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.
Here’s a long recording from exactly eleven years ago in which Patrick talks about Chopin, Vida, Valldemossa, and more. We were eating dinner, probably at Vesuvius, probably served by Adriana.
This seventeen-minute recording starts with me telling Patrick about a couple of events at the inaugural IRL race at Las Vegas Speedway, then goes on to discuss various risky activities and concludes with a Unix/eunuchs pun.
Eleven years ago today, Patrick talked about some of his friends and their fascinating (and sometimes tragic) histories. Here’s the recording. We were having a late lunch in Santa Maria.
This long recording (almost 20 minutes) from 9 November 2012 is too large to upload to this web site, but here is an imperfect transcription. UPDATE on 17 Nov 2022: I was able to use a different approach to upload the audio, so you can hear his voice once more, telling this story. The recording […]
This is a recording from eleven years ago today, 16 Nov 2011, in which Patrick talks a bit about his first father-in-law (John, who subsequently adopted me) as well as Patrick’s paintings and poetry, stories ahead of their time, Dori teaching reading through dance, and Patrick repeating the 11th grade.
This was a surprise. I came across this receipt on Tuesday night. It’s for the Zambak, the boat that cost a fisherman his finger and almost cost my dad his life.
I found two short pieces of Patrick’s involving Xingo. Here’s the first: The Spanish Civil War officially ended in 1939, but unofficially went on for many decades. Especially in the Basque country, dissidents fought a continuous battle of resistance. Two brothers from Bilbao became members of the feared and despised Guardia Civil, but luckily for […]
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!