Alma Dean Shropshire
Deanna(Dee Dee) Milgram
Melissa (Schock) Zaraya
Keith Kummer
Brad and Megan Meyers
Alma Dean Shropshire
When in high school, I had my first so-called date: seeing someone after school and talking. It was with a member of the orchestra, a ‘cello player. I was fascinated when she occasionally she rode to school on a motorcycle toting the instrument on the rack behind her. When my parents visited friends about 30 minutes from home, I would take the Plymouth for a “short drive” – about five miles – hoping to see Alma Dean “by chance.” When we finally had a going-somewhere-date, I took her to see a movie in “my” car. Later, back at her place after the movie, we stood at the back door, which she had opened, and talked. Her father soon called out, “Alma Dean, “it’s time to come in”. I winced and then when he said it again, we kissed quite unexpectedly, before saying goodbye. I didn’t sleep that night.
In the fall of 1952 I was assigned to Stewart AF base in Symrna, TN. On vacation leave in the spring of ‘53, I drove home to Philly and attended a wedding with my parents. At the reception I met the groom’s cousin, Dee Dee Milgram. Wow! She was engaging, beautiful and, most importantly, agreed to meet for a date. After two weeks in Philly, duty called. It was either return to Stewart or go AWOL. So we corresponded until I had accrued enough time for another leave. Back and forth, Symrna to Philly, until one day in ‘54 I learned that was I going to be transferred, either to Hickham Field in Hawaii or to Pepperrell AFB in St, Johns, Newfoundland. I had the choice. I wanted to see Hawaii but didn’t want to be so far away from Dee Dee. So I ended up going to Newfoundland. Mom would write and so would Dee Dee about her visiting my parents. After another round-robin to Philly followed by a two week trip to Greenland to entertain the troops, the letters became less frequent and Dee Dee finally told me that she had met someone. I was brokenhearted to say the least. My first love was history. After being discharged and returning to Philly in January 1956, I never found the where-with-all to call.
Sequel. In the fall of 2011, more than fifty years later, I did a Facebook search and found a “Deanna Reiseman” who looked like Dee Dee. A quick message confirmed what the photos revealed it was De De. Soon we were exchanging emails and sharing stories old and new. After a while (eight months), as I was recovering from a bout with pneumonia and its after affects, I had to end the email reunion but not the memories. We reconnected for a short time in 2020 and then said au revoir.
Melissa Baldwin (Schock) Zaraya
During my first summer session at Indiana University in 1957, I was assigned to play in the opera orchestra as second clarinet to Floyd Peterson for a IU SofM production of Tosca. Missy, a Bloomington High School student at the time, was also in the orchestra, a member of the violin section. The conductor was Wolfgang Vocano. After rehearsals a group of us would walk up South Highland street to our parked cars, rented rooms, apartments and, in Missy’s case to her parents home on the corner of Highland and Hunter Streets, just two blocks from the School of Music where her father, Fred Baldwin, was a professor of piano. In August 1961 after she graduated with our a Bachelor of Music degree (I was working on a Masters), we were married in her parents home at 704 E. First Street by the mayor of Bloomington, Tom Lemon.
In 1978, following seventeen years of marriage, we divorced.
While going through basic training at Sampson Air Force Base in NY, in 1951, I auditioned for the Empire State Band (ESB) on the same day I had been scheduled to interview for Flight Training. The former was in the morning and the latter that afternoon. After passing the audition, I had lunch in the mess hall and then met with three officers led by a major. During the interview the major asked if I had any other interest besides flying and I said music. He responded “have you done anything with it recently?” I told him about that morning’s audition and acceptance. He immediate stood up, shook my hand while saying “congratulations airman” The interview was over! I was dumbfounded to learn that I had been rejected for flight school because I had been accepted for the USAF Band.
During the following six months I performed with the ESB under the direction of Colonel Arnald Gabriel, un-affectionately known as “J. Roaringham Fatback”, a cartoon character in Al Capp’s Li’l Abner. I first heard that expression from one the band’s assistant conductors, Keith Kummer. Under Gabriel’s leadership, the ESB became known as perhaps the best AF Band in the country mainly because many of the musicians had graduated or had attended the Eastman School of Music in nearby Rochester, NY. This was time of the Korean War. Performing with that band was an extraordinary experience. It was especially exciting to be part of Friday afternoon retreats. After performing several marches hearing Gabriel say: “dismissed for weekend leave” was rewarding. If the band had not performed well, we might not have had the weekend off. Over the next few months I got to know and enjoy Keith’s witticisms and company. During that summer Colonel Gabriel was reassigned to become Commander and Conductor of the USAF Band in the the nation’s capital. It’s not speculation to say that he now wanted USAF DC Band to be the best. In short order a number of members of the ESB were reassigned to DC and other AF bands across the country. Mine assignment took me to Sewart AFB Band in Smyrna, TN. Keith, I and the other airmen parted not knowing if we’d see one another again. After serving in Tennessee and Newfoundland, I received my discharge and returned home to Philadelphia and soon thereafter headed to Bloomington to attend the Indiana University School of Music.
