How I missed reciting vows throughout my entire life...

Written by Jim Heffernan for the DuluthNewTribune/11-01-25

It seems like you see a lot of public officials being sworn in to various high-level offices on TV these days. Most of it occurs in Washington, D.C.: Presidents, congresspeople, cabinet members, court witnesses, others swearing to do this and that to uphold the Constitution or seek justice.

 

It always gives me pause when I view a swearing in or other vows being recited because I missed out on much of that in life. All of those important moments with the one hand raised, the other on a Bible (sometimes), or reciting traditional vows standing before a clergyman at a wedding to sanctify a marriage.

 

Let me explain, largely in chronological order. I don’t recall if I was sworn into the Boy Scouts, pledging on my honor to do my best to do my duty to God and my country and so on and so forth. I might have made it to that one, but nothing since.

 

When I reached military draft age, after passing the Army physical with flying colors in spite of being stone deaf in one ear but not having bone spurs, I scurried down to the old Duluth National Guard Armory, where Bob Dylan once attended a concert, and joined the Minnesota Army National Guard in order to avoid being drafted and having to serve two years of active duty.

 

After they signed me and several other draft-dodgers up, they apparently assembled them all for the big swearing in. I don’t know where I was but when it came time to raise right hands (no Bibles though) to solemnly swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic and so on and so forth, I must have been in the can (a.k.a. latrine in Army parlance) or somewhere else in the Armory.

 

So I missed being sworn in to military service but they took me anyway. About the time my service obligation ended, some six years later, I got married. The wedding vows are the most important a person can take, but I missed them too. At my wedding!

 

What? How could that be? Let me start at the beginning. I was raised in the then Swedish branch of the Lutheran Church (there were several ethnically oriented Lutheran branches in those days, even Norwegian and German, right here in Duluth). But by the time I came along, services were in English, thank heaven. (Where else?)

 

As a child I had witnessed the wedding vows being taken more than most kids did because my mother was the organist of our church and sometimes I had to attend weddings with her.

 

I heard them often.  Preacher: “Do you (groom’s name) take (bride’s name) as your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death you do part?”

 

Groom: “I do…yup I do, by yumpin by yimminy I do.” (As I said, this was the Swedish branch of the Lutheran church.)

 

However, I wasn’t married in the Swedish Lutheran church. The wedding was in a Greek Orthodox Church, the faith of my bride.

 

This all took place more than 50 years ago, when the Greek service contained mostly the Greek language, which was Greek to me. But in rehearsal, we asked the priest if he would include the traditional wedding vows in English, and he agreed.

 

So we had the lengthy service, which shortly before had been described in news coverage of the wedding of Jackie Kennedy and Aristotle Onassis, but no promised English vows. When it was over we asked the priest what happened to the traditional vows. “I forgot,” he said reverently.

 

But we nevertheless felt very married, and still are these nearly 57 years later with two kids and six grandkids to show for it,

 

Of course, I’m at an age now where the traditional rites “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” loom pretty large. I wouldn’t mind missing them, too.

 

Come to think of it, I will.  

 

Jim Heffernan is a former Duluth News Tribune news and opinion writer and continues as a columnist. He can be reached at jimheffernan@jimheffernan.org and maintains a blog at www.jimheffernan.org.

The Buddy Holly Winter Dance Party Tour Through Duluth: 59 Years Ago...

The original poster advertising the event

January 31 marks the 59th anniversary of three days before "the day the music died" when Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens died in a plane crash in Iowa. Three days prior to their death–January 31, 1959–these pop stars of the fifties performed at the Duluth Armory in a memorable appearance from my youth. A small private plane carrying these performers crashed following their final performance in Clear Lake Iowa, claiming their lives. The plane was heading to Fargo, North Dakota. As Don McLean wrote in his classic music parable, American Pie, the plane crash resulted in "the day the music died."

I, Bob Dylan and other area youths packed the Duluth Armory on January 31, 1959 to take in the performances of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. “Big Bopper” Richardson, three of Rock and Roll’s most promising musicians of that era. “The Winter Dance Party Tour” began on January 23, 1959 with performances scheduled for 24 cities. The Duluth appearance took place three days before the tour tragically ended.

My friend, Lew Latto, was the producer and MC of the Armory show that also included Dion and the Belmonts. Lew was a precocious teen who became a popular disc jockey as a youth and continued on with a successful career in radio until his death in 2011.

