley Worth, 79, Dies; Actor and a Comedian
Published: October 14, 1987
 
Coley Worth, an actor, singer, comedian and dancer in theater and television, died of pneumonia last Friday in Port St. Lucie, Fla. He was 79 years old and lived in Port St. Lucie.

Mr. Worth performed often with the New York City Opera, specializing in the role of Frosch in ''Die Fledermaus,'' which he performed with many other opera companies around the country, as well as the Major General in ''H.M.S. Pinafore'' and Joseph Porter in ''Pirates of Penzance.''

Mr. Worth, born in Rome, N.Y., was originally named Coleman Rothmund. His father, a tailor, also operated a minstrel show where Mr. Worth, his sister and his brother learned to perform before running away to join the vaudeville circuit.

Mr. Worth made his Broadway debut in 1927 in ''A la Carte.'' His Broadway credits later included ''A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum'' and ''Seventy Girls Seventy,'' as well as national tours of ''Hello, Dolly!'' and ''Man of La Mancha.''
  
Mr. Worth and his wife, Marcia Ray, toured  for many years as a vaudeville act called ''Coley Worth and Marcia.''

In addition to his wife, he is survived by three daughters, Caroline Worth-Tyrrell of Morristown, N.J., Wendy Worth of New York City and Penny Worth Anderson of Chicago; a son, Peter, of Stuart, Fla.; and four grandchildren.

If only I could have seen him one more time.

There is so much that I want to tell you about this man. I have written and re-written this article several times and it is always too long. So, as an abbreviated introduction to his life and thought, please allow me to direct you many of the splendid web-sites where you may find detailed descriptions of this great man. However, there are some things that must be mentioned.

Paul Ricoeur was born in 1913 in Valence, a small city south of Lyons, France. He was orphaned when mother died (he was 7 months old) and his father was killed at the Battle of Marne in 1915 during the First World War. Paul and his older sister were raised by paternal grandparents who were strict Protestants. His sister, a sickly child from birth, died in 1932 of tuberculosis. She was 22 years old.

As a French citizen, he was obliged to military service in 1935-36. When Germany invaded Poland in September of 1939, Ricoeur was recalled into service during the French mobilization. France and England had declared war on Germany on 1 September 1939 and World War II had begun. The next year he was captured by the Germans and spent the remainder of the war as a prisoner of war in Pomerania. During these five years he helped create a camp "university" and worked out some of his basic philosophical ideas. The camp university was a place of such intellectual acumen that the Vichy French government actually accredited it as a degree-granting institution.

He looked back on the experience without any sense of anger or bitterness. In fact, he referred to it as "extraordinarily fruitful" because it had allowed him time and opportunity to study German philosophy. It is astonishing that he was able to do this in spite of everything that he and France had suffered at the hands of the Germans. Even to the end of Ricoeur's life, Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger and Jaspers were respected and revered in his thought. In the POW camp, he had translated and written extensively on Husserl's Ideas I. Because of the scarcity of paper, he resorted to writing a nearly microscopic longhand on scraps of paper and in the margins of the book. When he and his fellow-prisoners walked hundreds of miles home at the end of the war, he carried his notes in his backpack. His wife Lysee typed them up for him after his return.

His experiences during this period must have had a direct bearing on his thoughts on goodness. He touched me deeply in his proposal that goodness was not only the answer to evil and it was, of course, the great answer to evil. He had said that as radical as evil may be, it is nothing compared to the depths of goodness. However much goodness may be the answer to evil it is also the answer to meaninglessness.

Ricoeur had studied philosophy at the University of Rennes and in 1934 at the Sorbonne.  After the war ended in 1945, Ricoeur began his teaching career and in 1948 accepted a position at the University of Strasbourg while finishing his doctorate at the Sorbonne. In 1956 he was appointed to the chair of general philosophy at the Sorbonne.

For the next decade Ricoeur wrote continuously as a professional philosopher (including Fallible Man and The Symbolism of Evil, both great influences on me). He was an activist against the French war in Algeria and as a reformer of the French university system. In 1967 he left the Sorbonne to assume the administration of a new and experimental university at Nanterre. Here, Ricoeur hoped that he would be able to create a university that followed his educational vision, free from the choking atmosphere of the tradition-bound Sorbonne. Unfortunately, Nanterre became a seat of student and community protest during May, 1968. Ricoeur was ridiculed as an "old clown" and even a tool of the French government. In 1969, he resigned.

For the next two years he taught at Louvain in Belgium before moving to the United States, eventually to the University of Chicago. At Chicago, he succeeded the renowned Paul Tillich as the Chair of the Divinity School and was concurrently appointed to the Department of Philosophy and the Committee on Social Thought. He remained there until his retirement in 1992.