One day while in East Hall, the music school’s annex, I went to the men’s room and, while standing at the urinal, a tall person came in beside me. I glanced up and, to my surprise, it was Keith. After I said his name and he mine, he added “well you can bet I’m not shaking your hand now!” That was Keith. He was now professor of oboe at IUB and a member of the American Woodwind Quartet. It turned out that, after receiving an “early- out” from the AF – because he had serve more two years – he completed his degree at Eastman and had, subsequently, been hired to teach at IU. Our renewed friendship continued for the next six years when we, once again, departed; I on my way to Texas University of Arts and Industries and Keith to the University of Colorado School. Shortly after arriving in Boulder, he received an invitation to audition for the principal oboe chair in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO). After he was appointed to the position beginning the following year, he never unpacked. A couple of years later, I heard that the BSO had openings for Assistant Principal clarinet and Bass clarinet. At that time Missy and I were planning to leave Texas and head to San Francisco where one of my former clarinet teachers, Robert McGinnis, was principal clarinet. To learn more about the BSO openings I got in touch with Keith and decided to fly to Baltimore for an audition. Although I wasn’t chosen for the position, I ended up coming to Baltimore and, once again, we renewed our friendship which lasted until Keith’s death in October 2001. It had been just three month’s shy of fifty years since I had met him at Sampson Air Force Base in January 1951.
Joni Spence
In August 1984, after being divorced for six years, I was reading the Magazine section of the Sunday Baltimore Sun newspaper when an article about Together, an “executive” dating site, caught my attention. After visiting their offices in Timonium, MD, I signed up for 10 referrals and, after 9 brief and uninteresting “togethers”, I received a call and information about the 10th. At that point I was looking forward to calling it quits after one final meetup.
When I called a Joni Spence, she seemed in a rush; she had locked her keys in her car and had to rush home from work during lunch time to get a duplicate from her next door neighbor. It was a coincidence (some might call it fate) that she had been home when I called . Because she didn’t have time to talk, she gave me her work number and suggested that I call later that afternoon. When I called, the person answering said “Good afternoon, Gulf Oil, how may I help you?” I asked if Joni Spence was available? And she said “This is Joni.” I was somewhat surprised because the voice I heard during the initial call had been at least and octave higher. Given that there wasn’t the time to talk we agreed to meet for lunch and set a date and time before hanging up.
When I arrived at the Orchard Inn on Joppa road with 15 minutes to spare, I parked in front of a white painted, cinder block wall and began to review some documents while sitting in the car. At noon it was time to meet number 10 for lunch. When I walked into the lobby of the restaurant I could hardly see because my eyes had been dilated by the bright wall. I was, however, able to make out a figure in a blue dress standing there; it was Joni. When the maître d’ was about to seat us, Joni suggested I sit to her side rather than face to face. Well that was different and somewhat peaked my interest. During lunch she explained that I too was number 10 for her. After a long lunch, we left the restaurant agreed to be in touch after she returned from vacation and I from taking Lisa to Massachusetts where she would begin UMass in September. I later found out that she had already missed her evaluation that afternoon because of our extended lunch.
Our next get together took us to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor for dinner and the beginning of a relationship ending in marriage on January 4, 1986, a year-and-a-half after that fateful first call during the summer of ‘84.
During the first 10 years of my woodshop retirement, I must have saved every unused scrap of wood from projects I had completed as well as from those discarded. They were everywhere: in the shop in boxes, stored on shelves as well as in two storage sheds. My thought was, someday I might be able to use them. One day I realized that I no longer knew what I had and being a wood hoarder was unacceptable. To remedy the situation, I joined Freecycle.com and posted and offer for “hardwood scraps.” In response, Brad and Megan drove an hour from Taneytown, MD to Upperco to check out the offer. During our ensuing conversation, I learned that Brad was a civil engineer who worked as an administrator for the Maryland State Highway Department. He explained that his woodworking had been limited to crafting rings, bracelets and pens on a bench-top lathe. And, in fact, he had some of his pieces displayed in craft stores on consignment. Both Brad and Megan were very engaging and, as we talked, he asked if I would be interested in mentoring him so he could expand his woodworking interests. My only question was: isn’t Taneytown a long way from Upperco? He said that wouldn’t be a problem. Afterall, he commuted to downtown Baltimore. Soon thereafter we started on his first project: a front-tilting waste-bin enclosure for their kitchen. Working together on that initial project was the beginning of a longstanding friendship. As the years passed, Brad worked on more challenging projects culminating in a Hal Taylor style rocking chair. As time passed Brad contemplated building a stand alone workshop on his property in Taneytown. I couldn’t have been more delighted when it was completed several years later. In March 2020, Brad assisted me in a rocking chair presentation to the Howard County Woodworkers Guild. Because of the Covis-19 pandemic, we haven’t been able to visit since then, some eight months now.