20200324 Deliverance

Yesterday, I stumbled upon Kermit the Frog and Steve Martin in their swampy rendition of Dueling Banjos.

Playing it awarded me a moment of blissful rest from the torrent of negative Covid-19 news, as the music, forest and humor respite from another day of isolation.

   

Today, I read in the New York Times that Eric Weissberg, who played the banjo in the soundtrack of the duel in the movie Deliverance, passed away. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/arts/music/eric-weissberg-dies.htm

It is a tune that is embedded in my mind.

There is another sync here as well: Yesterday I was speaking with my 81 year old mother, who is in Covid-19 lock-down with my 87 year old father in their apartment in a senior living facility. Dad has serious cognitive challenges and asked my mother when he woke up "Am I alive?" Mom assured him that he was. Dad was dubious and asked again, and again, and then "How do you know?" unwilling to accept her confirmation. Eventually he asked "How are you sure?" and mom answered "because of the smell." 

I suggested that she use the Ben Franklin or  George Burns line "I wake up every morning at nine and grab for the morning paper. Then I look at the obituary page. If my name is not on it, I get up". Mom chuckled and said that she does read the NYT obituaries everyday as it is a fascinating biographical history lesson. I concurred but these days I don't read many because I was out of articles that I could read on the NYT. She fixed that by gifted me a subscription to the NYT. Had that not been the case, Today I would not have been able to scroll down past the latest Covid-19 graphs on the NYT front page to be delivered at Eric Weissberg's obituary.

And I learned from the article that Weissberg was an illustrious musician, but not the composer of the Duel.

So, to give credit where credit is due (according to the following video) the song was composed by Arthur Smith. "[Smith was] born in 1921 in Clinton, South Carolina, the son of Clayton Seymour Smith, a cotton mill worker, and his wife. His father was also a music teacher, and led a brass band in Kershaw, South Carolina. In 1955, Smith composed a banjo instrumental he called "Feudin' Banjos," and recorded the song with five-string banjo player Don Reno. Later the composition was performed in the popular 1972 film Deliverance with the name "Dueling Banjos..."

Gratitude needs to be paid to those who share. Music lives on when it is shared. And today the ability and willingness to share information immediately and worldwide about the virus appears to be a life saving gift. Every one of us is now a health care professional, activist, and participant. Our deliverance is in, and on, our hands.

~

P.S. (post scriptum and/or post sync) As I was writing this post, a NYC friend and I were texting and he told me that a dear friend, Nashom Wooden had died. 

he had the symptoms went to hospital to get the test

the protocol is to send you home to self isolate and hope you get better

i know we all gotta pass

but it just seems horrible way to go by yourself away from all your loved ones #gutted

i just remember him as a sweet 19yo sneaking into the club i was at the door working with a fake id.

i let him in. i was like 23 and we became friends from then he went on to become this larger then life person but to me he was just this sweet person

Alex

As I was closing down the computer for the night, the NYT had one more fascinating obituary to share, a personal history that survived a previous epidemic to be told, and apparently a very important lesson to be learned during today's crisis.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/style/nashom-wooden-mona-foot-death-coronavirus.html