December 2, Take II (Kathryn’s Story)

To set the record straight, my neighbor Kathryn has a slightly different perspective of the morning of December 2 as follows below… You should know that Kathryn runs all the Facebook and other social media pages related to John.  He has no time; she thinks it’s fun. It’s a win-win situation.

It is just a normal Thursday.  Get up, get the kids, and my husband, Mike, organized and out the door to school and work, settle in with a cup of hot coffee at the computer, and log onto John’s sites to do the morning check. All of a sudden … it is not ... so … normal.

I see on his homepage for Facebook, yes, FACEBOOK, Ellie’s post congratulating John on his Grammy Nomination along with a couple other mentions of it.  What?  What?  WHAT?  I look at the clock.  It’s too early to call John, so I broke the rule and immediately dialed Jo at work.  A no-no, of course.

I can’t contain myself, “Jo! John is nominated for a Grammy! “ She is obviously surprised. I continue, “A Grammy for Dirty Side Down!”  She dismisses me by saying, “It must be for the Jammys-The Jam Band Grammys.”  I can see I’m getting nowhere, “No, it says here, Grammy!”  So while on the phone I google Grammy nominees, because I start to doubt what I know to be true, and the web shoots me to the LA Times.  By now we are in sync and we sit on the phone scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, and there it is.  No doubt about it: staring back at us in black and white. Yeah!!

I don’t know why I ask this question, “Does he know, Jo?”  She gives the only answer she can, “I don’t know.” So I ask another question she can’t possibly answer, “Is he up?”  And she responds, “Go to the house or the studio to see!” I look over the fence and see lights on at the studio, so we hang up. I throw a coat on and head to the studio.  I walk in and he is obviously in the middle of something, important, on the phone, pacing from the computer to piano r room, back to the computer, back to the piano room.  I see him look at his phone a couple times, then he says, “I am going to have to call you back, I can see that my wife is trying to call, and Kathryn is now standing here. So something must be up.” I try not to laugh because it is so true!

He switches the call over to Jo and they talk…and talk…and talk.  I wait patiently until they hang up and he says…”Is this about the Grammy thing?”  I nod. I don’t think he believes it.  It is EARLY and he has been working, just had a couple phone calls about it, and has not seen anything concrete yet. 

I am ready to woo-hoo, high five, do the snoopy dance, but I restrain myself and say, “Yes, I saw it myself in the L.A. Times.  It is true. Congratulations, John.” I give him a big hug and wait for some reaction. Finally he says, “Well … (long pause)… that’s great!”  I see a smile, but I know he won’t believe it until he verifies it himself.

So we talk for a few minutes, and I tell him where I found the information.  He is definitely in business as usual mode: processing, calm, busy. So I give another hug, another congrats, and say goodbye. But as I head back to my house, I do a little snoopy dance in John’s honor. And think to myself, this could not happen to a nicer and more humble person.