When I learned the “St. James Infirmary Blues” as the first piece on my guitar 50 years ago, I did not know that the message would not leave me during a whole lifetime. The story of the woman who died in hospital had happened to us nearly too, in 1975, at the birth of our second daughter. My feet were in my wife’s blood in the operation room for hours while the doctors were fighting for her life. Many blood transfusions. Lifetime virus infection remained. Life is given only for a short period of time. At such times, in such songs it comes to the surface.
photo: my wife, 45 years ago.
comments at flickr.com below:
P G Magnus Ekwall, CoreForce, Baz 120, and 7 other people added this photo to their favorites.
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my wife B. in our first own kitchen 1969 – found in an old photo shoebox – now we have our 49th anniversary …
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Wonderful image congratulations!!
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I could tell it was 60s before I read your description,The memories came flooding back,now I’ll have to look out my old pic.s.Thanks for reminding me of our age.
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Sorry I could not tell that it was the 60s. The 60s in Germany were like the 40s in the US where I grew up. This kitchen and the pose of the girl are very modern, an expression of a mentality that was not common in conservative families hitherto. She is not shy at all and belonged most likely to the 68ers, who were an enigma for me. Even a course in Marxism did not help me very much to understand what was going on amongst the students. I took it for a kind of constant carnival with bizarr ideological foundation, what it basically was in hindsight. The protagonists might have experienced it as great hopes, which were in vain.
Very beautiful model and living at the pulse of this time I guess. Enviable. She is reading a cook book though. Maybe she was not a hardcore 68er.
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Frizztext29 hours ago | edit | delete
she’s still cooking wonderful, now we are together 49 years!
maybe you are right with:
“The protagonists might have experienced it as great hopes, which were in vain.” -
you’ll understand that such a personal photo gives other associations too – more about in my daily blog at
flickrcomments.wordpress.com/2014/02/19/life-is-not-forever/
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related:
https://flickrcomments.wordpress.com/2012/09/07/st-james-infirmary-blues/
Flickr Comments 
The Blues tells it like it is !… What an experience you had…At those times… we find how precious people are to us!…
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Blues music tells a story everyone can relate to at some point in our lives. It causes us to face our sadness, release it and helps us to overcome it. Glad everyone overcame this experience. I know looking back you must feel thankfulness and gratitude.
BE ENCOURAGED! BE BLESSED!
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Music is such a comforting refuge for such memories . . . .
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Life is indeed fragile. Best to you and your family, Frizz.
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I’ve seen more recent photos and she is still beautiful.
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Scars life leaves us that make us stronger and I think she is even more beautiful now! 🙂
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A great story and a happy end with a good surgeon and a good luck.
I had as a surgeon unknown times a bloody fight about the life of a human and
It is hard to accept that you cannot save all lifes
sometimes all is against you and the human
You are not guilty but you feel so
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Warm Greatings from the anonymus
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Brings to mind my anen-cephalic baby in 1974 and my daughter born in 1975. Have a life-long virus too.
Yesterday tried to figure out how to record my singing of “Black is the color” in time with your rendition using my Snowball mike and Garage Band on my iMac. Used to accompany myself with acoustic guitar while singing a la Joan Biaz in the 1960’s. Dealing with the plugs, timing, keyboards, volumes and ports was too much for my 73 year old self after the furnace broke and the temperature fell to 50 degrees.I had a studio in an igloo, and no whale blubber to burn.
Might still try it if I can warm up my fingers enough for the touches required.
Jeanne Poland
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dear Jeanne, I wish you to have soon sunny warm weather or at least a warm home. Then you maybe have more success with a music collaboration; send it to my e-mail frizztext@aol.com – I would like to upload it to soundcloud!
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