Uncle Paul and Aunt Vi

Give Me Jesus ~ Spirituals; The Moses Hogan Singers; Barbara Hendricks, soprano

Every once in a while, on the way home from church, Dad would say, “When we get home, I’m gonna feed the cows, let’s have a quick bite to eat … and then let’s go visit Uncle Paul and Aunt Vi.” Typically, whenever Dad made that announcement, there was a celebration of jubilee in the back seat. My sisters and I spent some of the best Sunday summer afternoons of our lives at the home of our Uncle Paul and Aunt Vi. What about our favorite great aunt and uncle captivated us? To be sure, lots of things.

Number one: a cuckoo clock. We didn’t know anybody else who had one. Parents, take note. Few things will quiet the children more than the anticipation of an impending cuckoo.

Number two: a windmill. When we turned south of the main highway that came west out of Oldham, South Dakota, we could see an old windmill that appeared on the horizon right after a rise in the gravel road. It amused all of us to no end because it looked like it stood right in the middle of the road, and that, were we to drive a little further than Uncle Paul and Aunt Vi’s farm, we would have to drive around it.

Number three: a magnificent backyard. Our aunt and uncle had thinned out the trees in the backyard just enough to provide a canopy from the hot rays of the sun. They had a huge stone chimney barbeque grill right in the middle of it all.

Number four: the coolest barn ever. We had a barn on our own farm, of course, and many hours of good times were had there by my sisters and me. But Uncle Paul’s barn had a haymow full of fresh hay and a Tarzan vine from which to plunge into the heaps of dried grass and alfalfa. If you have a mother, it is best not to tell her how much fun you can have in a barn until you are thirty-seven.

Number five: a reel-to-reel tape player. We listened to a seemingly endless barrage of stories from Bill Cosby one evening.

Number six: five hundred photo albums. We would sit in chairs and pour for hours over pictures of families, trips, graduations, baptisms and weddings. My sisters and I learned a lot about our family history by looking at those photo albums and listening to Uncle Paul and Aunt Vi tell stories.

Number seven: lunch. Aunt Vi must have had a section of the refrigerator set aside for when our family came over. She could lay out such a spread – usually involving cookies and pumpkin bread.

I could also tell you about a motorcycle, a spookhouse in the barn, a vegetable garden in last year’s cowyard, family picnics, new tractors and a bank of toys. Uncle Paul had that zest for life and story-telling that characterized the wagon load of Aplands that drove up to South Dakota out of Iowa one summer in the late 1800’s. He found a woman who matched his ardor, ounce for passionate ounce. And, together, they passed on their joie de vivre to three sons; who have also done the same.

In the fall of 1995, Dr. C. told me, “Erik, you have to come up and listen to my choir sing ‘Joshua Fit De Battle Of Jericho.” Ah, the old chestnut. “Oh, no. I have the new arrangement by Moses Hogan.” Moses Hogan. Moses Hogan. Moses Hogan. Where have I heard that name before? “I don’t know, but the brother can arrange a spiritual, I can tell you dat.” Moses Hogan. Moses Ho…

Ah, HA!! Yes!! I remember!! Moses Hogan was the pianist who played Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky piano concertos with the Minnesota Pops Orchestra under Mitch Miller at Orchestra Hall so many years before; the night that I knew that I wanted to be a professional musician. After hearing how Mr. Hogan had transformed this traditional spiritual into a heated sermon, I knew that I needed more.

In January of 2003, I received the news that Uncle Paul had passed. I couldn’t go to the funeral. So I did the next best thing. I dug through my CD’s, searching for solace amongst the spirituals sung by the Moses Hogan Singers and soprano Barbara Hendricks. After finding it, I commissioned them to bear me up in light of this segment of childhood that had slipped away. They failed me only once – when they sang that ….

There’s a man going round taking names.

There’s a man going round taking names.

He has taken my father’s name,

And he’s left my heart in pain.

There’s a man going round taking names.

__________

Death is that man taking names.

Death is that man taking names.

He has taken my mother’s name,

And he’s left my heart in pain

Death is that man taking names.

__________

There’s a man going round taking names.

There’s a man going round taking names.

He has taken my brother’s name,

And he’s left my heart in pain.

There’s a man going round taking names.

I listened to this album twice within a month. The second time I heard it was upon the death of Moses Hogan, himself. He died on February 11, 2003, at the age of forty-five of a brain tumor. Within a month, two stalwart men,my favorite uncle and the man who awoke the inspiration for a musical career, entered the heavenly farm and concert hall of the Lord. These were “growing-up” moments.

Credits: To my great-grandfather Elias Apland, for moving to South Dakota. I hope you were as happy to move there as I was to grow up there.

This is the thirtieth of my final forty-five CD’s.