My attempt to share stories for each letter of the alphabet featuring our life in Austin B.C. (Before Children) 1975-1985. The 70s were a long time ago. 26 stories might be a stretch for my brain, but I have made it to Q. Computer issues and other things have delayed writing and posting for a couple of weeks and now I am behind the Sepia Saturday prompts. Oh well.

Perhaps you have heard of the Dave Brubeck Quartet.

Dave Brubeck Quartet, 1962. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Take Five?

This video takes seven, but who’s counting?

My husband and I were fortunate to see Dave Brubeck in person at First United Methodist Church in Austin in 1983.

When I chose this topic for the letter Q, I assumed quartet was accurate, but it was a trio. Dave Brubeck and his two sons.

When Dave Brubeck died in 2012, I linked an article on Facebook and noted that I had seen him perform at church. A few of my friends chimed in.

Nancy said: It came about because Lanier Bayliss was our choir director and she wanted to do the La Pasada piece that Brubeck had written. I’m thinking we performed it several times (thus no date on the program) over a weekend with the last performance on a Sunday afternoon. After that performance a group of us went to see “A Tuna Christmas” at the Paramount and I slept through the whole performance!

Mary Faye said: That was a thrilling performance. I was in the choir, too. I remember just one performance, but many, many rehearsals. After we sang the Posada piece Mr. Brubeck played a concert including his hits Take Five and Brandenburg Gate. While we performed and during his performance afterward I was about six feet from him. I was telling a colleague about this the other day and he was incredulous.

Randy: We had both a Saturday and a Sunday concert, along with having Mr. Brubeck accompany us during the Sunday church service. His birthday occurred during the week of our concert, so we had a cake for him, his wife and his sons (the sons accompanied him in concert as well). I remember the whole family being very down to earth and a lot of fun.

I wish I had taken photographs or could have gathered some from friends to add here, but I did not and I have not. So I am left with newspapers to document the event.

A part of the program details the sequence of the performance. Carole Fitzpatrick was the featured soloist in the part of Mary.

I searched for Carole Fitzpatrick to see where she is now and found her teaching voice at Arizona State University’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts School of Music and I also found a few recordings. The featured solos of the Posada were in good hands, or should I say in good voice?

The article above mentions that the church put on summer musicals at the time. The choir loft, alter – everything at the front of the church was covered/removed/transformed into a set for several weeks each summer. The musicals were always fun and entertaining! And I know of at least one couple who met on the set of one of the musicals and have had a long and happy marriage.

While Mr. Brubeck was in town, he made appearances on local TV.
 

Once again, I wish I had a better memory or that I had kept journals all my life. Actually, I’m not feeling so bad about about my memory after reading the comments of my friends who sang during these performances. Randy got it right – two performances and presence during church Sunday morning.

My snippet of memory is of my husband and I sitting in the north balcony of the church. I remember being so moved by the music – feeling the divine, not just in the “religious” music (the Posada), but in the secular jazz as well. I turned to my husband and asked if he didn’t feel it. Although he enjoyed the music very much, he did not find it a spiritual moment. Well, that’s me for you.

I couldn’t decide between the two videos below. They are long, but I thought you might like an introduction to Fiesta de la Posada if it is unfamiliar to you. The first is a 1983 concert at the Wright Center Concert Hall, including “Fiesta de la Posada” and movements from “The Light in the Wilderness,” featuring the Dave Brubeck Quartet and choral and instrumental performers. This occurred about a month before the performance at FUMC.

This second video is a performance in 1975, I think. I haven’t been able to figure out the details of the when and where, but it gives an idea of costuming and set arrangement and children performing. Of course, in our church, there was not a full orchestra, and certainly no pit under the stage.

One of the reasons I believe in jazz is that the oneness of man can come through the rhythm of your heart. It’s the same anyplace in the world, that heartbeat. It’s the first thing you hear when you’re born – or before you’re born – and it’s the last thing you hear. – Dave Brubeck

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday, featuring the letter Q.

I encourage you to visit other Sepia Saturday participants here.

My attempt to share stories for each letter of the alphabet featuring our life in Austin B.C. (Before Children) 1975-1985. The 70s were a long time ago. 26 stories might be a stretch for my brain, but I have made it to P – as has the Sepia Saturday prompt photo for this week. (Okay, okay – I skipped O!)

The first time I participated in Sepia Saturday was June 30, 2012 with a post I titled Making Movies. I featured photographs that my husband and his friend took while watching the filming of The Sugarland Express. In that post, you can view photos of Goldie Hawn, Ben Johnson, and Steven Spielberg. My husband’s friend wanted to direct movies. He didn’t fulfill his youthful dream of directing feature films, but he worked in the industry for many years. My husband enjoyed both photography and watching movies, and the influence of his good friend led him to occasionally combine the two interests when something was being filmed nearby.

