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I did hear a Cardinal yesterday as I left the office to head home.  Maybe there is hope after all.

In the spring of 2000 I visited our classical music station in Sun Valley, Idaho, KWRV 91.9,  for the first time.  When I made my second trip in the fall, I decided to drive the rental car to Bozeman, Montana and visit my Uncle Bill and Aunt Maggie.  I wanted to get to know these folks better.  This became an annual event.  Each year I heard more stories and I learned to love these wonderful people.

Uncle Bill passed about ten years ago.  It has been two years since Aunt Maggie passed. She and her husband Bill Heisick both grew up in Bozeman, Montana. Bill served in the Pacific during World War II. When he came home he and his mother traveled to LA to visit some friends. One day a fellow named Ivan popped in to see his friend Tommy who happened to be playing bridge with Bill and his mother Mary. Ivan asked who owned the car outside with the Montana license plates. Uncle Bill spoke up. Ivan told Bill that his girlfriend, Maggie Caven, lived in Bozeman and Bill should greet her for him when he got back home.

When Bill got back to Bozeman he phoned Maggie and asked her to go to a movie. Maggie mistook Bill for his older brother Bob who she had once met in high school. She accepted the date and she was very disappointed when she found out that Bob had been killed in the war.

She was quite sure that Bill, who was a couple of years younger than she, was not her kind of fellow. Bill was very handsome and Maggie was sure that like most handsome men, he would prove to be full of himself. She tried to call it off, but Bill was persistent and they were married in Tucson, Arizona on April 12, 1949. They were a very happy couple. They lived in Van Nuys, CA and retired to a small ranch outside of Bozeman in 1984.  I am not sure what happened to Ivan, but he shared too much with the wrong fellow at the wrong time.

Live from Here this week is a live show from the State Theatre in Minneapolis.  Special guests include Broken Social Scene, the Vijay Iyer Trio and Dave Hill.  Enjoy the show on your radio or your smart phone or at Livefromhear.org.

“I believe we have two lives. The life we learn with and the life we live after that.”  Glenn Close to Robert Redford in “The Natural”