Louis Roney: The days dwindle down

• When President Obama named Eric Holder as attorney general, I became interested in Holder and began to follow what he was doing. During the months, and years of his reign as AG, I have looked in vain for significant actions on his part. I have given up on him long ago. Now he is giving up on himself and is vacating the government premises. Should have happened years ago. Good riddance, Eric!


• For many years I lived and worked in Europe and was cognizant of the ill-concealed jealousy that my European colleagues felt for things American, especially when I spoke of beautiful sunny Florida. I mused then that when I was being paid to sing in European opera houses, I might be “selling my birthright for a mess of pottage.” Perhaps America’s “birthright” is Cotton Mather’s: “Let us now be up and doing,” which keeps our civilized world in constant forward motion — “progress” we call it. 
As my days dwindle down to a precious few, people ask me, “What do you do to get yourself going in the morning?” I say, “I think about what needs to be done. I think about what I can get done today, and I get busy doing it.” What’s so unusual about that? After all, “today” is the only day any of us can do anything!


Along the way, have I made some mistakes in my life? You bet— some lulus! But I did some good things too, like singing for millions of people during my 40 year career, marrying b.w., buying a house in Winter Park, starting a concert-presenting organization Festival of Orchestras, teaching 24 years as a distinguished professor at UCF — and in general, not breaking any laws and staying out of jail. 


• Looking back from the very late now, I wish I had done lots of things that I didn’t get around to, but why cry about it? I’m leaving plenty of things undone for the next “do-gooder” who happens along with a big supply of words.


I, as an aesthete on the scene, should have tackled the problem of anything ugly that mars Winter Park’s beautiful features. For example: rough-hewn Fairbanks Avenue, which initiates strangers to our city by traversing one of the city’s few ugly thoroughfares. Fairbanks needs some serious attention! I’ll leave it for the next guy.

• Once all material things are shipshape the only thing left to worry about is the people, starting with one’s self. “Oh would some power, the giftie gie us, to see ourselves as others see us, ” as Bobbie Burns put it (though in thicker Scots verbiage). Self-criticism is not an easily practiced human art, and all of us are apt to see ourselves in a little better light than our neighbors do. Maybe each of us should give a suggested list of self-improvements to his neighbor telling him how to change himself to suit us. I, myself, don’t want to receive any such suggestions — but I am willing and able to give plenty of suggestions to others! I have the eerie feeling that I am getting myself into trouble by what I have just said, so I am going to change the subject. But think it over, OK? Let me know how you feel about it. 


• After we bought our Winter Park house, which has all the rooms we could wish, we promptly added another room! — an office (what else?) — where we, predictably, spend most of our days. We also spend a lot of time in the kitchen where we eat unless we are having company when we use the dining room. You could say we could subsist with only an office, kitchen, bathroom, and a bedroom of course, where we sleep — as most folks do. It occurs to me that in all the larger houses, of which Winter Park has a plethora, the people who live there are paying for a great deal of space they rarely, if ever, use. After all, isn’t a palace just a big house with many rooms? But having extra space does gives one the kingly feeling of being able to plan all the myriad things that make our country the envy of the civilized world! Isn’t that nice? 


• Freedom by one’s self ain’t much fun. Marriage is the most common escape from solitary confinement, and two can have more fun, and get into more mischief, than one. A couple has the advantage of being able to criticize each other, and to prevent each other from getting into predicaments that are always looming. My b.w. has a way of saying, “Let’s just think that over a while.” That has prevented a great many mistakes on my part. I admit, I’m sometimes upset a bit with her, but really I’m grateful. Really I am! Really!