Deep Purple Dreams

Proof, I suppose, that Pentecost Green does go with Deep Purple.

When I was organist at Christ Church (Episcopal) Parish in Ontario, California  (1967-1974), the Rector, Jon Hart Olsen, nearly fired me one Sunday for improvising on “Deep Purple” during the Communion. Truth be told, I played two phrases of the melody and moved on to a hymn tune. It was enough, however, to send a ripple of titters of laughter through the congregation.

Fr. Jon had it coming, of course. What did he expect? He had just that week painted the front wall of the nave, behind the reredos, deep purple. I kid you not. He said it was the perfect color because it would go with any of the colors of the liturgical year — purple, red, purple, white, green.

I had known all my life Bing Crosby’s cover of “Deep Purple” (1939). It would be four or five years before Donnie and Marie Osmond would publish their (absurd) cover of the song.

My father voted for Barack Obama in 2008, when he was 94 years old. It was the first time since he began voting in 1936 he had voted for a Democrat. For any office.

When I lived in Massachusetts (1978-1994), I often voted for the Republican running for Congress in my district. It was a throw-away vote because no Republican had ever (has ever?) won that seat. But I thought we needed a two-party system, so I voted Republican just so there would be at one vote against the Democrat.

So I have proof I’m not a “yellow dog” Democrat.

I am, in fact, not a Democrat at all except on paper. I won’t say what I am because no one will ever read this blog again. Let’s just say my political ideas make most Democrats look like Republicans.

Today was Primary Election Day in Texas. The day the divide in this country is most obvious. The first time I voted was 1968. I suppose things were as politically divided then as they are now. And I suppose nearly every 73-year-old in the country was decrying the anger and the divisiveness and the meanness that had become normal in our politics.

But I thought by the time I was 73, I wouldn’t have to be turning off the news every time it came on the TV or radio (I, of course, had no concept of uploading a podcast of something else). I have done that (except for one hour I watch for fun about three evenings a week) for about a month. The news is so ugly I don’t want to be bothered. My blood pressure and my constant sense of grieving that anyone my age is feeling if they are thinking at all — but that’s a discussion for another day — do not need the aggravation.

Purple. Just some purple. Anyone for some purple?

A woman I met on the Dallas Women’s March last month. In that context her sign meant something a little different than what I mean by posting it now.