Norm Whitman’s ‘Stories We Could Tell’ & ‘Detours’

I want to tip my virtual hat to Norm Whitman, a gentlemen I’ve only met a few times over the past 30 years, but whom has been an inspiration, a mentor and a friend. Norm hosted a ‘folk’ radio show on WYSO 91.3 FM Yellow Springs, OH up until his last show on September 27, 2014.

I first found when I entered Antioch College in fall 1987. I know I still have a number of cassettes of songs I found through his show. I met him at the station a few times, where I did a 2AM – 6AM show for a few months (before I realized that was ridiculous). It’s no accident I ended up hosting a folk radio show when I moved to Maine. Anyone who did a close comparison to my favorite artists, song selections, and song associations would realize that my show was just a pale imitation to the true art that was happening in the Miami Valley of SW Ohio. Certainly my choices of some more politically themed music, both old and new, were inspired by Norm’s shows and even a number of artists I hosted ‘house concerts’ with and now consider friends were first brought to my attention via Norm’s show.

To quote Mike Agranoff’s story ‘The Ballad of the Sandman’, where it’s narrator calls their hero and fellow DJ and says “I listen to your show because it’s better far than mine.“

Oh and, not that anyone from WYSO is likely ever going to see this, but I have believe they are making a mistake in letting Norm go off the air. If they had perhaps found another local host to do a show I think I’d feel better but they, once again, replaced his show with something produced ‘from away’; “Peabody Award-winning “Studio 360 from PRI and WNYC” is public radio’s smart and surprising guide to what’s happening in pop culture and the arts“. Oh yay! (sarcasm), a (syndicated) show about ‘pop culture’. Sorry WYSO, it’s been a great run but I’m tuning out and will focus my streaming exclusively to WERU

You can read a little bit more about Norm here http://acousticmusicscene.com/2014/09/28/ohio-folk-dj-norm-whitman-retires/

And WYSO has an interview with him posted on their site at http://wyso.org/post/host-highlights-norm-whitman

I started recording Norm’s shows in April 2010 and posting them in a ‘secret’ archive so I could podcast them. Later I mentioned to Norm that I had these recordings and I believe on a few occasions he’s used them to get copies of on the air interviews that were not recorded at the station.

This ‘secret’ archive is at http://baya.net/norm/ and I know I’ll be listening to them for a long while as I hope others will too.

In Norm’s final playlist posting to FolkDJ-L he wrote “It was and always has been an honor to be at WYSO for these last 30 plus years”

Well Norm, to quote Tom Paxton’s song ‘The Honor of Your Company’;

So, thank you for the honor of your company;
The music was as sweet as the good red wine.
Thanks for the company,
And thanks for the harmony,
I’m here to say the honor was all mine.

Thanks again for all the music and jokes and .. well just everything. Best wishes on your new adventures, I’ll be following them closely on Facebook and if I’m ever in SW Ohio again I owe you at least a coffee if not a full meal and big hug for all you’ve done for me and the folk and roots music communities.

We had to put our dog Seeger down on Tuesday morning. He was 14.5 years old, possibly older since we got him as a rescue in September 2000 and didn’t really know how old he was. See a copy of our e-mail to friends from fall 2000 about the story of how we got him.

emandseeger — Emily and Seeger – Fall 2000

Seeger was a mixed breed dog, probably a lab, rottweiler mix though possibly some Newfoundland. He was listed in ‘Uncle Henry’s as a Newfoundland mix I suspect that’s what Uncle Henry’s lists any large black dog as. He was 90 lbs when we got him but over the years, and after his knees and hips started bothering him, he got up to 125lbs or so.

When we first brought him home he was crazy, running laps in the house, never slowing down. He was just so excited to not be tied outside to a tree and to be with people he just couldn’t relax. We finally kept him on a leash in the house just to keep him under control. We almost gave him away, listing him in Uncle Henry’s as ‘free to a good home’ but by the time the ad ran he had snuck into our hearts and we couldn’t let him go.

In fact when I would walk him and let him off the leash in the woods near our house he would run down the path ahead of me a few hundred feet and then turn around and come charging back at full speed and would run right into me. I cant imagine this wasn’t painful for him but he would get up and do it again. I got very good at bracing myself or dodging at the last moment 🙂

We tried to crate train him for a while but he HATED it. We’d put him in it at night and when we went to work but he’d just bark and bark and bark… and bark and bark and bark. We figured eventually he’d get over it and but he just really hated that crate. Finally one night I let him sleep on the living room floor. No barking. No chewed furniture, just a very happy dog sleeping quietly. So we tried leaving him alone in the house outside the crate. No problems at all. Hallelujah!

He also really disliked thunder. We suspect this was a symptom from him being chained outside to a tree for god knows how long before we got him. But as soon as there we thunder claps he’d started breathing faster and would come over close to us.

When we first brought him home he was very interested in the cats but eventually got used to them and pretty much ignored them. One of our ‘kittens’ we got in Maine, Marcus, even started walking over and nuzzelling Seeger in the morning.

When we brought home Oberon, our newfoundland puppy, in March 2001 Seeger was extremely happy we had brought him an interactive chew toy. No amount of trying to explain to him that this little 25lb puppy was going to (very soon) outweigh him and the two would rough house and roll around with each other for hours. As we expected. Oberon soon grew much bigger than him but they still would play together. They made a good pair, the big black lab mix and the excessively big Newfie.

Ironically, even though he was named after folk singer Pete Seeger he had a strong aversion to guitar or banjo. (Or maybe it was just Matt’s lack of skill on these instruments), but he would get up and leave as soon as either started making any noise.

He was a big sweet dog, very tolerant of having kids climb all over him. After his initial few months of craziness he eventually mellowed down to our speed and became a very calm and tolerant sweet dog. At one point a vet joked that he was so mellow they thought they could probably perform surgery on him without anesthetics.

Sometime a few years ago his knees and hips started becoming and issue and he slowed down. He couldn’t take long walks any more, he’d just wait while I took Oberon ahead. But he hung in there and even started climbing the stairs at night to sleep by our bed. This was no small feat for a large dog with knee & hip problems, it was a huff and puff for 10 seconds. He kept up this pattern of coming up to our bed until his last days, which was very sweet especially considering the effort it involved on his part.

He was our first dog and it’s hard to realize he’s not lying on the floor nearby anymore. While he hasn’t been ‘active’ for years he was always nearby. We were lucky to have him and he will be sorely missed.

This video was from 2002 or so, Oberon is still a bit ‘puppy-ish’ in it but you get the idea of what he and Seeger were like together. The song in it, “He’s a Good Dog’ is by Fred Eaglesmith.

Finally, for the record here’s probably way more photos than anyone but us would care to look at of Seeger.