It was in the year 1982 that I was so very honored to meet Paul Ricouer. He was guest lecturing at Vanderbilt University and I was invited to attend a reception held in his honor. I had been so very interested and influenced by his discussion of the frailty of human will in his book Fallible Man. In The Symbolism of Evil, he revealed how we cannot know ourselves directly but only through the symbols that are imparted through memory and literature and mythology. For Ricoeur, the world and scope of philosophy is contained in two questions and two questions only:"Who am I?" and "How should I live?" Ricoeur consistently rejected any claim that the self is immediately transparent to itself or fully master of itself. Self-knowledge only comes through our relation to the world and our life with and among others in that world.

He had never allowed his students or his colleagues to belittle the opinion of another. He had experienced so much heartache and pain in his own life that he would not allow the heartache and pain of another--which reflected in the opinions and beliefs of the other--to be trivialized. A person's views were hard-won and of immense value, even if they radically differed from our own. I am still learning this almost 30 years later.

These questions consumed me then and continue to do so. I was able to speak to him about these very questions. He was wise and gentle. I was young and naive.

"We are always an incomplete project," he said to me. "It is simply our lot and portion in this world. We reach for perfection, for completion, but we will never reach it in this life. The struggle is to continue reaching while we know that it is entirely unattainable."

I mentioned Dietrich Bonhoeffer's poem Who Am I? and he smiled and said, "It is exactly so."

An excerpt of the poem follows:
Who Am I?
By Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Who am I? They often tell me I would step from my cell’s confinement calmly, cheerfully, firmly, like a squire from his country house.Am I then really all that which others tell me, or am I only what I know of myself, restless and longing and sick, struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat, thirsting for words of kindness, trembling with anger at despotisms and petty humiliation, weary and empty at praying, at thinking, faint and ready to say farewell to it all.

Who am I? This or the other? Am I one person today and tomorrow another? Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others, and before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine. Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am Thine.

Paul Ricoeur's gentleness and kindness was born of sorrow and pain: the loss of parents and a beloved sister, the horrors of war and being a prisoner of war, being a religious minority in an academic world dominated by the religious majority in France, and the shame and disgrace of being discounted as an old fool.

Was it that incompleteness that gave him the strength to move forward? Did the feeling of being a work in progress give birth to his sense of humor and his joy? His sense of humor and his joy struck me deeply. This is why I chose the photo that you see above.

He rose above oppression and loss, pain and ridicule, and blatant opposition. I think his sense of reaching (and not attaining) allowed him to laugh and be kind.

In Oneself as Another he wrote: “there is no self-understanding that is not mediated by signs, symbols, and texts; in the final analysis self-understanding coincides with the interpretation given to these mediating terms.” That was his final analysis of the task of philosophy--the study of "the fulness of language." That is not as trivial as one might take it at first glance because it is here that we find self-understanding. Further, it is where we begin to understand others, as well.

Perhaps this explains my fascination with texts ancient and modern. Mythology and literature give symbol and meaning to our existence and who we are as individuals and communities.

He has asked, "What are the ethical consequences of the ways we conceive of ourselves and others?" Again in Oneself as Another he calls for a "critical solicitude"--a primary concern and protectiveness of others--that is dependent upon a mutual recognition of one another as worthy, capable, and fragile selves.

I think his answer of incompleteness points the way to tolerance toward others and toward ourselves. In our reaching, we should reach toward a tolerance of who we are and, especially, who we are not yet. If we recognize the frailty of one another then it is not only tolerance that is born but a very desirable protectiveness of each other.

As a witness to the horrors of the 20th century, he passionately searched the meaning of justice and love. His great phrase was "Justice proceeds by conceptual reduction; love proceeds by poetic amplification." He saw no conflict between the two, but justice without love is a fetter and can itself become lethal.

This was how Paul Ricoeur thought and lived. He was protective of others--even those who ridiculed and opposed him. He saw his opponents and critics as fragile and in need of protection.

He died peacefully at his home in Châtenay-Malabry, just west of Paris, on May 20, 2005. He was 92 years old. On his passing, The Society of Biblical Literature wrote: "A bright shining star went out." The journal Befindlichkeit wrote: "We will miss you, Paul. Thank you for gracing us with your mind during your illustrious life."

I vividly remember receiving the email notifying me of his passing from The Society of Biblical Literature. I looked at my bookcase where one shelf was loaded with Ricoeur's 20 books. I knew that the fruits of his mind would continue to influence my own mind for the rest of my life. As I reflected, however, it wasn't the books I cherished; it was the spirit of the man. It was his smile.

