Allen Borton, Inspiring Survivor

Dr. Allen Borton, a dear friend of mine and a former music professor at Olivet College, has been through more pain and loss of his wonderful skills than most anyone I know.

It all happened on Saturday, May 22, 1993 when he was coming home to Olivet from a vacation. He was driving alone on the US 127, near Jackson, when a driver forced his small car to flip off the highway.

Though Allen still has no memory of any of it, he has learned that he was ejected from the window of the car. He says that he always wore his seatbelt, but he learned, unfortunately after the statute of limitations had expired, that his small car had been on a recall list for defective seat belts.

When his head struck the pavement, he incurred a closed-head traumatic brain Injury and went into a coma which lasted for over two months. He was engaged to a very musical young lady named Michelle Rabey at that point. They had to postpone their wedding for six months while Allen began to recover. He sadly learned that though his brain was fine, he could no longer communicate vocally, either by speech or song. But he was thankful every moment that Michelle still wanted to be his wife.

By December of that year, though Allen was of course still extremely weak, they were married and have been very happy together now for 21 years.

Naturally Allen wished he could go back to teaching singing and conducting various choirs. Some of his non-musical friends have thought that since his arms and hands were not damaged, surely he could go back to his music career. He knew better, however, saying “a majority of the work takes place in the rehearsal, both by explanation and by demonstration, and without this ability, continuing as a choral conductor was impossible.”

Allen and Michelle have been living in Ann Arbor since their marriage, and Michelle teaches music there at a private school. Despite his lingering serious problems with speech and with various body difficulties, Allen has been able to find work with Firestone, where he drives errands and does paperwork for the store. It is not the work he wishes he could do, but every day he has made the best of life and thanked God that he is alive and happy.

Though he cannot sing or conduct or play the piano nearly as well as he did before, Allen has become a fine composer of music. At this point he has created over 600 pieces, most of them original, but also some arrangements of already written works. Over the years he has had a number of them performed by numerous soloists and choirs, Michelle’s ringers when she was directing the church handbell choir, the string orchestra members at Michelle’s school and members of the Olivet College music group. I have felt honored to  get to play some of his work on my violin, as well, during concerts at Olivet College and in Ann Arbor at his and Michelle’s church.

My sweetheart Andrew and I have played Scrabble numerous times with Allen, and we’ve found that he’s still very good at words, as well.

Perhaps the most amazing aspect of Allen is his positive, loving nature. Many people would be so depressed after going through what he did that they would not even want to try to communicate with friends--much less love them.

But Allen makes the most of life every day and provides a wonderfully positive example for us all.

The Gershwin Brothers, George and Ira

George and Ira Gershwin were two extremely talented brothers who were born in New York city in the late 1890s of Jewish parents from Russia and Lithuania. The family had to move about 28 times during George and Ira’s childhood, and all of that change probably brought the two brothers closer together, even though they were extremely different.

Though George was a genius at composing music he didn’t even become interested in it until he was 10. Once he started to love it, however, he spent the rest of his life constantly learning and composing. He was very much of an extrovert who loved playing his works for thousands of fans.

Ira, who was George’s older brother, was a word person and an introvert who loved reading books and writing poems and was not at all a performer or musician. He was extremely modest, and said "I always felt that if George hadn't been my brother and pushed me, I'd have been contented to be a bookkeeper."

Though Ira has never been as famous as George, he wrote wonderful words for hundreds of George’s songs and should be more appreciated for his equally amazing talent. The two brothers’ private lives were extremely different, as well. Ira went to college for two years whereas George left school at age 15.

George never married though he certainly cared for women and is said to have seduced quite a few. He had a lover named Kay Swift for ten years. Perhaps he didn’t marry her because she was not Jewish, or maybe it was simply because he was so busy. After all he composed over a thousand songs, longer works for orchestras and five operas--as well as doing a lot of painting. And it’s especially amazing because he died from a brain tumor at just 38.

Ira, on the other hand, married a woman named Leonore Strunsky, and they were together for almost 60 years.

Despite all of these differences, George and Ira lived either together or close to each other during most of their lives and got along amazingly well. Sometimes George would write a melody, and then Ira would create words to go with it. But other times, Ira would come up with a poem, and George would set it to music. As Ira put it, “We worked best under deadlines and we worked mostly at night.”

As for his lyrics, Ira said “They should be simple, colloquial, rhymed conversation,   . . . and capture the way people spoke to each other, their slang, their cliches, the catchphrases.”

Some of the most famous songs they created together were “The Man I Love,” “Fascinating Rhythm,” “Someone to Watch Over Me,” “I Got Rhythm,”  “They Can’t Take That Away from Me” “Nice Work if You Can Get It,” “Love Is Here to Stay,” “Lady Be Good,” “Strike Up the Band,” “Funny Face,” and “‘S Wonderful.”

The “folk opera” “Porgy and Bess,” was George’s most famous creation. Ira composed some of the lyrics, but many were created by DuBose Heyward who first wrote the novel and then the subsequent play which George later converted into an opera.

After George died, it took Ira at least three years to get beyond his sadness and back into creating words for songs. He did eventually create more lyrics, however, for many more songs by such famous composers as Aaron Copland, Jerome Kern and Kurt Weill.

How fortunate we are that these two very different geniuses worked together so brilliantly.

On Reaching 75

This was Linda Jo's column for Friday, December 12, 2014.

