Louis Roney: Trusting luck

I’m not a guy who spoils himself, but I do have this special need for that cup of coffee when I get up in the morning, and I don’t find that making it myself fills the bill. Ergo I got this girl to prepare morning coffee — not thinking for a moment what this minor self-indulgence might ultimately lead to. When I picked out the girl, I naturally picked a humdinger — who wants to drink coffee facing anything less than beautiful? I won’t bore you with all that’s happened in between, but before too long, I had given pretty-face not only the coffeemaker, but the house it’s in. A guy close by, who is a commissioner, hinted strongly that it might be better for the neighborhood if things were made legal in this house. So I joined the married crowd. Anyone who is fanciful might say I traded everything I’ve got for a cup of coffee, but I have kidded myself into thinking I’m happy, and if you can keep that going long enough, that’s all that human happiness is. It’s been 32 years now, and my morning coffee gets better and better. If you haven’t tried it, don’t knock it.

My turnabout

I have been lucky in my life, and the luck occurred invariably when I was not counting on it at all. When I was an impecunious lad in Winter Park High School, generous unseen hands up North provided me with an academic scholarship through Harvard. After the War, my singing training was helped in great part by scholarship money from those who believed in me. Fortune has smiled upon me throughout my long singing life in North America and Europe, and at the end of the line, I find myself in a position to return many of the favors extended to me, by helping other musically gifted kids reach their professional goals. Turnabout is fair play.

Working words

I often think of great actor Walter Huston’s unforgettable recording of “September Song” from Kurt Weill’s “Knickerbocker Holiday.” Houston was no singer, but he interpreted the text for Weill’s song so convincingly that I used to play it for my singing students at the University of Central Florida to show them that what you are saying is at least as important as how you sing it vocally.

Obama’s chances

Obama has had plenty of chances (at least seven) to protect American patents being misused in China — but he hasn’t done so — and will be highly surprised if he ever does. One wonders how Chinese students studying in New York can buy multi-room co-operative luxury apartments at a cost of $4 million and up — some digs with upkeeps of many thousands per month!

I wish I could find things to like in President Obama. He has the difficult job that he asked for, but so far his ability to do it is highly questionable. He’s still lying about the Embassy in Libya.

Why didn’t he just admit that the embassy was inadequately protected and improperly built? Why does he still pretend to be looking for the reason the embassy was attacked and our personnel murdered? Why still look for scapegoats and distractions? He and/or the State Department should have taken the blame — man up! An admitted long-strung-out lie from the White House is not good for public moral, and nor are more apologies to terrorists. Better yet, do your job diligently in the first place and not have to admit you were a miscreant.