Autumn Leaves

There is a jazz standard entitled "Autumn Leaves". Wikipedia says it was originally a French song, "Les Feuilles Mort", which translates, literally, into "The Dead Leaves". It was written in 1945 by Joseph Kosma with words by French poet Jacques Prevert. Somewhere in my volumes, I have a book of poetry by Jacques Prevert, a gift from the French teacher in college upon getting an "A" in the final exam my first year of French. She hoped it would inspire us to greater heights in the second year of the required two for our degree. Had she not been a rather strange teacher, it might have. I have no idea where the book is now but I've been itching to find it after hearing "Autumn Leaves" on the radio.

I know this song. It was one that my piano teacher had me learn when I was taking piano lessons. It's relatively easy to master and, unlike some other things she had me try, I got this one down rather quickly. It was fun to play and I learned the words to the song too. I remember being at the piano playing it when Dad walked into the room and started humming along. My dad couldn't carry a tune in a covered bucket but that didn't stop him from expressing himself in song. I remember cringing a bit as he missed the notes but I felt rather proud of myself for playing something he knew.

So, on Saturday, the familiar strains of the tune came out of my car radio as I headed for some overtime at work. This wasn't what I wanted to be doing on a golden Saturday morning, but if I didn't spend some time on this project, it would not be done by the Tuesday deadline. Would this be an instrumental version? There are some wonderful instrumental versions out there. Most of them take the song a bit fast. To me, it's a song about the end of the season and the ending of a relationship and should be performed slowly. The version I heard on Saturday was a vocal version. The female voice sang the song in the original French and it was clear she understood the song. At the end, the announcer said, "And that was Karrin Allyson singing 'Autumn Leaves' off her 'Collage' album."

Once I had a moment, I hit up Barnes and Noble.com to check this out. Karrin Allyson is not a new voice in jazz. I'm familiar with her. But, up to now, she's not been someone I've had to rush out to get. My opinion changed with her rendition of "Autumn Leaves". I need to add something of hers to my CD collection. As luck would have it, Carole needed me to put together the annual Christmas list. That album and two others were added to the list.

I've had the song stuck in my head intermittently with The Tannahill Weavers "Cam Ye by Athol" and Great Big Sea's "Captain Kidd", widely disparate music styles. As I sat on the deck on Sunday, the autumn leaves released their grip on the trees in the back yard and drifted to the ground or caught some air and tumbled into the neighbor's yard.

The falling leaves drift by the window
The autumn leaves of red and gold....
I see your lips, the summer kisses
The sunburned hands, I used to hold
Since you went away, the days grow long
And soon I'll hear ol' winter's song.
But I miss you most of all my darling,
When autumn leaves start to fall.

Beverage:  Rooibos tea

Deb

Happiness Is a Familiar Place

In heading off into the "wilds" of Chicago to attend a concert, I am mindful of the timing of things. Evening concerts require that you leave at a certain hour in order to get to the venue and find parking, if you are not taking public transport. That certain time to be out the door can mean that dinner, such as it is, has to be procured by the venue or on the way to the venue. I had to be out the door by 4:30, if I wanted to eat when I got down there. I also had to pick up my ticket at the "Will Call" window and I didn't want to be dashing in at 6:53 and have to stand in line and miss the opening song.

One of the great things about Chicago is the abundance of restaurants. You want a cuisine, you can find it. It might be a storefront place with 8 tables and a waiter who simply nods when you point to something or it could be white tablecloth covered, reservation-only places with a waiter in a tux who raises an eyebrow when you ask for water. In researching the restaurants around the Old Town School of Folk Music, I had my choice from Mexican to Italian to pub grub to American to sandwich and coffee shops to a German place a few blocks up the street.

In the photo in the post below, you can see the Grafton Pub and Grill. This is an Irish-themed pub with traditional and Americanize Irish fare on the menu. It is also, as you can see, about 35 steps south of the venue. I decided that arriving as close to 5:30 as possible would garner me a table, decent food and an easy walk without worry to the School. If there was a line, I could walk 4 blocks north and eat at the German restaurant. But, reality being what it is, when I finally left the house, at 4:35, the Grafton was sort of on the list and the German restaurant way farther down. I knew I needed to eat but feeling 'meh', I didn't know what I wanted.

There wasn't a line at the Grafton, but there was a semi-packed house. On Sunday evening, it appears they have live music and this has a following. Honestly, I didn't want noise beyond maybe music. The noise of people enjoying company and the tuning of instruments spilled out the open windows and doors (It was near 75 degrees Sunday night). I just didn't want to have to be sociable. So, north I went.

