Mood: ‘My Way’, Frank Sinatra.
It Happens When You Aren’t Looking For ‘It’
OA few months ago, I stumbled on a Passion Project. Truth be told, it was more of a revisiting. It just felt is was time to do something about it. That sense of ‘now is the time’ is something I have learned to listen to.
This Passion Project came to mind when I took a trip up to see my sister-in-law, who has never been that, she has always been ‘sister’. At any rate, the trip was to take possession of several boxes of my brother Doug’s things that she had no real room for but did not wish to just get rid of. This is the brother whose 5th anniversary of his passing is this May 9th. In one of the boxes were the recordings of a radio serial he had written and directed in 1992 as his graduation project from university. It is a very humorous and witty space opera, of a kind, that harkens back to radio and movie serials where each episode ends with a cliff-hanger that is resolved in some hilariously farcical manner.
At the time, I had thought it would be a neat thing to get them all onto a CD collection in a kind of memorial edition for any of the cast mates he was still in contact with at the time of his passing. I contacted a few of them to see if they’d be interested in relaying any memories they had to form some liner notes for such a project. Several thought it was a grand idea…and Life continued on, with the day-to-day need to attend work and such, and so there was no more forward momentum on it.
Passion Project Knocks Again
This is where the serendipity comes in: I cannot say what brought it to mind again or why, maybe it was Doug’s birthday at the end of January, but sometime around then, the idea of the project came back with some force. As I was thinking, again, of contacting places that could format the .wav files I have to CDs and places that could print the insert and so on, it occurred to me to simply post them in the original weekly format on that most popular social media site.
There were two promo recordings included in the files I have, and I was stunned to find out that the first episode was broadcast on February 10th, 1992, a date that was a week ahead of finding this info!! As well, I had determined to post them weekly on Fridays, as that is one of my days off, and though it was originally broadcast on Mondays, the same episode was rebroadcast on Fridays, so things were serendipping quite nicely!
A Double Dose of Serendipity!
This last Friday was the posting of the final episode. I have said before that the 9th of May was the day we loss Doug. Not only did this seem fitting as a tribute to him and his work as an actor and director, but the 5th of May, the day it posted, is his daughter’s birthday.
These may all be ‘just’ coincidences, however I would not wish to calculate the odds of them all occurring as they did!
It was great fun to go through each episode and write about bits that Doug had in them that came directly from things in our past, jokes and family things that lent humor and levity to the tale. Memories were thick and tangible things during the almost two months of taking on this project.
The most exciting thing happened 31 years ago, though, when I was visiting Doug to attend his graduation from the university program. The day I got here, he was recording the last part of the last episode. He handed me a script and asked me to read the four or five lines of a minor soldier dude! That memory may top them all in the re-listening and forging ahead with the project.
But the Passion is still there to get it done in hard copy format…
Be well, be happy, and tell those you love that you do!
