From Richard Klinger who is still a judge of discrimination cases for the Los Angeles County workforce.  “I’ve completed my first album, “The Art of Grieving.” It consists of songs that helped me deal with my grief and grieving when my dear wife (of 48 years), Janis (Hansen), died. Janis was a wonderful singer (The Look of Love, Sergio Mendes, and Brasil ’66) and had a multitude of other talents, many of which benefitted me as her wonder-eyed student. Of course, she learned many things from me as well. In fact, her saying that we were two halves that made a whole was miraculously true.

Anyway, in my grieving, I found that sad songs were good medicine for me. Being able to feel the lyrics and music and to cry gave me relief and release from what I call the “grief-bomb.” And, because this self-induced “sad-song therapy” worked so well for me, I decided to create an album of some of the songs by playing and singing them myself. It’s taken me a year and a half to complete the project, and last week it went live on all of the online music apps. The URL for the album on YouTube is: https://www.youtube.com/@ArtofGrieving.  I’m now working on my second album, “Here’s to Life.”

Writing this has reminded me of graduation day from ESB when I was honored to be asked to play something on the piano. I remember thinking very hard about what to play, and then I had it. I played “Autumn in New York” because, I felt quite melodramatically, that I would not be seeing that for the next four years when I’d be up in Cambridge. Always the sentimentalist…”