Nine days ago I turned 75 and thus began my fourth quarter. Just before my birthday, I was introduced to a long essay by Ezekiel Emanuel, a prominent clinical bioethicist at the U.S. National Institutes of Health and head of the Department of Medical Ethics & Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania.

Emanuel is not 75 yet, but though he seems to be extremely bright, active and successful, he insists in his essay that he wants to live only to age 75.

As he puts it, “living too long is a loss. It renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived. It robs us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world.

It transforms how people experience us, relate to us, and, most important, remember us. We are no longer remembered as vibrant and engaged but as feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic.”

Unlike  Emanuel, however, I’m definitely not ready to die. Life can be difficult for older folks, that’s for sure. My memory has become much worse since open heart surgery and a stroke, but life is still extremely satisfying and enjoyable for me.

Besides, I seem to be appreciated by my family, my friends, and the folks I work for, including my bosses at the Enquirer, folks in charge of Meals on Wheels, faculty at Olivet College who know that I have volunteered at the Oak Chest since I retired 16 years ago, and my older students in the Institute for Learning in Retirement here in Battle Creek. I’ve taught over 30 classes for them through the Kellogg Community College.

I also play my violin many times each month, mostly for older folks who seem to be especially appreciative.

One very musical violin playing friend, Carole Merrick Ringer, was born on the same day as I was, back in 1939. We’ve been friends ever since we went to kindergarten together in Wilmette, Illinois, 70 years ago. Over the years she served as a paid professional with various symphonies in Illinois and still does a lot of volunteering these days with various organizations in the arts.

I would certainly admit that Emanuel is right in saying that after 75 people tend to accomplish less. I used to love to sew, for example, but these days I repair clothes only if really needed.

I used to love travel a lot, not only in our country but also spending three years teaching English in France. I spoke French quite well and could read books easily.

A few years later I also taught English for one year in South Korea. And still later, I spent three weeks with my dear pianist friends, Emily and Dan Byrens, in the Philippines, teaching and playing my violin with them.

These days, however, I truly don’t want to travel to any far-away place. I just appreciate staying home pursuing my various enjoyable activities here.  

Whereas I used to write poems a lot and even taught poetry writing, I never write them anymore.

Another sad aspect of getting old is losing one’s friends. A lady I knew who was in her mid 96s cried often, for most all of her long-time friends had died. But, as she wisely said, “The older you get, the more important it is to make younger friends.”

So far, therefore, I’m hoping to live longer. Besides, Emanuel is only 57 now, and it will be interesting to see how he’ll feel about death in 18 years, when he reaches 75.

Malnutrition, a column from July 2013

Last week there was the Battle Creek Enquirer preempted Linda Jo's
column, so here's an extra one from the archives.

I just read a most depressing article about the terrible effects of 
malnutrition, stating that it causes 45% of the deaths of young
children all over the world. These dreadful problems begin with
conception--or even before, if the mother is malnourished before
becoming pregnant.

“An estimated 900,000 lives could be saved in 34 countries if 10
proven nutritional interventions were scaled-up to 90% of the world,”
according to Helen Briggs, British broadcaster and member of BBC
News. She goes on to say that “Poor nutrition leads to the deaths of
about 3.1 million under-fives annually.”

I realize that other countries have worse problems of malnutrition
than ours, but even here in America, many families are suffering every
day from not having adequate and appropriate food to eat. And sad to
say, whatever the reason for their poverty, it’s their young children
who suffer the most.

The effects of all of this are incredibly tragic--and they are also,
according to Briggs, very expensive. As she puts it, “According to a
recent United Nations report, malnutrition is estimated to cost the
world $3.5 trillion dollars (£2.3 trillion in English terms)--or $500
for every person in the world in healthcare and lost productivity.”

A team led by Prof Robert Black, of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School
of Public Health, Baltimore, US, which has studied this terrible problem
ever since 2008, says that though there has been some recent
improvement, more than 165 million children had their height as well
as their general health--and even their minds--affected negatively in
2011 alone. And of that number, approximately 50 million have been
negatively affected by low weight and who knows how many have
been affected mentally.

One of the most depressing factors in all of this is that as the
population grows and people have to move into cities to find work,
inevitably farms will become less worked or will disappear altogether.
As a result, it will become even more difficult to feed millions
nourishing, fresh vegetables, especially in countries such as China
and India.

I surely wish America could do more to help this problem, but our
House and Senate seem to have trouble agreeing on anything. As a
result, they don’t seem to concern themselves sufficiently with
suffering in other countries--or even in our country.

I hate to sound excessively negative in my columns. It’s much more
enjoyable to talk about unselfish, productive, loving people and
concepts, and I try to emphasize the positive whenever I can, but this
whole world-wide problem of extreme malnutrition is a situation of
gravest concern.

I know that many conservatives feel that our government is handing
out food and money far too much, but in reality less than 1% of our
federal budget is given to other countries in foreign aid - see
http://borgenproject.org/foreign-aid-2/  I wish they would realize
just how great the needs are these days and how extremely harmful it
can all be to the young and hungry.

I just learned that the Methodist Church here in Bellevue has rented a
downtown building to use for free food for those who need it. That
church has been generous for many years, providing food from
downstairs of the church, but now they are expanding their program.
It seems to me that our country--our world--needs a lot more of this
kind of generosity.