The Love Never Goes Away

Reader responses, including Peter Lin and Jacob Hamburger on jazz; Michelle and Albert on inclusivity and exclusivity of musical spaces

Reader response roundup

We’ve been overwhelmed by readers continuing to write to us in response to our tribute to Michelle’s grandmother several weeks ago. Michelle’s dear old friend J., with whom she taught in rural Arkansas, shared the story of his grandfather, a farmer who dreamed of going to college but couldn’t: 

I think about my grandpa often. His birthday was last week. He was a farmer, the son of two immigrants from Poland. Both were widowed prior to fleeing Poland with their kids. They met at some point en route or shortly after arriving and had my grandpa. His dad then abandoned his family when my grandpa was in high school. He couldn’t go to college and had to drop out of school. According to the family legend he’d already had an offer to go to Ohio to play football by age 16 but had to stay home to keep the farm in order when his dad split.

He ended up marrying young and hustling through a few ventures (sod farming, over the road trucking) until he finally secured a major con…