A LIFE LOST THAT CHANGED MY LIFE FOREVER. RIP Dr. Exline.
A man who changed my life forever…is gone. He wasn’t alone of course. I imagine that he was part of a committee that ‘chose’ me…and once I got to be a part of the department, it was a team of people that made an impact…but this man was the one who was the ‘face’ and ‘voice’ of that decision, and he passed this weekend. Dr. Jerry Exline was the Music Department chairman at SUNY Oswego in 1992. At first he was this ‘disembodied’ deep baritone of a voice that somehow could speak faster than the Micro Machine man once you got him going. He had spoken to me several times by phone over the spring summer and Fall of 1992, and became an actual ‘force’ in my life in the winter of 1993. Now he’s gone and I find myself reliving that time…and thankful for him. Some history I’ve spoken before of how ‘lost’ I felt in High School sometimes. While I may have had friends and a community I belonged with…for some reason I didn’t FEEL that way. No doubt m...