Patrick Meadows and Stephanie Shepard Memorial Site
This page page highlights the articles that I think you’d like to read first, since new visitors overwhelmed with the amount of information posted on this web site. Some provide simple entertainment – stories, jokes biographical and semi-biographical musings – while others reflect the impact Pat and Stephanie had on peoples’ lives.
No, these are not Patrick’s thoughts of the subject. Instead he was mentioned on Wikipedia for his work with Coleridge-Taylor’s music. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Coleridge-Taylor#Posthumous_publishing Perhaps a Wikipedia page should be created for Patrick and Stephanie.
This is the second half of a file of Patrick’s called FSU plus.rtf. The first half describes my mom, her pregnancy with me, and the prospects for their future together. I’ll share that another time, painful though it is. “Can you walk? Can you talk? You’re hired!” Dan tilted his head back, eyes shut against (more)
I’m danged if I can remember how I met those two old drunks, Maybelle and Mr. Bob. Maybe hitching on the highway from Oak Hill to Fayetteville. It was the summer I quit school in Florida and took off for Oak Hill, homesick for my girlfriend. She was by then a mother, made pregnant by (more)
Basmati Restaurant Selling Antiques First off, here’s a link to a story. If you can possibly help, please do so. I’ll explain in a moment. https://www.majorcadailybulletin.com/news/local/2021/02/09/78901/mallorca-coronavirus-basmati-restaurant.html One of Patrick’s favorite restaurants was Basmati in Palma. Every time I visited we made a point of visiting at least once and sometimes more often. When other relatives (more)
Stephanie and I made a little world and we lived in it. A long goodbye. My life is in tatters. Yours has ended. So sorry. This short poem is from a collection Patrick called Scattered Notes.odt dated from 2014 to 2016. I’ll continue to add other segments as time allows.
Here’s a conversation with Patrick about learning how to really listen to music. It was recorded in his living room on 19 November 2011, near 11 PM. PM: ….. was a great moment for me ……… a few years back, I went to, to hear Rostropovich conducting. I think it’s called the Leningrad Symphony of (more)
Knowing that there is a maximum of 366 days in a year, it’s natural that given enough time there would be overlaps in events, and so there are. For example, my first day as a racetrack volunteer happened to fall on Gretchen’s birthday. On the fifth anniversary of my dad John’s death–a personal low in (more)
Patrick met Harlan Ellison while attending a Clarion Writer’s Workshop. The famed writer liked Patrick’s work and recommended him to Ed Ferman, then editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Long overdue in my reading of this magazine (I began my subscription around 1974), I’ve been catching up at last, at least with (more)
Three and a half years ago–well, if you’re familiar with this site you know what happened. It’s no secret that I think of my dad Patrick often, and miss him, and–you know, all that stuff. Today however is a bigger milestone. Thirty years ago today my dad John passed away.
Patrick would be laughing like crazy because I have been cooking so much since February. He always tried to get me to learn to cook, but I like eating in restaurants too much and it felt like too much trouble to do it for just one person, even though that’s what he did. Anyway, I (more)
It was inevitable, thought we didn’t know it at the time, that we should meet Bulent. Mari and I flew from Izmir to Ankara where we spent the night. Then the next day by bus to Adana. Sounds like a simple statement, but it was not so simple. The two-propeller plane took off from what (more)
I found this old XyWrite file on my computer recently, tucked away in a backup folder for one computer inside the backup of another computer inside the backup of my current computer. It was dated 9 Dec 1988, exactly 32 years ago. Wow. Dear Pat and Stephanie, Things, as always, have been hectic here. My (more)
Thursday I am pointlessly staring at my tea, now only a stain at the bottom of the mug. So I glance at my reflection in the glass door of the dish cupboard opposite the table where I am sitting already quite a while. Reflected is the window behind me, through which I see that the (more)
The joy had gone out of her life ten years ago already. Why pretend? Her friends tried to cheer her up, but stubbornly she held onto her empty life and empty house and empty bed. In fact she came to resent the happiness of others. Only the firmest of old acquaintances persisted, inviting her twice (more)
In this excerpt, set in Tampa in the early 1970s, Patrick describes how he first learned of Dr. Weightnovel, which turned into a writing project he worked on for the rest of his life, but never finished. I’ve made only minor edits, primarily fixing typos and punctuation. Caution to the reader: this story includes a (more)