I dropped by the box office and picked up my ticket. With this vital piece of paper in hand, I started walking. There was an Indian restaurant on the corner. This one is Mexican. This is a bar with a patio. Here's a coffee shop and there's Starbucks. In my memory, the last time I was here, there had been a deli with reasonably priced sandwiches and lacking in anything more than utilitarian decor somewhere around here. That's what I wanted. A simple sandwich. Just enough to shove the hunger where it needed to be and to get me home after the show. If I didn't run into that deli, I knew, from reading the restaurant link, Subway was around here somewhere.

I passed a thrift store, a bead store, a used book store which was, thankfully, closed. And then, there it was, on the opposite side of the street.

Costello's in Lincoln Square is where I ate. Carole might remember them from when we saw Old Blind Dogs at Old Town. The decor has not changed although the yellow and red paint on the walls is new. Same colors. Same menu and I mean, the same menu. It's a bunch of tables, a window bar and a counter with a cold drink cooler and a soft drink dispenser. You order off the limited menu, which is nothing but sandwiches. I felt a familiarity with the place. This was not going to be weird food. This was going to be good, filling and familiar and the latter, above all, was what I wanted.

"Can I help you?" "I would like a turkey sandwich but there are things in your sandwiches that don't appeal to me tonight." "Well, let's make one up for you that you would like." It took about 3 minutes to place the order. "Do you want smoked, honey roasted or oven roasted turkey?" "Do you want pepper jack, Swiss, American, Colby, Monterrey Jack, Provolone, Muenster or Cheddar on your sandwich?" "Do you want white, wheat, Russian rye, Jewish rye, ciabatta, foccicia, hard roll, pumpernickel, or a wrap?" "Any veggies? We have lettuce, cucumber, onion, celery, carrots, cole slaw, tomatoes and peppers." Choice is good except when you're hungry and just want a turkey sandwich. The gal behind the counter just giggled when I said, "Wow. So many choices."

That's a turkey, provolone and lettuce wrap. I got mustard on it (Would you like stone ground, yellow, hot or German?). They bake it so the cheese melts and the wrap crisps. I don't remember the 5 different sides I could have. I stuck with chips.

Good. Very good. It was enough. There was a group of musicians in the place, too. They were playing folk and old-style country music. Two mandolins, 3 guitars, a banjo and I couldn't see what the one gal was playing. The place was empty except for me and the musicians and the staff. I call this a serendipitous moment. I just wanted a sandwich. I got music with it. It put me in the right frame of mind to fully enjoy the concert upcoming.

Chicago neighborhoods are filled with these kinds of treasures, from used book stores to simple delis. I sometimes think that actually living in the city wouldn't be a bad thing, but I don't think I could make that move. It was lovely to drive in and experience it, however. Subway will make me a turkey sandwich just the way I order it, anywhere, in the entire country. It will be absolutely the same. These kinds of places are fun to experience because the food is good and it may be a turkey sandwich but it was quite different.

Beverage:  African Rooibos tea

Deb

Getting My Scots On

I went to a concert on Sunday night at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. It's a gem of a place on Lincoln Avenue. If you live in the city, taking the elevated train is the way to get there. If you live in the 'burbs, as I do, you kind of have to drive. Mass transit just isn't a real good option for us. There is a parking lot across the street and some on-street parking but, this being Chicago, finding a free spot can be as much of an adventure as driving there.

I hadn't been feeling very well all day but I've been looking forward to this concert since I got the ticket back in February. I saw The Tannahill Weavers, one of my favorite Scottish folk groups. I stumbled across them about 10 years ago now, right after finding Old Blind Dogs, my favorite Scottish folk group. The Tannies have been around for a long, long time and I've come to the dance late. Even as I wrestled with the idea of just sleeping because that seemed to be what my body wanted me to do, my head kept telling me I would regret not going. So, I listened to my head. It was the right choice.

When I got the ticket, I picked the best seat I could. I honestly didn't know how good my selection was until I got there and found my seat. This is the second row of regular seats, on the end. In front of me were the small tables and chairs they have for sale. It was the perfect spot from which to enjoy traditional Scottish music.

Some observations:  The band used to be 5 members. It's now 4. It doesn't lack for musical power with Les being gone. It means Bill has to sing now whereas, in the past, he used to just play pipes and flute.