Ed Newman, blogger on Ennyman's Territory, interviewed me about that evening.  Read it HERE.

This year the Historic Duluth Armory is again paying tribute to the Winter Dance Party. Tickets may be purchased HERE. For more about the revitalization of the Historic Duluth Armory, follow that link.

You can find more photos and accounts of the original Duluth Dance Party Tour on the News Tribune Attic on January 31, 2014.

Johnny Cash remembered...

Today (September 12) marks the sixth anniversary of the death of Johnny Cash. (More information and Cash links may be found at Wikipedia by clicking HERE.) 
     
Over the years, Cash performed in Duluth often. He appeared in the Duluth Denfeld High School Auditorium, Duluth National Guard Armory (site of so many other stars passing through town–including famed Buddy Holly in his last days) and at the DECC. I had the pleasure of reviewing Cash in concert along with his wife, June Carter Cash, and members of her singing family during a performance at the DECC in the 70's. It was a magical evening and I'll never forget it. 
     
The following is a reprint of my Duluth News Tribune column just following his death and recounting my experiences as a reviewer of this concert. This writing is also included in my book, Cooler Near the Lake, in a chapter that includes a few of the famous personalities I came in contact with during my newspaper career.


Johnny Cash: Johnny Cash on the Barrelhead...
by Jim Heffernan 
     I am not a big fan of “country” music in general, although Cash, who died September 12 at age 71, seemed to be broader than just country or country-rock. Really, he was mostly Johnny Cash, and nobody else was like him.

     Fairly early in adult life, I became a classical music snob. After detours into Elvis (he arrived on the scene when I was in high school) and a brief fondness for folk music during college years, I settled into insufferable musical snobbery with almost exclusive interest in classical music.

     So while many of my peers were buying records featuring the popular performers of the day, I collected Beethoven symphonies and the works of other classical composers. Couldn't help it; I loved their sound. Still do.
     I totally misjudged the Beatles–they're way better than I thought they were when I first ignored them. Bob Dylan? With that voice? I don't think so. Luciano Pavarotti–now that was a voice.

     My musical tastes were–and generally are–what most people regard as stuffy. But there's a saying–attributed to several people–that goes, “There are just two kinds of music: good music and bad music.” It took me a long time to realize that, and Johnny Cash helped.

     Circa 1970 I was city editor of the News Tribune, and Cash 's show was booked into the Duluth Arena (it wasn't called the DECC in those days) on a Sunday night. My boss, Managing Editor Jack Fein, approached me a few days before the concert and begged me to review it.

     I told Fein I was strictly classical, but he pleaded. He had nobody else (who wouldn't demand overtime pay). So I took the two reviewer ducats and that Sunday night my wife and I went to the Johnny Cash show, somewhat reluctantly.

     It was a revelation. Of course I'd heard Cash 's big hits over the years on TV or radio. You couldn't be alive in America without being aware of gravelly voiced Cash and his music.

     On stage with him were his wife, June Carter, her sisters and their mother, Maybelle, legends themselves as The Carter Family, together with a host of backup musicians, including Carl Perkins–a legendary performer in his own right. And topping off the bill was the Statler Brothers quartet (“Flowers on the Wall,” “Class of ‘57,” “Whatever Happened to Randolph Scott?”).

     It was all wonderful, captivating, at times moving. You couldn't help but get caught up in it. The genial Cash, clad in his trademark black outfit (which the New York Times described as “cowboy undertaker”) was generous with himself and the other performers.

     Cash had appeared in Duluth many times before, including at the Duluth armory in his early days. Maybe he's been back since–I don't know. But that night 30-some years ago, when he was in his prime and he had what seemed like the whole pantheon of country music royalty with him, was pure magic.

     It helped to alter my attitudes toward music–broaden them. Surely this man, who reached so many people, was as much an artist as the composers and performers I had embraced.

     There are only two kinds of music. Johnny Cash, who couldn't read notes, made good music. So did Luciano Pavarotti, who also is reputed to be fuzzy about note reading.

Originally appeared in the Duluth News Tribune on Sunday, September 21, 2003
Subsequently appeared in Cooler Near the Lake: Fifty-two Favorites from Thirty-four Years of Deadlines (November, 2008) by Jim Heffernan