JerryJazzMusician.com publishes our own Poet Laureate Alan 'The Count' Yount yet again - a New Year Wish to boot out the old year!

 Here is Alan's newest poem published just yesterday on Jerry Jazz Musician's great jazz site.  If you go to the JJM site (hotlink below) to see it, there is a hotlink to hear "Listen to the Music" - a great song!  Alan wishes us all good fortune in our fight to banish the pandemic to somewhere far far away and SOON!  Let's all behave ourselves and stop spreading germs!  Happy New Year to everyone!  And thanks again Alan for uplifting us when we need it! 

Alan Yount, poet; Columbia, MO

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…..I have always been a great fan of the Doobie Brothers.This poem uses a line from the Doobies' song, “Listen To The Music.”

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What The People Really Need, Is A Way To Make Them Smile

………..“Tom Johnston, Doobie Brothers Band.”

…………“What I miss most, is seeing …all the people smile.” … Jerra [Alan's devoted wife]

in the virus era
now everyone wears
a mask.

*****

with all the college students
returning this fall,
I realized that no one
can really tell
what the gals & guys
look like.

*****

then there is this:
you can’t even see, or hear
if people are singing
a little song
as they walk along …
(maybe saying, I love you so).

*****

with masks on
the people look like
they are cast
in pompean stone.

*****
we all need to pull together
to find something
fairly soon.

right now it seems
nearly impossible,

but somehow show them
that change is coming.

*****

finally, finally,
make the masks come off:

“that what the people really need
is a way to make them smile.”

***

Postscript: This poem was inspired by the Doobie Brothers song, “Listen To The Music,” from their album Toulouse Street.

………….Originaly published by: WestWard Quarterly: Fall issue, 2020.

https://jerryjazzmusician.com/2020/12/what-one-song-best-represents-your-experience-with-2020/

Mrs. Korum dies at 96 - her favorite saying, "Old Age isn't for sissies" so true!

 Dave Korum's mom, Marcella, has passed away, please see her obituary here:

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/stltoday/name/marcella-korum-obituary?pid=197333064

Another of our class parents who has lived a very long life; we are a lucky bunch to have had such great parents with many of us having them for a long time.  Sending sincerest condolences to Dave and his family.

Farewell to another classmate, Maxine Galvin Filley, RN superb nurse leaves us too early.

 Thank you to Linda and Louise Moore for alerting me to the announcement of the recent death of our classmate Maxine Galvin Filley, RN.  She was a stellar registered nurse, spending most of her career at St. Joseph Hospital right in our hometown, Kirkwood.  Please read her obituary here:

https://www.timesnewspapers.com/webster-kirkwoodtimes/maxine-marie-filley-nee-galvin/article_33bef756-3b01-11eb-a032-436f5e36a86a.html

to learn about what a super-star she was in her chosen field.  I don't believe she attended any of our reunions but I do know she lived right in Kirkwood for many years, if not all her life.  

Extending our sincerest condolences to her family. 

June 26, 2019 KHS65 folks get together in the Columbia, MO area

Well folks, I am so far behind in so much in my life I will never catch up!  As you can see since these are photos from our June 26,  2019 get-together in the Columbia area. We met at Canterbury Hill Winery where the wine was great! The food and company were also great.  Posting our recent, October 10, 2020 photos reminded me I never got these finished!  I have more grade school pix to post too!!! YIKES, it never ends.  We had a great gab-fest this day last summer.  Perhaps I have posted this on my Facebook page, seems like I remember saying that we ran into a group of KHS girls there having lunch at the same time we were.  Somehow they heard us or we heard them and we figured out the KHS connection.... ENJOY...we always have a great time no matter who joins us ... let's always keep it up!

l to r back:Whelove, ?, Simon, Schmidt, Vander Meulen, Beardsley, McBride, Croce Kelly, Jarvis, Browning, Roberts

Front:  Guels, Soutar, Eck, Purdy, Clark, Divincen

MORE CATCHING UP WITH ALAN YOUNT

These posts are a bit out of order, but I'm not enough of an expert with Blogger to know how to adjust that, so just keep reading down for more of Alan's work as I'm posting several things he's sent me over the past few months, my very bad for not keeping current!  Alan is a true renaissance man - trumpet player par excellence, amazing poet, husband, father, and retired university librarian...so many talents!  Enjoy these poems!  Thank you Alan for continuing to share your work with us - please keep it up!   Keep reading below - there is more after this first one!

 

ON  ONE  DAY  AT  A  TIME

 in these troubled times

 and false spring

 after seventy

 but also before

 those older years

 try and find

 on one day at a time

 find something in each day

 you will enjoy doing

 something good and interesting

 you absolutely love to do

 on every single day

         Postscript:  written on June 6, 2020 seventy third birthday,

                   with hope of strength and peace in these times.

 Published by:  JerryJazzMusician (a national online jazz journal),June 18, 2020.

 Published by:  Birdsong Journal (a Sandy Benitez publication), June 23, 2020.

 

AFTERWARDS:  FOR  THE  SPRING  OF  2020

           “The World Breaks Everyone, And Afterwards,

          Many Are Stronger At The Broken Places.”--- Ernest Hemingway.

 many, many, years ago

          I was in need

                   of some extra money.

 I had decided

          to sell my upright 1940’s

                   kay bass violin.

 however

          this april

                   I still have it:

 and I always know …

                   how much

                             it still means to me.

             it is beyond compare

with the comfort

                             it gives.

 just feeling the design

          of the birds eye

                             maple neck …

 and then again …

          just lightly touching

                             the string

      there’s the deep strength of sound:

          reassuring and resounding

                   from the perfectly placed bass notes.

 this bass

          has been

                   a lifelong friend:

 I need this old bass

          in these trying times

                   now more … than ever.

           Published by www.JerryJazzMusician.com (a national online jazz journal): 

“Afterwards: For The Spring, Of 2020.”  May 23^rd, 2020.

 

 

ALAN YOUNT MEMORIALIZES OUR CLASSMATES JOHN EMERLINE & JIM BURTON IN VERSE

My apologies to Alan for being so late in posting his work.  This one is also published on jerryjazzmusician.com and the editor of that blog was very complimentary of this one.  A shame we have to memorialize our classmates due to deaths way too early, but at least we can remember them with dignity and enjoy Alan's poetry.

 

ACCIDENTLY  PULLED  UNDER,

                             BY  THE  UNDERTOW

                              “For Jim Burton And John Emerline.”

 just today, I read

          in my high school newsletter,

 that two 1965 classmates

          and friends from kirkwood high:

 jim burton

          and john emerline

 were pulled under

          by the undertow.

 it was off of the beach

          near emerald isle, north carolina.

 the day was sunday

          july 12, 2020.

 it seems enough, in this year

          and in these times

 to worry about dying

          from the virus.

 then there is also the constant

          and continuing … undercurrent of worry

 about accidently contracting, and then

          succumbing to the virus.

 at the extreme very least

          for my two

 high school friends

          could thus be said:

 “he who

          dies today

 does not

          have to worry

 about tomorrow.”

          william shakespeare.

Published by: www.JerryJazzMusician.com  (a national online jazz journal).Sept. 25, 2020.  In “Vol. 3, A Collection of Poetry Reflecting the Era of COVID, Black Lives Matter, and a Heated Political Season.”  (27^th Yount poem published by JJM and his150^th poem published).