"Rejoice Dear Hearts"

By Peter Cavanaugh

"Rejoice Dear Hearts" is a follow-up to 2012's "No Irish Need Apply" by Peter Cavanaugh. It is a compilation of Mr. Cavanaugh's columns as published in The Sierra Star, a McClatchy publication, and other essays and scribbled notations from 2013, primarily cultural and progressively political.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peter Cavanaugh
• Release date: Mar 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310729065

Peter Cavanaugh

At the age of sixteen in 1957, Peter C. Cavanaugh enjoyed a fifty-eight percent total audience share on his hometown station, WNDR in Syracuse, New York. Decades later, he’s written a book about his adventures ever since, promoting and producing literally hundreds of early concerts with the likes of Chuck Berry, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Bob Seger, Ted Nugent, Alice Cooper, Kiss and so on, as well as running a seven station radio group which included the top-rated Rock ‘n’ Roll stations in America. Peter lives in Oakhurst, California, with his wife, Eileen.

Book preview

FOREWORD

On May 31, 2013, Eileen and I were together with all four daughters (each one lovelier than the other three) and eleven grandchildren (each one smarter then the other ten) for the first time in six years. It was a Cavanaugh Family Reunion occasioned by the graduation from High School of our oldest grandson, Will Pyron, in Middletown, Ohio, just north of Cincinnati.

When I decided to do a follow-up to last year’s No Irish Need Apply with another compilation of essays, Sierra Star columns and other scribbled notations from 2013, I thought I would lead off with two particular pieces referencing my thoughts on the demonstrable value of a Jesuit education as reflected in the actions of our new Jesuit Pope. Relax. It’s all cool stuff.

Since protocol required some sort of graphic depiction of the book title, the cover picture of our family get together in Ohio seemed absolutely perfect, although having almost nothing to do with Chapters One and Two of this collection, other than in a lovingly abstractive way.

"Rejoice Dear Hearts" generally follows the year 2013 chronologically, picking things up where "No Irish Need Apply" leaves off and ending with my final column of the year, "Getting It."

With the Republican Party of early 2014 almost as torn as our national political profile as a whole, it’s a fine time to get in the game and hang on for a great ride ahead.

It’s important to pay taxes, but even more important paying attention.

Then – trust yourself.

Peter Cavanaugh

Oakhurst California

March 17, 2014

Chapter One – Rejoice Dear Hearts

As any of our four daughters and eleven grandchildren would surely testify, my primary philosophical observation about life in general and any subject in particular all comes down to this: It’s all in how you look at it. All in how you study it. For me, this really does seem to say it all.

I herein pay tribute to my original source for such a deceptively simple and powerfully influential and inspirational saying, that being one Brother Dave Gardner.

Brother Dave was a singer/comedian from Jackson, Tennessee. After a one-semester term as a Southern Baptist ministerial student at Union University, he began a musical career as a drummer and vocalist. He started filling time between songs with stream-of-conscious commentary and was surprised when he discovered his audiences came to see his comedic routines rather than music, even though Dave had a national Top 20 hit in 1957 with an instrumental called, White Silver Sands.

Legendary RCA artist Chet Atkins was amazed with Brother Dave and produced a comedy album in 1959 that catapulted Gardner into national prominence. Rejoice, Dear Hearts! sold a million copies. Numerous appearances on The Tonight Show continued his ascent into the entertainment stratosphere, but arrest for marijuana possession in 1962 brought his career to a screeching halt. This was seven years before Woodstock. He died of a heart attack in 1983 at the age of 57.

Many folks considered Dave Gardner to be blatantly Conservative. In the early 1980s, Texas Oilman H. L. Hunt moved Brother Dave and his wife to Dallas, but soon became disenchanted with Gardner’s alcohol and drug abuse. Simultaneously, Gardner was often quoted in the Liberal press for telling it like it is, particularly his strong opposition to American involvement in Vietnam. Referencing his own experiences, Gardner would say,  I was in World War Two and I saw lots of blood spilled, but it never sent anyone to Heaven.

Those who knew him report it was impossible pinning Gardner down on anything given his amazing proclivity to verbally dance between subjects, positions and ideas with lightning rapidity, juxtaposing all elements at every turn. The universal consensus was — Brother Dave Gardner made you think.

I’m sure that’s why I took to him so quickly. Brother Dave Gardner was like a Jesuit!

I was particularly blessed in my youth receiving the benefit of a four-year Jesuit education at Le Moyne College in Syracuse. I still often tell friends, The Sisters at Cathedral School taught me WHAT to think, but the Jesuits at Le Moyne taught me HOW to think.

The essence of Jesuit instruction is to present as many sides of a given topic as possible, then insist you make up your own mind without claiming absolute certitude. The Jesuits are often said to be the intellectual vanguard of the Catholic Church — a distinction historically supported by being booted out or suppressed individually and as a group by The Vatican more than once. A Doctor of Philosophy from Syracuse University who taught one senior class in Theology at Le Moyne was an atheist.

So I delight in talking with everyone about everything.

I just finished communicating with John Pero, Central Valley Tea Party Coordinator, about a Gun Control meeting scheduled for Oakhurst. I enjoy my conversations with John and have applauded his dedication to civic involvement in print as well as in person, even though we hold widely disparate views on many national issues.

I look forward to hosting Madera County Sheriff John Anderson, a fine Republican, at our March 2nd Meeting of the Democratic Club of Oakhurst. With the Ole’ Kettle gone, we’ve moved to Sweetwater Steak House for a while. Sheriff Anderson will be bringing us all up to date on various local law enforcement fronts and will be glad to answer any questions raised.

I remain continually impressed by District Five Supervisor Tom Wheeler’s Town Meetings at our Community Center and again urge everyone to be at the next one here or in Ahwahnee, Coarsegold, North Fork or Raymond. Tom does more shows than Elvis in his prime.

And I wish that our Congressional representatives in Washington in both Senate and House could put us first in their thoughts and learn to listen to — rather than talk at each other. They might just find out they share much more in common than not and that hard work and cooperative effort over time can bring brilliant consequences. I haven’t given up yet.

"Don’tcha know a diamond ain’t nothin’ but a piece of coal that’s stuck with it?" —


Brother Dave Gardner (1959)

Chapter Two – Rejoice Dear Hearts (Part Two)

Father Phil Keane, SS. (1941 – 2012)

With time flying by at laser velocity even faster than Superman’s iconic speeding bullet, it’s amazing to recall that our For Your Consideration column is now well into its fourth year as a regular weekly feature.

Initiated through the efforts of Lynn Jacobsson in late Autumn ’09, colleague Alan Cheah and I have enjoyed sharing a hopefully more progressive perspective on national and local politics than that so generously offered by other regular Star contributors such as Dr. Bill and Junior Froelich.

There are even times when we are accidently more prescient than usual, such as in the newspaper’s February 21st issue. In an offering entitled, Rejoice, Dear Hearts. I devoted significant space to a discussion of Le Moyne College in Syracuse, a Jesuit institution.

The whole thrust was stressing the importance of critical thinking as encouraged by a Jesuit philosophy exposing students to comparative schools of reflective thought without fear of concurrent contamination. One learns to avoid confusing knowledge with belief or firm facts with fanciful fiction. My specific point of focus was the brilliant early ’60′s comedy of a gentleman named Dave Gardner, who reminded me very much of a Jesuit in his