Joe and Me 1969
This was taken over the summer in 1969 at the Latham's home in Northern Virginia. Our two families have been close friends forever. Joe's father -- called "Uncle Bob", usually derisively, by everyone, including his own children -- was one of my two godfathers in the Episcopal church. Uncle Bob was an unabashed racist who wore a "S.P.O.N.G.E." button on his lapel for an entire session of school; asked what the acronym meant, he'd reply, "The Society for the Prevention Of Negroes from Getting Everything." That kind of racist. My godfather.
Mrs. Latham I loved, though. "Ella". Petite, elegantly-dressed, refined, and cuter than a bucket of bunnies (Joe and I are seated in her parlor in the photo above). Ella looked like a freckled, matronly version of Debbie Reynolds. The last time I saw her was at a memorial service for Uncle Bob at Episcopal High School in 1987 where I managed to get a really lovely photo of her greeting Mr. Callaway, who had just delivered a brief, but elegant summary of Uncle Bob's career.
(Mr. Callaway was 99 at the time and had taught geometry at the school from 1915-85, when he was forced to retire because he was getting blind. After taking the picture of him and Ella Latham, I walked up to him and told him who I was -- I hadn't seen him since the school's memorial service for my dad in 1968. "Well, Willie!" he exclaimed. "You live in Texas now, don't you? And Ruthie...she's in Washington, DC? She still work for The Smithsonian Magazine? I thought so. Alicia, Alicia's...let's see Alicia's living with that divorce lawyer, I think. And your mother's in Charleston?" I was dumbstruck by this old man's knowledge of the current events in the lives of people he knew and loved but never saw anymore.)
Joe dropped out of school when his girlfriend, a folksinger, got pregnant. He was a gifted guitarist, but became widely known among musicians as a brilliant guitar maker. His pearl inlays are considered second to none. One night in '73 Buffy Sainte Marie came to have a drink at the bar I worked in Nashville (she had a White Russian if anyone asks) and during the course of the evening asked me where I was from. I told her that, until I'd moved to Nashville after graduation from college, I'd lived my whole life in Alexandria, Va.
"Alexandria? Do you know Joe Latham?" Her companion thought I was lying when I said I'd grown up with him, but I knew enough details about Joe to convince them otherwise.
Joe's younger sister Sarah was a year younger than my sister Ruthie. She became an antiques dealer and appraiser after graduating from college. I was watching 'Antiques Roadshow" one night on PBS and saw Sarah expertly appraise some guy's antique wooden cabinet for him. I later heard from Ruthie that Sarah dropped any further connection with the show after the exposure of a "Roadshow" scandal, involving another appraiser and a collector's rigging the appraisal of some old handguns on the show. The segment was later removed from the program's future broadcasts, but Sarah apparently felt that the program's integrity had been compromised and wanted to disassociate herself from it completely.
Among Joe's musician friends was Janis Joplin. The summer of 1969 he got word from her that she was going to drop by his shop in Alexandria after a concert in Georgetown in Washington, DC, just 8 miles away. He invited me and my girlfriend Kitty (who was studying drama in DC that summer) and some other friends to come over that night to meet her; we waited for about three hours outside his shop, but she never showed.
Joe and Me 1969
This was taken over the summer in 1969 at the Latham's home in Northern Virginia. Our two families have been close friends forever. Joe's father -- called "Uncle Bob", usually derisively, by everyone, including his own children -- was one of my two godfathers in the Episcopal church. Uncle Bob was an unabashed racist who wore a "S.P.O.N.G.E." button on his lapel for an entire session of school; asked what the acronym meant, he'd reply, "The Society for the Prevention Of Negroes from Getting Everything." That kind of racist. My godfather.
Mrs. Latham I loved, though. "Ella". Petite, elegantly-dressed, refined, and cuter than a bucket of bunnies (Joe and I are seated in her parlor in the photo above). Ella looked like a freckled, matronly version of Debbie Reynolds. The last time I saw her was at a memorial service for Uncle Bob at Episcopal High School in 1987 where I managed to get a really lovely photo of her greeting Mr. Callaway, who had just delivered a brief, but elegant summary of Uncle Bob's career.
(Mr. Callaway was 99 at the time and had taught geometry at the school from 1915-85, when he was forced to retire because he was getting blind. After taking the picture of him and Ella Latham, I walked up to him and told him who I was -- I hadn't seen him since the school's memorial service for my dad in 1968. "Well, Willie!" he exclaimed. "You live in Texas now, don't you? And Ruthie...she's in Washington, DC? She still work for The Smithsonian Magazine? I thought so. Alicia, Alicia's...let's see Alicia's living with that divorce lawyer, I think. And your mother's in Charleston?" I was dumbstruck by this old man's knowledge of the current events in the lives of people he knew and loved but never saw anymore.)
Joe dropped out of school when his girlfriend, a folksinger, got pregnant. He was a gifted guitarist, but became widely known among musicians as a brilliant guitar maker. His pearl inlays are considered second to none. One night in '73 Buffy Sainte Marie came to have a drink at the bar I worked in Nashville (she had a White Russian if anyone asks) and during the course of the evening asked me where I was from. I told her that, until I'd moved to Nashville after graduation from college, I'd lived my whole life in Alexandria, Va.
"Alexandria? Do you know Joe Latham?" Her companion thought I was lying when I said I'd grown up with him, but I knew enough details about Joe to convince them otherwise.
Joe's younger sister Sarah was a year younger than my sister Ruthie. She became an antiques dealer and appraiser after graduating from college. I was watching 'Antiques Roadshow" one night on PBS and saw Sarah expertly appraise some guy's antique wooden cabinet for him. I later heard from Ruthie that Sarah dropped any further connection with the show after the exposure of a "Roadshow" scandal, involving another appraiser and a collector's rigging the appraisal of some old handguns on the show. The segment was later removed from the program's future broadcasts, but Sarah apparently felt that the program's integrity had been compromised and wanted to disassociate herself from it completely.
Among Joe's musician friends was Janis Joplin. The summer of 1969 he got word from her that she was going to drop by his shop in Alexandria after a concert in Georgetown in Washington, DC, just 8 miles away. He invited me and my girlfriend Kitty (who was studying drama in DC that summer) and some other friends to come over that night to meet her; we waited for about three hours outside his shop, but she never showed.