John (Jack) Hayes - Requiescat in Pace

 This is to post a belated public farewell to a dear friend and colleague, John Hayes.  I "met" John in the early years of this blog, and some of you may remember his eclectic blog, Robert Frost's Banjo.  A musician as well as a poet, some years ago John and his partner wrote and performed on the movie track a musical score for Nell Shipman's silent film The Grub-Stake (1923) which I covered in this previous post on my Another Old Movie Blog.

Most recently, John published a three-volume book set of poetry, which I posted about here.  Another volume of poetry will be published by Askance Publishing posthumously.  He was overjoyed at the contract and the accomplishment even as he bravely faced rapidly declining health.  A gentle man of extraordinary perspective, he faced his mortality with grace and gallantry.

For many years he was also my proofreader of my books, and I will miss his friendship.  Unlike most of the dear friends I've gratefully come to know through this blog, I actually was delighted to have met John in person.  He had been living on the West Coast, but on a trip to Boston to visit his mother, he kindly made arrangements to visit me in western Massachusetts, and we went to lunch.  

I read his poems from time to time and I feel the comfort of his big heart, his intellect, and his spirituality.  He has left us in his poetry a precious gift: himself.

Here is his obituary as published in The Oregonian.

John Hayes Obituary

John (Jack Hayes, his pen name) entered the light of heaven July 12. Born in 1956 to Elizabeth (Atkinson) and John Hayes Sr. in Bellows Falls, Vt., Jack was a warm, loving man with a generous, kind spirit. He received his BA in English from UVM and his MFA in Poetry from UVA and had a lot of passions, including music, baseball, and Tai Chi, but poetry was his calling. He published 11 books of poetry, most recently Prayer Wind (Askance), and has one more collection slated for publication posthumously. In life, as in his poems, John saw beauty in the ordinary and the unordinary, often in nature. He shared music that he loved, played with, and taught both guitar and ukulele.
In 2018, John married his true love, Sandy Pullella. Besides her, he leaves behind her family; his sister, Naomi (Mort) Rosenberg; niece, Jessie; nephew, Ethan; their children; several cousins; and his beloved dog, Chloe; and cat, Curious.
John felt enormous gratitude to the Taoist Tai Chi Society, where he practiced in Portland, Ore. for many years. He developed lifelong friendships with two nuns from the Marymount Hermitage in Mesa, ID and also felt deeply connected to his editor and friend, Sheila Graham-Smith.
Thank you to the teams of Kaiser Permanente Hospice and Palliative Care, Portland, Ore., OHSU, and the Alpha One Foundation. In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to Kaiser Hospice, the Alpha One Foundation, or the Marymount Hermitage. John's body has been donated to the OHSU Body Donation Program. Mass will be at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church 7600 N. Hereford, Portland, July 28, 2024, at 10:30 a.m. 

Published by The Oregonian from Jul. 22 to Jul. 28, 2024.

Jessica Fletcher - Who Killed Candlepin Bowling?

 

It's no mystery, NOBODY killed candlepin bowling.  It is still alive in New England, even if more and more bowling alleys offer only ten-pin lanes ("big balls") like an encroaching weed devastating a native species.  But you'd never know that if you saw the "Murder By Twos" episode of the beloved series Murder She Wrote.

I believe I am second to none in Jessica Fletcher or Dame Angela Lansbury fandom, and hardly miss an opportunity to watch a re-run, so please take this not as a rant, but merely as an observation by a concerned party.  SHE AND SETH WENT TO A BOWLING ALLEY IN CABOT COVE AND IT WAS TEN-PIN!!!!!

I almost choked on my New England clam chowder.  This is sacrilege.  Please see this previous post on candlepin bowling.  And remember, in New England, if it ain't candlepin, it ain't bowling.

While I understand the series was shot in California, one wonders why a New England consultant was not put on staff.  I am willing to overlook occasionally dubious "Maine accents" or even the absence of any kind of New England drawl when the episodes are set in the fictional Cabot Cove, Maine.  I am willing to overlook her nephew Grady constantly calling her "ant" Jess, instead of the appropriate "awwnt" Jess, though it has the same effect as fingernails on a chalkboard.  

I even kept my temper when Jessica once referred to "pop bottles."  Good lord.  "Pop?"  Really?

I am willing to overlook a lot of things, but not ten-pin bowling in this tiny hamlet in Down East Maine.  

"Murder by Twos" is episode 9, season 11 of the program, originally broadcast November 27, 1994.  There's nothing wrong with the story.  A murder happens.  Two of them, actually, but I guess that's a plot spoiler so I won't continue.  

Though Jessica traveled all over the world, stepping over corpses at every turn, I confess, I enjoy the episodes set in Cabot Cove the most.  I just have to overlook a few regional errors.  But I draw the foul line at not having a candlepin bowling alley in town.

For those who are curious, or, like Jessica, need proof, I herewith include this link for places to go candlepin bowling in Maine.  

Above image courtesy of the Encylopaedia Britannica,GNU Free Documentation License.

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of The Ames Manufacturing Company of Chicopee, Massachusetts - A Northern Factory Town's Perspective on the Civil War;   

Comedy and Tragedy on the Mountain: 70 Years of Summer Theatre on Mt. Tom, Holyoke, Massachusetts;

 States of Mind: New England, 

A Tragic Toast to Christmas -- The Infamous Wood Alcohol Deaths of 1919 in Chicopee, Mass.; as well as books on classic films and several novels.  Her Double V Mysteries series is set in New England in the early 1950s.  

TO JOIN HER READERS' GROUP - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.

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HAPPY HALLOWEEN - SEE MUGS, SHIRTS, AND MUCH MORE HERE!!!