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Top of the 9th, LVB coming to bat



I lived in that pink house on the beach for years and never noticed that big arrow in the sky.


Alamitos Bay jetty, out to the Pacific
It was the late 1970s and I’m living in a beach front house, on the sand in the Belmont Shore area of Long Beach.  It was my haven and escape from just one too many Arizona summers.  Belmont Shore enclosed Alamitos Bay and its jetty out to the ocean.  This waterway was famous for being the last known ports-o-call for the S.S. Minnow on that fateful day that started as a “3 hour cruise.”
I was working for a small computer manufacturing company in marketing support and this was the position where I crossed the bridge from being a techie and starting my sales and marketing career, which opened the world to me.

There was this very shy girl working in our software department that had a crush on me.  She was completely sweet, kind and nice and I wish I could find a better word to describe her than “mousey” but I can't.

One day, she tells me that she is a member of a choir group and her group was doing a concert on the next weekend with the Anaheim Philharmonic.  She finds the courage to ask me to join her and sit in the audience as her guest.  She wanted someone there to listen to her big moment and I gathered she had no one else to ask.

Out of pity, I suppose, I agreed to be her date.  At least, I might hear some interesting music.  We agreed to meet there and she gave me the details.

The venue was an old Anaheim church and music hall.  We met and she left to prepare and I moved to find a seat in the balcony.

What followed changed my life.

As you know, Anaheim was founded by Germans and its name was a corruption of the German phrase for “My home on the Ana River.”

This building was right out of the Black Forest, with shaped ceiling beams, flowers and birds painted in pastels around them.  It had the real look and feel of a church in the Bavarian Alps.  

The stage was set for a full orchestra and a rather large choral group.  The program that night was for…  wait for it…  Yes!... The 9th, the magical Ninth Symphony by the master himself, Ludvig Van Beethoven.  In my opinion, the greatest single piece of music ever written.  Its premier was rumored to have been directed by Ludvig himself, just deaf as a rock and having to be turned around by the First Violin because he couldn’t hear the applause.  Yes, That one!

The chorus stood quietly and the orchestra moved skillfully through the first three movements.  The sounds filled this tiny German church spectacularly.  The acoustics were superb.

Upon starting the famous Fourth Movement, the choral group rose and their first response to the opening of “Ode to Joy” was a pure explosion of beautiful sound and showed the power and passion that Beethoven had desired to capture.

The climax of this piece brought tears to my eyes.  

It was always, always my number one fantasy to that age old question, “Where would you go with a time machine?”

Yes. Opening night. May 7, 1824. Vienna, Austria.  LVB himself.  

The Gary Oldman movie, “Immortal Beloved” captures this night very beautifully but got sidetracked by a back story.

I must have now seen my friend as more than “mousey” as we then dated for over a year.  I miss that time with her and this night will always be remembered as one of my top ten days.
I can't believe Mr. Reynolds stole my idea and it appears he did it about 40 years earlier!  Kudos on the follow up line.  Point to you Mr. R. where ever you are.



Comments

  1. AnonymousJuly 7, 2018 at 4:05 PM

    Ah...Belmont Shores, Long Beach, California; I have fond memories from my time there. Think Hamburger Henry' s is still there and just as good as it was at 2 am after working swing shift?

    ReplyDelete

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