Have you ever had a "phone buddie"? Someone you've never met in person, but, through happenstance, met on the telephone and became friends. That was Marva Whitney and me. We never met, but we spent hours on the phone. Marva had called Jean Bennett hoping Personality Productions could help her get some bookings. Personality had already been sold, but Jean had Marva call me anyway. I told her there was nothing Jean or I could do to help, but we started to talk about "Playboy After Dark." I had worked for the agency that booked the atmosphere people. Marva had been a guest performer. Those had been good days. We were young, full of energy and still full of hope, despite that fact showbiz had already kicked us a couple of times. Now were weren't so young anymore, but we were certainly not ready to quit. Marva would call me early a couple of times a week around seven in the morning. I'd always be asleep and groan about the early hour. She always sounded like she had a horrible cold. Her voice would be thick and scratchy. My first words were always, "Are you all right?" Gramps usually answered the phone at the hour, and after I'd hung up, he'd want to know if she was all right. I told him that after we talked a bit, her voice sounded better - but never great. Marva and I talked about her bookings, her band in Japan, and about seeing if we could get her booked in Las Vegas. She sent me copies of her new CD, and she gave me the highlights of James Brown's funeral. We talked about the reception she received in Europe, and we planned for the future. All the time I protested there was nothing I could do, but at the same time I thought just maybe I could. Every conversation had a "when are you coming to Kansas City. I don't know. Can you come to Las Vegas" moment. The last time I talked to her was a little more than a year ago. She sounded amazing! Her voice was clear as a bell. I kept saying, "You sound great." She told me about being on stage in Australia. One minute she was singing. The next thing she remembered was waking up on a gurney. They said she'd had a stroke on stage. She didn't sound like it. She didn't think the diagnosis was right. She said her doctors here couldn't find anything wrong. She thought she'd had a reaction to the chemicals in the smoke machine used in the show. Her apartment had flooded. She was moving - into a senior's complex. Seniors! Old people. But it would be fine. It was a nice place. She was working with someone new and was excited about the future. I kept telling her how good she sounded and said that in 2013 I was going to concentrate on writing and publishing. If I didn't do it now, it would never get it done. January 1, 2013, I sat down and uploaded the first of five books to Nook and Kindle. January 3, 2013, Marva was laid to rest. I didn't know she had passed away until a couple of months ago. I had emailed her, and when it came back I thought I had the wrong address. She had changed it at least three times. I wouldn't have been on her "people to call list." We were only phone buddies. And I've been sitting in this chair ten and twelve hours a day writing, typing, editing, posting and re-posting to the exclusion of everything else. A couple of times Gramps had asked if I'd heard from Marva. I said no, but she was probably on the road. She'd call when she was back. Because she had sounded so good, it never entered my mind that anything could have happened that wasn't fabulous. Maybe I was right, because now she's singing with the angels. And what could be more fabulous than that! RIP my friend.