They always seem to have a different bagpiper. I don't think I've seen the same guy in any of the 3 other times I've seen them. It's always some cute young gentleman who is 6 1/2 feet tall. I swear. Maybe you can't play the pipes if you're short. I don't know. Roy said Colin, who plays the bagpipes, has doctorates in Zoology and Metallurgy so "If you need your hamster welded, talk to Colin."

The vocals are a bit strained and Roy is showing his age. Some of the songs with notes in the higher registers weren't hit square or weren't even attempted. They played many more instrumental songs than in previous concerts. But, I remember the late Beverly Sills saying, when she announced her retirement, that the spirit was willing but the voice had just aged. It's inevitable. The repertoire changed to reflect this. That means some of the songs I hoped they'd sing, they didn't. But an hour and a half of foot stompin' music with a mix of old and new tunes and I wasn't disappointed.

Roy is really funny. You get the feeling, from the jokes he cracked and the stories he told, that if you got him in a pub with non-stop pints, you would be there for hours, days even, as he spun story after story. They have always played "Jaime Raeburn's Farewell", one of my all-time favorites. In the past, the jokes leading up to this song have been amusing. This year, it was really funny.

"Jaime Raeburn is a transport song. What that means is that Jaime was going to be transported out of Glasgow. We have no idea what he did but it doesn't matter. They sometimes made things up as they went along so you could be transported. See, back then, we didn't have a CSI: Glasgow. Heck, we couldn't have one now. There's no teeth for identification. And the DNA all matches." 

It's infectious music. The venue was not sold out, which is a shame. The crowd was mostly my age, which again is a shame. When you have someone you like, you want people to see and experience it. If the venue isn't filled, will they come back again?

The Weavers played a couple of songs by the man from whom they take their name, Robert Tannahill. He was a contemporary of a certain Robert Burns and is very much overshadowed by Burns. He wasn't as prolific. One of my favorite Tannahill songs they didn't play, The Braes O' Balquidder. I have been working through my pile of magazines about Scotland and had just read a brief biography of Tannahill. I knew the group took their name from him but reading the biography gave his short, tragic life a bit more meaning. Roy said they were so glad he wasn't a "colonic irrigationist" when they were choosing band names.

Scottish life is framed by the '45, the ill-starred attempt by Prince Charlie to take the Scottish crown. The Tannies sang one song written about this rebellion, Cam Ye By Athol. Roy said he grandfather taught him this song and I can see this being handed down verbally since it speaks of riding with Prince Charlie which was treason. Sung Sunday night, it became something of a lament, a sad reminder that the rebellion was doomed from the start and so much of Scotland was crushed with Charlie.

After a standing ovation, they came back for 5 more songs and finally ended with a little ditty by Robert Burns. You know it, but you only know a portion of it. Plus, the music the Tannies use is not the schmaltzy Guy Lombardo-induced strains you're familiar with. "Auld Lang Syne" is on their Best Of 1979-1986 CD and, if you don't have anything by them in your collection, get this one. Just sit and listen to the song. It becomes something else, a good bye to a friend.

I walked out of the concert into a light drizzle and drove home in alternating bands of light and heavy rain. I am so glad I put the "meh" feeling aside. If the Tannies come by you, try to go see them. You don't need to know anything about Scotland or Scottish music to enjoy the concert.

Beverage:  Huckleberry tea

Deb

Visiting Ohio: What I Listened to

When I went to Iowa on the 11th, I decided that trip and this one to Ohio would be good ways to go through the CD holder, listen to music and change what I have in the holder. I tend to listen to the same stuff over and over because I don't want to go through the hassle of finding the jewel cases for what's in the holder and changing the music. But when I've got all this music surrounding me, it should be something I should do. I bought this music because I liked it. Then I should be listening to it.

The trip to Ohio allowed me to listen to 14 different CDs. Of course, my tastes being what they are, three genres were featured: jazz, Scottish and classical.

