Word: roomful
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...daughter came to the door in hysterics. We found him lying flat on his back in bed, wheezing and gasping for breath. He could only talk in spurts when the attack eased momentarily. My father grabbed the phone and called a hospital, and I was left alone in the room with George. He gasped for breath, stared at me. "You the one now, Tommy," he said suddenly. He thought he was dying. "I had a good life," he gasped, "I made history." He thought these words were to be among his last, probably. "It all come on me so fast...
...opened the door and saw maybe two hundred people crowded around, talking quietly to one another. Some were sitting on folding chairs, some were standing up in the back of the room. The hallway was jammed and two other rooms were full of people. Every musician I knew was in there: the old men, the young foreigners, women, children, black and white. There were brief smiles and handshakes and soft words. There were tears. There were cameras and floodlights, and reporters from magazines...
...front of the room sat a handsome old black man in a mason's uniform. Behind him was a cloth-covered casket, surrounded by gay wreaths of flowers. One wreath was in the shape of a clarinet. Another was a mason's insignia. Above the casket was a stained-glass portrait of Jesus, lit from behind. I went up to the casket and looked down. There was a small black man inside it in a mason's uniform. it was George Lewis...
...ARRIVED at Buster's just in time for the funeral. Some for the old musicians in their black parade hats were coming out of the little bar room and chatting excitedly with one another. There was a tremendous crowd of people out in the street--mostly black children and teen-agers. The brass instruments and little gold letters on the parade hats glistened in the bright sunshine. They seemed very jolly, and I guessed everyone had been tanking up in Buster's for a good while. Emanuel Paul grinned with a look of mock surprise when he recognized...
...little white wooden building--Blandin Funeral Home--we played another hymn, "Just a Little While to Stay Here." Then the crowd stood around waiting for them to bring the body out so the music could start again. Most of the musicians went over to a little bar room across the street for beer and shade from the sun. The heat was almost unbearable...