If you have read the other posts on this web site, you will know that I am a long-time fan of the band YES. They have been labeled as “art rock,” “classical rock,” and/or “progressive rock.” The reason for these labels was because of the classical influences and inspirations found in the hearts and minds of the prog-rock artists and composers. Most notably, Robert Fripp of King Crimson cited Bela Bartok and Jon Anderson noted Igor Stravinsky as the headwaters of the progressive sound. In fact, after 1972, YES would usually open each and every concert with Excerpts from Stravinsky’s “Firebird Suite” or Benjamin Britten’s “Young Person Guide to the Orchestra.”

The vocal arrangements in YES were also due to Chris Squire’s training in church choir music at St. Andrew’s Church and, later, at St. Paul’s Cathedral. Rick Wakeman’s keyboard playing made me want to play like him (or slam the piano lid on his fingers). So, being a piano player and having been raised on classical music and church music, YES appealed to my own influences and interests. But it was much more than that. It was something philosophical for me. In fact, I would have to describe it almost as finding a spiritual home.

The philosophical/spiritual center of the group was the lyricist and lead vocalist Jon Anderson. The very first YES song I ever heard was Yours is No Disgrace in 1971. I was twelve years old. The song was about the moral warriors trapped in the immorality of war. The disgrace was not belonging to the warriors but to the governments that sent them there. Circumstances often move us beyond ourselves. I was able to find real solace in the thoughts and words of Jon Anderson.

That has never changed. I still find myself moved by the line from Close to the Edge, “In charge of who is there in charge of me? / Do I look on blindly and say I see they way?” It went through almost every album that YES recorded and it was also found in the solo recordings of Jon Anderson and the duets with Jon and Vangelis. Jon’s first solo album Olias of Sunhillow remains my favorite album to this day.

So, imagine when I met Jon Anderson for myself in 1982. I was 23 years old. I wanted to be profound. I wanted to tell him what he meant to me. I wanted to impress him.

I… was…as… mute…as a turnip!

My buddy Eddie was with me and he kept trying to prod me to say something…anything! Nothing came.

For years and years I relived that moment in my head. I kept repeating things I could have said, should have said. As much as I couldn’t say anything to Jon Anderson, his music kept speaking to me. Through the 1980’s with albums like Animation and YES’s Big Generator, then into the 90’s with YES’s Keys to Ascension or his solo Deseo. The 2001 YES album Magnification was so refreshing and revealing for me. The concerts from that album were heart-warming and inspiring.

Then Jon was summarily drummed out of the band he created. He was rejected and abandoned. And it made me love his music more. He embarked on wonderful tours with Rick Wakeman and has released equally wonderful DVDs and CDs with Wakeman and on his own. He has grown again.

And I got to meet him again.

It was 2006 and he was performing on a solo tour—just Jon with his guitar. His open-heartedness has always been so evident on stage. He loves our world and he loves the people in it. Rick Wakeman has often joked that Jon is the only person he has ever met “who is trying to save this world while living on another one.”

Rick also tells a funny story about Jon when they were writing and recording together back around 1992-93. They were recording at Rick’s studio on the Isle of Man where Rick lived. Wakeman had arranged to have Jon stay at a great hotel overlooking the harbor and managed by a friend of Wakeman’s.

One day, Rick arrives at the hotel to pick up Jon and the hotel manager quietly asks him, “You’re friend Jon…is he alright?” Wakeman asked whatever did he mean? The manager took Rick upstairs and together they entered Jon’s suite. There was Jon, looking out at the tall ships in the harbor and painting.

As the manager nudged Rick around to see what Jon was painting, he motioned toward the canvas with his chin. Rick looked at the canvas and back at the manager. “Yeah?” he asked. “What about it?” The manager said, “He’s painting flowers! He’s looking at the ships but painting flowers!” Rick clapped him on the shoulder, laughing, and said, “Oh, flowers is all that he can paint. He’s just looking at the ships for inspiration!”

For many years, Jon was my tall ship. I couldn’t sing or write lyrics like him but he inspired me to do what I do and to do it better.

As I said, in 2006 I got to try it again. I had waited until long after the concert but I got my audience with him. I asked him to sign my copy of his 1975 album Olias of Sunhillow. He held the album carefully in his hands and smiled so warmly and affectionately said, “Olias.”

I told him that it was still my favorite. I told him what he has meant to me. I told him so many things that just poured out after waiting for this second chance and he listened to every word. Did Jon tell me anything profound? Yes, he did and, of all things, he did it without words. He smiled and put his hand over his heart.

And it was enough.


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