Roger George Baylor was born in 1925 and died on July 18, 2001, making him 35 years of age when I arrived in 1960. The centennial of my father’s birth arrives in March of 2025, and I’m not really sure what to make of the symbolism. It’s almost overwhelming.
Our relationship was complicated, to say the least. It would require a book, so maybe some day I’ll write it. It’s a bit much for me now, as it has been for just shy of 64 years.
ON THE AVENUES: When love and hate collide, or my father’s dalliance with the governor
At his core, my father was very passionate, but could not express his positive emotions save for sheer physicality, first through sports and then by blunt force labor in the great outdoors. Music soothed him — at least for a bit, and then usually only on Sunday.
Killer diller, or thinking about big band music and my father’s WWII musical reveries
Sunday was for music, not church. His all-time favorite song was “Sentimental Journey,” and nothing better describes his customary mood, looking back through the years, than this choice of ditties.
It was as though each morning he awoke (very early, the habit of a...
Read more
