"Do you remember when you boys once sang in a choir thing under Paul Salamunovich?"

This blog hasn't been busy and the death of Mom occurred twelve days ago. I've been trying to figure out a way to broach the subject. Dad's was rendered a certain way here and Mom, being rather at odds with him as a matter of daily life, would appreciate her own angle. Thus it is.

During the remembrances last week one of the brothers joked you didn't want to go shopping with her in your impatience of youth because in the store it appeared she knew "half the valley" and chatted them up.

In the comic strip "Zits" the kid Jeremy cringed when his mother would lead off with, "Do you remember so and so from . . ." Mom did that in conversation and the long spiels she would deliver to my answering machine. The main references were to past school mates' parents and my cringing came from remembering what some people, and offspring, stood for. On my part, a bit of vanity, part of essence Santayana postulated without which we'd make even less sense of our story.

Paul Salamunovich's obituary was in the paper a few days ago. He was a famed choral director and my parish boys' choir joined several other similar groups in a 1960's downtown L.A. concert he directed. Mom wanted the family represented in activities like choir, envying other families for domination probably not as supported by the evidence or really worth pursuing in this long slog. A few of us kept at it longer.

During the rehearsal Mr. Salamunovich got the itchy youngsters' attention regrouped by not only speaking to us, but as he hammed it a bit with being sad at losing our attention, the nimble piano player sealed the deal by playing "that tune" associated with accompanying the weepy scenes in silent films.

If Sarah were here she probably would know the name of this tune, as she did many I would wonder about. Ah, if only. Death's miserable melody has been heard this last year.