On the ride out, I started with A Treasury of Artie Shaw. He was a big band leader during World War II, played clarinet. My favorite song on this CD is "Begin the Beguine".
Next was The Tannahill Weavers Collection: Choice Cuts 1987-1996. This is a greatest hits collection. It's a good choice if you aren't familiar with them.
Then was Old Blind Dogs and Tall Tails. While this CD has some catchy tunes; Wife in Ev'ry Port, Pills of White Mercury and Barnyards of Delgaty; it's not my favorite OBD collection. I skip over at least a couple of the songs.
After that was the seminal Miles Davis recording, Sketches of Spain. If you are looking to include some Miles Davis, I strongly recommend this recording.
From there, I went to Gene Harris/Scott Hamilton Quartet and At Last. Gene Harris was a pianist and Scott Hamilton is a saxophonist. It's a nice addition to my jazz collection even if it's not something I might reach for when wanting to play music.
The black CD is The Best of the Rat Pack. This is a collection of music sung by Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Junior. It's what could be termed a 'little ditty' of an album. There are better collections by each of these men, but this is a good way to have something from each. "Me and My Shadow" by Frank and Sammy, is one of my favorites. I play this and remind myself that I need to search out a Sammy Davis, Jr collection. He had a wonderful voice. 
Lastly, on the player as I pulled into the driveway was Legacy by Old Blind Dogs. I like everything on this album but my favorite is "The Snows They Melt the Soonest".

On the way out, I started with the radio but quickly lost the signal as I headed east. Since I don't know any jazz stations close to Youngstown, I simply stayed with CDs all the way home. If I do another road trip, I need to find a listing of radio stations that play jazz in the locations I find myself. Then, carefully copy down the call letters and number and leave that list on the kitchen table as I head out the door.

I started the trip back with Five by Old Blind Dogs. The opening numbers, "Trip to Pakistan" and "Battle of Harlow" are two of my favorites. "Parcel Full o'Rogues" is a lament on the union of Scotland and England. This is the second CD I've owned of this, so that tells you how much I enjoy it.
Next up was Best of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Preservation Hall is located in New Orleans, for those who don't know it. They play New Orleans-style Dixieland jazz. This collection has their anthem, "When the Saints Go Marching In". They tour a lot so if they come near you, go see them.
After that, I played Tchaikovsky. This CD holds his "Pathetique" and "1812 Overture" on it. It's hugely ironic that this should come up as I'm just taking the CDs as they are in the holder. We had talked briefly about Tchaikovsky on Sunday night. I did not know he committed suicide by drinking cholera-laced water. People passing me or being passed by me must have wondered as I was "singing" along with the ending of the Overture. "Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba bup ba bah...boom." This is the very familiar overture which, in some settings, can end with cannon fire. A Tympany plays that roll in normal settings.
From there, it was back to jazz and Lionel Hampton with Flying Home (1942-1945). If you have any knowledge of jazz, "Flying Home" is one of the most recognized tunes. This CD has several variations on that theme including the original. For those who don't know, Lionel Hampton was a vibraphonist. He played what you might call a xylophone only it was a lot more than just that. The CD has a queer little number, "Blow Top Blues" sung by Dinah Washington. It's just, well, weird.
Next was Preservation Hall Jazz Band Volume 2. Why only have one collection of hits when you can have two? I recommend the first one and get this one to supplement.
After that, I listened to one of a series, Benny Goodman, Best of the Yale Archives, 1936-1986. When he died in 1986, Benny Goodman left his music notes and tapes to the Yale University Archives. They compiled a series of CD's documenting Goodman's rise from a small trio to a band leader and then back to small group before concentrating on classical music in his later years. This particular CD contains quite a number of his more popular recordings. It does not have his signature song, "Sing, Sing, Sing". I honestly don't remember where I got this and I wouldn't recommend this if you want a collection of Benny Goodman. There are other greatest hits CD's out there or get your hands on the Carnegie Hall concert CD set.
I ended with Nina Simone and Little Girl Blue. Nina Simone had a husky, gravelly voice that may not appeal to some people. She could wrap that voice around a song and change how you perceived it. "I Put a Spell on You" is one of my favorites and I love what she did to "I Loves You Porgy".

Now to put these back in their jewel cases and select some different music for my travels about town.

Beverage:  Edinburgh's Finest tea

Deb

The Last of the Tax Return

I've become, as I've grown older, rather anal about my tax return. It irritates me that my personal IRA takes the entire month of January to prepare my statement. I want to get the forms filled out and out of here. That way, if I have to pay elebenty billion dollars to the gov'mint, I have several months to figure out how to mail all those pennies.

This year, they were quicker and I received my statement on the last Monday of January. I spent the next weekend with TaxAct online doing my taxes. I had used TurboTax but found the fees they charged for electronic delivery to be distasteful. I've also found, and this will be the 3rd year of using TaxAct, that their forms are easier to fill out and they have suggested things I wouldn't have considered. I think it's your preference.

I was rather amazed at what I was to get back this year. It was more than last year. I wound up owing the State of Illinois an amount that constituted the price of a delivered pizza. I hope they enjoy it. Knowing I had this refund coming, I spent a whole week analyzing my financial life to decide the best way to use this.

