  photo: Alexes Shostac (What I had planned to say on the occasion of Sheridon Stokes's retirement from UCLA. The program ran long and I didn't get a chance.) Sheridon, I want to say thank you for some things in general and some that are very specific. First of all, thank you for 55+ years of friendship, support, and encouragement. Thank you for recommending me for my first job after college, touring with a ballet orchestra. Apparently all it took was a word from you to the contractor. Thank you for including me in a recording project for the LA Flute Club. They had a contest for pieces for four or five flutes and you invited me to participate. I certainly didn’t need any enticement, but you told me I would meet some “nice people who are great flutists,” and I did; I met Libbie Jo Snyder, Louise DiTullio and Buddy Collette. Buddy invited me to play in his woodwind quartet and introduced me to Plas Johnson and it was you and Plas who persuaded me to take up the oboe, which worked out great. In fact, you came with me when I bought my first oboe, from a guy in Hermosa Beach who was also selling an alto flute, which you tried for me. Thank you for September 25, 1968. You were working on a movie that morning and when they didn’t finish and asked the orchestra to return that afternoon, you were occupied somewhere else and recommended me and there I was, playing first flute on a major movie. Doors opened from that one, too. Thank you for a night a few years later at your house when a bunch of flutists gathered and I got to play a trio with you and Sir James Galway (just plain Jimmy in those days). It was like riding the running board (someone would have to be pretty old to get that one)--very exhilarating. (The photo is from a few years later.) Thank you for your remarkable generosity in sharing your comprehensive knowledge of the flute and how it and the player interact. Whether it was at work, in a lesson, or just hanging out, you were always willing to answer a question. One time, it was walking from the car to a jazz club, and as good as my memory is I can’t recall who was playing there--but I remember vividly your description of the angle of the air relative to the register. Your playing was consistently spectacular, whether it was the first thing in the morning or at the end of a long day, on a big movie or a little rehearsal. Your demeanor was always cool and I saw that tested one day when someone wrote a piccolo part that went to the A-Flat below the staff! You wrote the chord changes above the line and played what the composer thought he had written. It was just a day at the office for you, but a learning experience for me. I remember the day we met, at Bob MacDonald’s band, in January of 1962. I knew who you were, of course, but hearing you up close was a revelation. (I also remember the Simca with the broken front seat and how proud you were that Arthur Gleghorn had broken it.) We would have met eventually, but I’m glad everything worked out the way it did. Knowing you has enhanced my life and it is hard to imagine what things would have been like if we hadn’t met. So take care, keep in touch--and I think we’re overdue for a visit to the Harbor Room.  "The third smallest bar in America"
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