Wally sent this back to me some time ago when I asked him to listen for my records in Canada to help me monitor my airplay royalties. It has been in my inbox for several months and I didn’t delete it because I really cherished hearing from him. What a nice and wonderful person he was.
Dear Mike,
Forgive me for not responding sooner. I remember the Five Americans. I think your debut was "I See the Light."
We have two oldie stations in my area: CHUM1050 Toronto and CKOC1150 Hamilton. Both of these stations are AM and in Ontario. I listen to both of them, especially when I'm driving. I will certainly inform you whenever I hear one of your songs.
It's going to be tough, keeping to myself the fact that our own aha was a recorded writer\musician in the crazy Sixties. Of course, I have no intention of betraying a confidence. I think that perhaps you don't want this fact to be widely known is for fear of being innundated with a gazillion questions.
Thanks for writing, Mike. I'll let you know if I hear one of your numbers. I promise.
Best Regards,
Wally
*Walk slow old son because none of us are too far behind you. We’ll see you again…
and until then, here is a three stooges poke in the eye for ya.
Thank you is such an inadequate phrase, but it’s the best I have right now, Shayna. I can only imagine how hard that must have been for you to type. I pray that God will wrap His loving arms around you and bring you comfort. I’m here for you, always.
So many wonderful sentiments expressed here, I echo them.
I received an email from one of the dopers<not saying who, because I don’t have permission to quote them yet> and one sentence struck me in my heart:
**
Amen, my friend. I am proud to be a part of this community called Dopeville, especially the MPSIMS neighborhood.
Thank you, everyone, for your kind and loving words. I am still bitterly sad, and will be for a long time. But knowing that this post meant something to those who also loved Wally means a great deal to me.
And Ruffian, I will take you up on that hug, girlfriend. I could sure use a real one right now. Thank you.
Like many other posters, I never met Wally. Unlike many posters, I had the opportunity…and I blew it.
Wally and I are from the same neighbourhood. We didn’t realize it until one of his posts sounded just to damn familiar. (You know that one about the stolen cop car?)
We e-mailed back and forth and found out we had the old neighbourhood, friends and stories in common. I don’t get back to the old neighbourhood very often, but he did say we would share a beer at the Eastwood (local favorite watering hole) if I stopped by. I never did. This weekend I will make apoint of going to the Eastwood, ordering a draft, and saluting a man who made me laugh long, loud and often.
I’ve been debating with myself long and hard over where to put this little bit of comfort. I don’t know that this is the best place, but I don’t know that any place is better.
I was walking to my final exam for psychology yesterday and was naturally more concerned about other things than about the actual exam. We had just covered old age/death and dying the previous day and I’m glad I wasn’t able to be there, else I might have fallen completely apart.
Anyway, I started thinking about Wally . . . wondering if he was okay. And I got an incredible feeling of joy/happiness . . . and a sort of mental image, I guess, of him watching over me in particular.
I don’t know quite what to attribute this next bit to, but there were sections of the final exam that I just didn’t know . . . so I read the questions and came back to them, and I knew the answers. This is stuff where I wasn’t in class when the material was covered, and I didn’t get the book for the class. ALl I can think of is that he made damn sure I passed that exam. Probably would have called me a putz if I hadn’t.
FWIW, I write with my left hand, the same that has “Putz” written on it.