I whittled down my needs to the following: 1) Replenish the savings account. This is kind of a no-brainer but with the financial problems I sometimes have, I have to make a conscious choice to put this first. 2) Fix the car. There has been a small problem with the steering dampener for over a year. It had a leak. It's not the kind of thing you have to jump up and fix NOW. It doesn't cause a safety or driving problem until the dampener is nearly empty. It just makes the steering column shake more when you go over bumps. But, I decided that I would fix it because I could and that would prevent a bigger repair later when perhaps I can ill afford it. Get an oil change and new wipers at the same time. I'm good to go now. 3) Get my eyes checked and get new glasses. It had been over 2 years since I'd done this. I noticed a very slight degradation in vision, not enough that I couldn't see, but enough that I knew I needed to do this for myself. I picked up my new glasses today. They are the ones on the left. Yes, there will be a before and after photo next week.

There was some extra after doing all these things. I saved my initial target amount and realized I could save more. What a wonderful feeling! I decided I deserved to take myself out and have tickets for The Tannahill Weavers and Red Green in concert, not together although that would be quite the show. I have not been to a live concert in several years. I couldn't afford it. I think the last concert I attended was with Pam and we went to see a Scottish Military band. Fitting that my return to concerting would be a Scottish folk group.

So, with the pick up of my glasses, the divvying up of the tax return has ended. I think I was much smarter this year, than last year. I don't think I planned as well. It's still baby steps to get where I'd like to be and sometimes I think someone moves the markers back. But I'm happy and that's what matters.

Beverage:  Dr Pepper

Deb

Zip-a-Dee Do Dah

John Denver had a song lyric that I like.

Music makes pictures
And often tells stories
All of it magic and all of it true. 

I had a lot of music in the house this weekend. I think the girls were a bit surprised because I'm not one to have a lot of background noise about. The TV isn't on just for the noise factor. The radio only comes on when I have to get up or I goof up on the alarm. I do have the game sounds on and there is music with the game, but it generally isn't loud enough to carry into other rooms. So, having music playing from the DvD player seemed to leave them a bit unsettled. But I felt like music.

On occasion, I would get an email thread from someone with the premise that you would score the movie of your life. What would the music be? The idea behind the email was you'd learn something about the person you sent the email too simply by asking what music they'd like to see behind the movie of their life.

I like jazz and not that smooth jazz that embraces Kenny G, Najee, or Spyro Gyra. I also listen to Scottish folk music as played by The Tannahill Weavers and Old Blind Dogs. I know pop music up through roughly the end of the 1980's and a bit into the early 1990's, but the current pop scene is foreign to me. I also like, for lack of a better description, "old" music, a lot of it Stephen Foster-ish and his ilk. Broadway show toons? Check. Andrew Lloyd Webber? Check. Theme songs from animated movies? Check. It adds up to a lot of material from which my brain has to choose.

Which leads to some of the weird songs I've had kicking around in my head lately. Someone took the term "earworm", which describes a type of worm that burrows into ears of corn, and applied it to that song that gets stuck in your head; you know, the one you can't get rid of. It's an apt appellation. Lately, songs stuck in my head have ranged from "A Cockeyed Optimist" from South Pacific to "Keeping the Faith" by Billy Joel to "Bra' Sailin'" by Old Blind Dogs to "Peel Me a Grape" by Diana Krall. That's quite the repertoire. I was thinking about the title to this post and suddenly, I heard Uncle Remus saying, "This is one of those 'zip-a-dee-do dah days, the kind where you can't open your mouth without a song zippin' right outta it." I don't know about my bursting into song, but my brain certainly did. And I could do a lot worse than hearing the upbeat

Zip-a-Dee Do Dah, Zip-a-Dee Ay
My, oh my, what a wonderful day.
Plenty of sunshine heading my way.
Zip-a-Dee Do Dah, Zip-a-Dee Ay.

Never mind that it's overcast and warm enough to make the snow melt straight into fog. You have to be cold of heart not to hear that and feel warm.

My earworms are certainly situational. Overwhelmed, I can conjure up songs of abandonment. Jazz is really good for that. "But Not For Me" seems to be one of my brain's favorites. "Blue Moon" is a jaunty melody that comes up a lot. "Piano Man" turns up because I wrote a parody to it for World of Warcraft last year. Plus, I like the fact I know ALL the words, including the stanza from the long version of the song.

