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.
Today is Patrick’s birthday. He would have been 88 years old, a nice round number full of curves and circles, an Oldsmobile number, a number never reached. Even as I prepare to bury my brother – more accurately, eulogize him, for he’s to be cremated and scattered – I think of my dad. (This brother […]
Jeff A recently found these three paintings on e-Bay and reached out to me through the comments section of the Brian McMinn posting. He wrote, “They were listed as “mystery artist” and in my research I concluded they are by Brian — I hope I’m right. Your post and the obituary by Charles Darwent are […]
Lionel posted this recently as a comment to Patrick’s 87th Birthday but I want to give it more prominence, so here it is separately. Just an update to my last contribution, really: Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective have just released a CD on Chandos of the three early Coleridge-Taylor chamber works which Patrick type-set. Very appropriately, the […]
How can it be? How can today already be the fifth anniversary of Patrick’s passing, when we still mourn him, when his voice still fills our ears, his letters fill our eyes, his drawings still encourage, his wine glasses still complete our evenings with their use? How can it be five years when so much […]
I read an interesting article on BBC.com today about a man who had recordings of his father to sustain him after his father’s death. Though the format was different from what I did with Patrick all those years ago, the value of the recordings is no less deep. There are many times when I turn […]
Here’s a six minute long conversation between Patrick, Suzy, and myself from ten years ago (recorded on 5 Dec 2011). Patrick describes sailing the Zambak and the aftermath, including the reason Patrick and Mari had to leave Turkey. At the end the story pivots and he mentions the telegram saying “no child support.” It’s still […]
On the 2nd of May 2017, Suzy and I met the police chief in Valldemossa. After many condolences (“lo siento, lo siento”) and an explanation of what happened, he guided us and a grua (tow truck) to the place where Patrick died. Afterwards we returned to Valldemossa for a short break. We made this recording […]
This is a rough transcription of a long conversation with Patrick and Ivonne from 23 March 2017. We began by talking about a Spanish author in Valldemossa before hearing the story of two sisters who canned anchovies. I welcome any suggestions that would improve the transcription. Thanks!
JP: So we’re sitting by the fire. Patrick: Yep and the fire is doing fine. JP: Yep and we’re doing it in the inefficient way. The door is open, the flue is open.
Here’s a lovely photo of Alison and Patrick strolling in Chopin’s rose garden in Valldemossa.
If you have read the earlier posting Our Stories Intertwine Like a Kitten’s Yarn, you know about Patrick and Donna’s trip to Cuba in 1955. In October 2014 during our trip to Prescott, we had a longer conversation about it, recorded in two parts. Here I’ve combined the two transcriptions into one. In this conversation […]
This is a conversation about life after the music festival, including thoughts on dogs and cats. It was recorded late one evening on 11 December 2011.
As I’ve mentioned more than once, the Basmati Bangladeshi/Indian restaurant was one of Patrick’s favorites, a delightful place with exquisite food. It was natural that we held a luncheon in Patrick’s honor there in 2017, and every visit I’ve made to Mallorca before and since has always included at least one meal there. Sadly, I […]
In 2011 Patrick and I discussed how he met my mother. Seven years later I added a rough transcription of that recording to this site, but the audio file itself was too large to share. Now the technology has changed so you too can listen to us talk. Here’s a link to the entry, with […]
Here’s a recording from a brief visit with Patrick at the Embassy Suites in L.A. in November 2012. He talks about meeting Stephanie, using her money to buy a harpsichord, which led to the origins of the music festival they built together.