Dad | pictured words

February 2, 2023

This music is the picture and the poem

This audio clip is selected from a 1972 Poland Seminary High School band concert in Poland, Ohio, under the direction of my father, James Fagnano. The clarinet student featured is Ralph Lutz.

This was an extraordinary group of dedicated, passionate student musicians. Dad brought out the best in them — and they, in him. Over the years, I began to wonder if my memories of these high school students sounding more like a fantastic college or even professional musicians was simply overblown in my head. I’m thankful for these recordings. This band was every bit as good as I recall.

Per Kevin Cook, who, with Richard Woolford, kindly contacted me to get some of Dad’s music into my sister’s and my hands, these few selections are from “recordings made on Richard Woolford’s tape recorder, which Mark Kostyk made copies of and ultimately digitized. Since Rick was in band, Ralph Hutchinson served as the recording engineer. Kudos to Ralph for his diligent work. I contacted Rick and asked if he would allow me to share these recordings with others and he gave me his blessing.”

Guys, I can’t thank you enough. Warm smile and hugs to you all.

This second selection is titled Bugler’s Holiday (1972). The featured soloists are Loren Popio, Steve Alleman, and Karl Ivansen.

This third selection is titled Tone Poem (1970).

The fourth is titled Variations on a Korean Folk Song (1969).

I would love to share all I was given.

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November 18, 2020

MASK IN 17 SYLLABLES

Dad used to say, “Don’t
mistake kindness for weakness.”
Good words for these times.

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August 16, 2020

Home is where I watch the Buckeyes with Dad

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As August slips into the back side,
and daylight is squeezed
into fewer hours,
I miss the distant sound
of drum cadence,
bringing in a new season.
In just a couple weeks,
Dad and I would have had
our decades-long ritual
of gathering in front of the T.V.
and saying (as though it is a surprise),
“Can you believe it is already
the first game of the season?
Didn’t the season just end?”

It didn’t matter whose home we
were in,

until it did.

Those final years, he became too frail,
and it became harder,
and then impossible,
to get Mom out the door.
So we would haul food to their place,
and hope Dad could stay awake
and out of the bathroom
for most of the game.
We hoped he could enjoy it
a fraction of what he used to.

The lamp that was part of each home
Mom and Dad called theirs
now lights my front window
as I write poems
about football
and marching bands
and drum cadence
and Mom
and Dad.

Because poems
and their light
are all that remain.

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June 21, 2020

YESTERDAYS (Father’s Day 2020 Sonnet for my Dad)

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Just one more chance to hear your drum set swing,
And feel the pride well up inside my core.
And I believe I’d give most anything
To watch as you conduct a band once more.

To hear you call Mom Sweet Pea one more time,
And see the love for her in aging eyes
That cleaved to days of youth, well past their prime,
Embracing the enchantment love implies.

From time to time, I feel as though you’re near.
I sometimes hear your words play through my mind.
Oh how I’d love to linger for a year
While you are here, and death is left behind.

Though we may try to hold what fades away,
Our yesterdays were never meant to stay.

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November 7, 2019

Voice from 1972

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Had I the chance to sit silently alone in this no-longer new auditorium, might I have heard the echo of your voice? The music you conducted? My younger hands applauding?

It seemed so.

**************

Being back in the PSHS auditorium this week for the first time since the mid-1970’s seemed a bit surreal. Pride welled in me as they honored Dad, and a very large part of me would have given anything to return to that time in my life. Not permanently, but for another round. Or two.

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July 28, 2019

All About the Love

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Dad was a teacher, a band director, and a professional musician. In all of these professions, he was my father. I was always learning in his presence. He gave everything one hundred percent. I hear, in his voice: “Nothing great was ever accomplished without enthusiasm.” “Take it with you. If you need it, you’ll have it.” “Do your best.” “Practice right.” “Never look back. Just move forward.” “No regrets.” “Love is the most important thing.”

All of it, important. All of it, useful. All of it, wise.

There were times I was privileged to witness him at his core. Times that planted pride and love in my heart that I can hardly express. One of the things that made my knees weak came very late in life. I was sitting with a now extremely fragile man who was watching the love of his life slip slowly away, due to Alzheimer’s. “I’m not sure how to handle the coming day when I go to her room to kiss her goodnight, and she doesn’t know who I am.” My heart. The conversation was one of the hardest of my life. But also one that showed me he was still, in his elderly and fragile state, my father. As we talked about dark days ahead that could begin any moment, he gave me advice that encompassed all he was: “No matter what happens, remember her love.”

Love enthusiastically.
Love takes practice. Practice daily.
Take love with you. If you need it, you’ll have it.
(You’ll need it.)

Thank you, Dad. Thank you.

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March 21, 2018

FINAL ACT OF FATHERHOOD (a sonnet filled with love for my dad)

James F. Fagnano
January 7, 1932 – March 15, 2018

As you declined in health, we traded roles.
You, once a leader, now deferred to me.
Our switched positions jolted and left holes.
An altered beat, but how it had to be.

Your mind became confused, and body, frail.
I know you mourned your slipping stance as dad.
But in the end, your core was what prevailed –
Your father-teacher heart was ironclad.

I wanted terribly to be with you
When your heart halted beat, and breathed its last.
I told you I’d be back in “just a few.”
That short time I was gone, was when you passed.

It wasn’t happenstance. I think in fact,
It was a father’s final loving act.

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January 7, 2017

SONNET FOR MY DAD

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My father earned a living teaching youth.
He shared with them the music of his core.
He showed them how to honor life and truth,
And gave his time to all who graced his door.

My father is a man to emulate –
A man who holds to ethical ideals.
And even now, though years have slowed his gait,
They haven’t marred the crux of what he feels.

My father’s love is deep; allegiance strong.
His charity continues to abound.
He taught me well to judge what’s right and wrong,
To gather stars, while keeping feet aground.

And so it is I pen this gift through tears –
I thank my God for granting us these years.

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July 4, 2016

LOOKING BACK / FORWARD MARCH

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We line the street
Despite the heat;
Await the beat
Of drums.

The cadence stirs
My heart, and spurs
Excitement! Here
It comes!

The Stars and Stripes
And countless types
Of instruments
Pass by.

The pride I feel
Is deep and real
Beneath mid-
Summer’s sky.

My father’s band,
Baton in hand
Directing more
Than tunes.

His students find
He’s guided minds
And morals
Many moons.

Time marched along
So fast. So long,
Oh fleeting song
Of summer.

Now winter’s come
And slowed the drum –
But oh, I love
The drummer.

(With love and great respect for Dad … drummer, conductor, teacher, mentor, father)

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July 7, 2014

TEACHER (to Dad with Love)

Photo credit: Sheryl Oder

“But how do you thank someone who has taken you from crayons to perfume?” (Don Black’s To Sir with Love)

Students from yesteryear gather to honor him.
I see the pride well and spill.
Not arrogance or superiority, but a grounded wonder
As he processes the ripples initiated
By his long-passed presence in their lives.

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