Murder at the World Series, released March 20, 1977

My husband took the photo below at the Houston Astrodome. Clearly a photo of the crew rather than the stars. His friend is the blonde haired young man in the middle. Looks like he is talking to someone. On the IMBd website, our friend is listed as Production Assistant (uncredited).

On the set of “Murder at the World Series”

I found two more photos of our friend online related to this movie, but I can’t download them. He is on the far right, scratching his head here. And he is in the picture header of a blog post here (second from left). Not a movie star, but it was fun to see him in photos at work as part of the crew and filling the stands with extras.

The ABC movie wasn’t exactly fine art, but it was a job in the business for our twenty-something friend.

The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training, released July 8, 1977

Once again, our friend is listed as Production Assistant (uncredited), but this time he worked on a movie movie. My husband and his friend grew up in Houston, so we must have combined a family visit with a visit to the movie set. Some of the movie was filmed at the Astrodome, but the day my husband took this photo, the location was in a park in Houston.

The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training. William Devane

The movie star in the photo above is William Devane. I can’t tell who the child stars are.

Several Houston Astros – including Bob Watson, Cesar Cedeno, Enos Cabell, J.R. Richard and Ken Forsch – made cameos near the end of the movie, but Watson was the only one given a line to speak. According to an article in the Houston Chronicle, Watson said he learned one thing about making movies. “What I really remember about that is, I didn’t want to be a movie star, because, even if you get the lines right and the scene is right, you have to do it 15 times. There was a lot of standing around.”

I learned that lesson too. Maybe that is why I didn’t tag along for some of my husband’s photo sessions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXhFcKCcozE

Outlaw Blues

Our friend didn’t have a connection to this movie. Quite a bit of the movie was filmed in Austin, so my husband went to watch and take some photos on a day when he was free. The movie starred Peter Fonda and Susan Saint James.

Outlaw Blues. Susan Saint James and Peter Fonda

When Susan Saint James was doing talk shows to promote the film, she said something to the effect that Austin was a sleepy little college town, which some found disparaging.

Outlaw Blues, Austin, TX

Outlaw Blues, Austin TX

I searched the names of the cinematographer, director, and assistant director hoping to identify the men (other than Peter Fonda) in the photos above. I didn’t have any luck making a match to faces half hidden. To make it more difficult, it seems the people behind the scenes don’t show up in many online images.

Outlaw Blues, east 6th St., Austin TX

Peter Fonda made his singing debut in Outlaw Blues. I believe that the singer Steve Fromholz is in the scene just before Peter Fonda begins to sing. The actor singing. The singer acting.

A few more scenes of Austin are in this 30 second trailer.

Dallas

Our friend also worked on the television series Dallas. IBMd shows that he worked as Production Assistant for three episodes in 1978 and as 2nd Assistant Director for 23 episodes in 1980-1981. My husband and I drove up to Dallas to see our friend at work. I can place the year, because the heat is seared in my memory.

In Dallas/Fort Worth, high temperatures exceeded 100 °F a total of 69 times, including a record 42 consecutive days from June 23 to August 3, of which 28 days were above 105, and five days above 110. The temperature hit 113 °F on two consecutive days (June 26 and 27). I thought about buying one of these t-shirts, but I didn’t want to go looking for one. It was too hot.

The day we were there, they were shooting in the club of a hotel. We don’t remember which one. It was kind of dark and crowded, so we couldn’t see much of the action. We did however, get the opportunity for my husband to get this photo during a break.

Larry Hagman during filming of Dallas, 1980

Looks like Larry is resting against a fan, doesn’t it? In his shirt pocket are some bills he had printed up in lieu of autographs. I remember seeing one up close, so I assume he pulled one out to give us, but we don’t remember actually having one.

One thing our friend gave us that he probably shouldn’t have was a copy of a script. We used to know its location, but now we are both wondering where we put it. I remember it has a light blue cover, so I’ll be on the look out.

That’s a wrap! But don’t go before visiting Sepia Saturday, where you can view more cinematic responses to the prompt photo.

Sepia Saturday provides bloggers with an opportunity to share their history through the medium of photographs. Historical photographs of any age or kind become the launchpad for explorations of family history, local history and social history in fact or fiction, poetry or prose, words or further images. If you want to play along, sign up to the link, try to visit as many of the other participants as possible, and have fun.

My attempt to share stories for each letter of the alphabet featuring our life in Austin B.C. (Before Children) 1975-1985. The 70s were a long time ago. 26 stories might be a stretch for my brain, but I have made it to N – as has the Sepia Saturday prompt photo for this week.

