This was a note to my dear friend Dr. H.

I definitely remember no AC. I remember riding to youth choir in our car pool. Mama took us in a 57 Chevy station wagon! No AC. I don't think I ever went to a school with AC until college. Was there AC at Terry Parker? I can still remember sweltering rooms in elementary school. Also remember playing outside all day on summer days.

I have been swamped this week with "pre-planning." I don't know why they don't just call it, "no way we are going to let you plan" days. I went in a whole week ahead but will still have to work all day tomorrow and the next day. There are 290 plus kids in my program and even though I have a full time assistant director, I feel like they are all mine.

I don't sleep the same as in younger days and am often up in the early morning. Everything says I should get 8 hours of sleep but I'm more like 6 the last few years and it doesn't seem to matter. I am looking forward to retirement though. I have grown to love summer vacation. I don't get to read or write enough. I have 2/3 of a novel and would like to finish. My students read it from time to time and enjoy it until they turn the page and it just stops in mid-sentence. Went to work on my doctorate and never came back. Maybe my life will be long and I'll have the opportunity to finish someday.

Most of my "liberal" leanings are related to my religious beliefs. I don't feel like I moved. I feel like the baptists and politicians moved. Probably some of both. Seminary was so valuable for understanding scripture, but the fundamentalists took over Southern and ran those professors away. I do find myself pretty far from today's Southern Baptists. I don't understand the current leadership in congress. It is a flawed system that protects itself.

Did I give you a CD of my girls singing? They keep me focused and are a reason to continue. We make art together and they need me. I have 5 music majors entering this fall as college freshmen and have 25 who have gone that way. There are at least 3 more in the senior class. Mrs. G and I are creating a lot of musicians for this next generation and somehow I think that is a positive force in the world. Looking back, it is Fes who was my inspiration. One of my LSU grads came by to visit today. She is moving to Minnesota to work on an Arts Management degree and has landed a prestigious internship. I'm happy for her. Another girl is interning at Circle on the Square Theater in Manhattan this summer, another is Belle in Beauty and the Beast in Louisiana, another is married to a bass at the Bavarian Opera House in Munich, another teaches middle school music in Nashville, and another is a music therapist. Cool, huh? One of my best boys is the center on the University of Connecticut football team. Ha! Totally different direction there. A host are in a cappella groups on campus, Haynes at Rhodes, Skyler at Harvard, Karen at Cornell and George at Emory. Not music majors but still singing, entertaining, and bringing joy. My work is like Jesus' first miracle, turning water to wine. Wine is a symbol among Jews for Joy. Where there was about to be hardship, he brought joy.