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Junior

Feb 23, 2020
9 min

Junior

#MusicalChairs #FacesOfMusicalChairs #Junior The man in the suit there is named Peter Willie, too. And Two. As in “The Second.” Peter Willie II. I am not the third, by the way, though we are named after the same person: his father, my maternal grandfather. A quick bit of logic will tell you that this makes him my uncle and you’ll understand why everyone in the family called him “Junior.” Junior was also my Godfather. He looks not unlike the other, Ford Coppola-type of Godfath

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Ray

Nov 26, 2019
7 min

Ray

#musicalchairs #facesofmusicalchairs #Ray The man you see here, staring handsomely ahead with confidence and panache, is Raymond Wakeham. This photo was taken at my parents’ wedding in 1978. Ray was the original writer of the song Musical Chairs. I suppose he felt compelled to make a comment on life’s impermanence, and he found a rather simple and clear metaphor in the children’s game of Musical Chairs: all those children dancing around, with a little adrenaline pumping for f

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Margie

Nov 12, 2019
7 min

Margie

#musicalchairs #facesofmusicalchairs #whydidntyou #margie That's my aunt Margaret, hidden a little on the left of the cornfield. I always called her Margie. This image is taken from a family photo, wherein she is smiling for the photographer along with her husband and three children. Margie died when I had spent three-and-three-quarter years on Earth. She was killed in a car accident on an August afternoon in 1990 with her family in the car. Everyone else survived. This event

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Uncle Bud

Nov 8, 2019
4 min

Uncle Bud

#musicalchairs #facesofmusicalchairs #bud That man staring ahead with a look of confidence and optimism is my uncle, Bud. His birth name is Cornelius Smith, named after his father – my grandfather – but he’s always been known as “Bud.” I’ve never called him anything else and I’ve never heard anyone call him anything other than “Bud.” I’ve also never seen him without a beard. He is my father’s eldest brother, born in 1943. I grew up about a five minute walk from Bud’s and his

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