I am a week late posting a response to the letter N. Once I started writing, this post got longer and longer, with many stories to tell. In the end, I decided that maybe this was not the right time or perhaps the right place to tell those stories. So a short version follows.

After I earned my MSSW in 1978, my husband and I traded places. I took his job as the vocational trainer at a halfway house for adults with developmental disabilities and he entered graduate school.

The halfway house was in an apartment complex in south Austin. The program grew during the seven years I worked there. First added were two more apartment buildings accredited as an ICF-MR (Intermediate Care Facility – Mental Retardation). Federal guidelines required a Social Worker on staff, so I moved into that position. We later added a fourth apartment complex, which served as a quarter-way house. I was the Assistant Administrator for the four-complex campus as well as the Social Worker. We served a total of 56 clients who had been diagnosed with a developmental disability. Terminology has changed over time, but most of our residents were diagnosed with mental retardation, cerebral palsy, or epilepsy – and often with multiple diagnoses.

Our goal was to help the residents attain as much independence as possible. For some, the setting was long-term, for others, it was transitional. Independent living skills and work skills were both emphasized.

Learning to cook

When it was still just the halfway house, the staff shared an office. Several of our clients worked at Goodwill Industries. Some were in training. Some worked in the sheltered workshop. They rode the bus together each day to and from work.

Former Goodwill Industries building

Mary Sue, a middle-aged woman who had been with us a few weeks, was scheduled to begin her first day at Goodwill. We did some bus training with her and we weren’t too concerned about her getting there and back because she could just stay with the group. We told the other clients to stick with her. Make sure she got off with them at Goodwill. Make sure she got on the bus with them to come home. Make sure she got off with them at the bus stop for the short walk home. Promises were made. She was to stay with them. They were to stay with her.

When the clients arrived home late afternoon, the energetic and talkative young man in the group, walked into the office and announced, “I have good news and bad news! The good news is … (some good thing that happened to him at Goodwill that day). “What is the bad news?” we asked. “Oh. Mary Sue didn’t get off the bus with us.”

My co-worker Judy and I grabbed a bus schedule and the keys to the van. She drove and I navigated. We hoped we could catch up with the bus at one of the stops, get on, and find her. No such luck. We drove the bus route, searching for her. Retracing the route, we were about to give up when we spotted her sitting on the front stoop of a house on a tiny cul-de-sac. Whew!

And that’s how it was working there. The “news” was mostly good, but sometimes you needed to grab a partner, if one was available, and deal with whatever unexpected event happened. On a few rare occasions, the news was really bad. I learned a lot about human nature and our commonalities, the difficulties faced by people with “differences”, and my own strengths and weaknesses. I learned to listen carefully, to choose my words intentionally, to break tasks down into as many steps as were needed. I practiced patience. I learned to make accommodations. I knew people whose lives were a cautionary tale – like the woman with a severe speech impairment and an IQ measured in the 40s due to a fall from a grocery cart as a toddler. And I knew people who gave me inspiration – see I Was Once a Jogger. Humor was always our friend.

My last day of employment arrived a little earlier than expected. I was getting ready for work the week of Thanksgiving 1985 when I went into labor with our first child. She was a couple of weeks early.

I took three months of maternity leave and when it was nearly over, I met with my boss and asked for an additional three months. I wanted my baby to be a less tiny and fragile thing before leaving her in the care of someone else. She said no.

Although we rotated on-call duty, as the Assistant Administrator, I was always next in line if the staff couldn’t reach my boss. I felt like I didn’t have the emotional capacity to be mother to this new baby and also responsible 24-7 for 56 adults who get lost, lose jobs, have accidents, have roommate problems, have emotional breakdowns, get sick … My responsibility did not end at the end of the work day, but it felt as constant as a parent’s. Just in case, my husband and I had practiced living off one salary while I was on maternity leave and found that it was doable – there were things we simply did not need to spend money on. So that was that.

I was disappointed that my boss turned me down because I did like my job and loved the people I worked with. I don’t know what would have happened if she had granted me the additional three months. Perhaps she sensed that it would have just delayed the inevitable.

Please visit other Sepia Saturday participants here. I can’t wait to see what others have prepared in response to this funny prompt photo!

Sepia Saturday 579 Theme Image (17 July 2021) 2106420

Sepia Saturday provides bloggers with an opportunity to share their history through the medium of photographs. Historical photographs of any age or kind become the launchpad for explorations of family history, local history and social history in fact or fiction, poetry or prose, words or further images. If you want to play along, sign up to the link, try to visit as many of the other participants as possible, and have fun.