>>>From: Purple Foxx - PM
Date: 17 Mar 06 - 05:05 PM

Dave's Wife The fact that you knew Robert Bloch personally officially makes you one of the coolest people on the planet.<<<

I prefer to believe it makes me one of the luckiest people on the planet or one of the most blessed. He truly was a beautiful man and I said so at his memorial service before telling an awful joke with a very bad pun at the end - one he related to me when I was 17 years old, the day we first met. I figured it was an appropriate send-off. I'll try and write it up EXACTLY as he told it to me and post it here for you. It's very funny and very 'Bob'. He was a terrible punster and would always look at the ceiling and smile as he delivered the punchline. It made him look more innocent of the crime of punning!

I grew close to Bob and his wife through my lifelong friendship with Julie Schwartz of DC comics. I met Julie the same day that I met Bob and Julie & I became traveling companions. We had Thanksgiving with Bob and Elly Bloch almost every year up until Bob's death. Thankfully I have some fabulous home movies of that last Thanksgiving before Bob knew he had Cancer. He died before the next one. Sadly, Julie left us as well a couple of years ago. Life simply isn't the same without them.

Bob was pretty well versed in Folk Music and it should come as no surprise that he had a good memory for songs about ghastly crimes. He played the piano and kept a baby grand in is home but for some reason, would never play for me! I'd always have to get someone else to play when I wanted to sing for him. He had a soft spot for Gerwshin, Jerome Kern and other American music Theater greats.

Folklore also fascinated him. We talked often about fieldwork I did in Grad School collecting folk stories. In retrospect, I wish we talked more about such things and about Jack The Ripper. He had a large collection of materials on the subject which i believe he donated to a univeristy upon his death. I don't recall which one but I don't believe it was his alma mater.

RE: Folk music - Bob once recited some verses to songs (rhymes really) about Scarlet Fever to me over the phone when I was ill with it in Feb. 1994. He called me every day urging me to keep the lights out because he believed that patients with Scarlet Fever could be blinded by bright light. When I asked him about this belief, he started reciting verses to me that I wish now I had written down.   It took me a couple of days to realize that when he was a child, Scarlet Fever was greatly feared and often deadly. The simple treatment of Penicillin was decades away. For the sake of dispelling a myth, it as the very high fevers that damaged the retina and not bright light, but he could not be dissuaded from the belief.

Advice to young folklorists- follow around your elders with a tape recorder, a notebook and a palmcorder! I got a lot of footage and tape of Bob and Julie but not nearly enough. I usually taped them talking about their careers and now I wish I had spent more time asking them about music, folklore and their early lives.