I guess because I have a son-in-law in the Navy, I've had the anthems, with words, to all the military branches. We had to learn those when I was in school. Show of hands. Who knows the words to "Roll on Columbia"? I do. How about "I Love to Go A'Wandering"? Some 25-odd years ago, I remember reading an article stating that so much music, which would be considered "folksy" was in danger of being lost because it's not taught in school. Well, that gets into the whole cutback issue and what are you going to cut first, music programs or football? Let's not get into that here.

In grade school, we had music 3 times a week. In middle school, you could have it daily; chorus 2 times and band 3 times a week. It was the same in high school unless you were in multiple choruses and the band. I had music 2 times a day 3 days a week. We sang more difficult pieces. I sang a piece by an Italian composer. My music director had to contact his alma mater for someone to come spend 2 hours after school with me so I could sing the piece in Italian. I have no memory of whether we knew what I was singing about. He just wanted me to perform it "properly". It certainly wasn't "Shenandoah".

"Music paints pictures and often tells stories." Music gives my life another dimension. I played Dizzy and the CD David gave me for Christmas (Miles Davis and John Coltrane) and some Benny Goodman and Ella. I'm missing a Tannies CD but "Four on the Floor" filled the house with Uileann pipes and Jonny Hardie's fiddle. Music makes doing laundry or dishes or cleaning kitty litter and finding tax information more than a little bearable.

Beverage:  Dr Pepper

Deb

Music and the word "get"

Today, I brought music to the office. I have very little to do so I might as well do it to music.
I don't know if you are familiar with www.pandora.com. It's called the "Music Genome Project". You make a "station" of the kind of music you want to hear and, from their vast archive, they select music based on either a genre or an artist. It's kind of similar to Project Gutenberg. I have two stations, Nat King Cole and Old Blind Dogs. The former is vocal jazz in the style of Nat. They play too much Tony Bennett, particularly the newer stuff, which I don't like. The latter is traditional Scottish music a bit more uptempo. This station taps into Celtic music and I've been exposed to groups I wouldn't have found otherwise. They have added my other favorite Scottish group, The Tannahill Weavers. The nice thing about this station is you rate the music you hear. If you are familiar with Yahoo Music, it's the same way. A "thumbs up" or a "thumbs down" gradually teaches the program to play music you will like.
I would love to listen to it at work. But, our network has bans on certain kinds of content. No YouTube, as a for instance, and, unfortuately, no Pandora. According to a memo, too much bandwidth was being devoted to gaming and video and music streaming. I do know of one guy who plays a certain game I haven't discussed, yet, at the office during lunch hours, but I've not added that game to my computer. There are other game sites, like AOL games, that I can visit if I really need a game fix.
The office is really quiet when most of us are out in the field. The phone has not been ringing a lot lately so the ambient sounds of the AC coming on and people entering the building and going to the job service office on the second floor as well as the traffic on busy Roosevelt Road to the north of the building are all you hear. I decided today I would bring in my tunes. I've listened to OBD's "Fit?" and I currently have the soundtrack from "Good Night and Good Luck" in the player. Yes, Pandora is linked to Amazon so if you want a certain CD after hearing a few cuts from it, you can order it. I dislike ordering from Amazon. I get 95% of my jazz from the Jazz Heritage Society.
There's that word, "get". I've been pondering this word for a couple days now. A blogger I read announced on Sunday that he's "getting" a divorce. I "got" a divorce in 2001. It's what we say, but you can also "get" sick or "get" caught in traffic or "get" chicken pox. You can also holler at a spouse in the kitchen, "Honey? I'm off to the store to 'get' BBQ sauce and buns for the hamburgers. Do you need me to 'get' anything else?" Somehow, using the word to mean the action for obtaining hamburger buns diminished the hugely life-changing event of a divorce.
But is there another option, a better synonym? Not really. You could use "procure" or "obtain" but that sounds ridiculously stilted. "The Marquis de Bleau 'e Fungi obtained a divorce from his 4th wife." That does sound like something the monied do, not us real people.
I'm not sure what the word is to encompass all that "getting a divorce" implies. I often think, as many words as there are in the English language, there aren't words that specifically cover a feeling or emotion or action. This is one of those times. "I'm getting divorced." Three words that have years of emotion attached to them.
I think I'll get out one of my Benny Goodman albums. His peppy clarinet is something I get. And, at lunch, Jon and I will go get office supplies since we're out of file folders. In the meantime, I need to get some letters written.

Beverage: Black Currant tea

Deb