August 22, 2022

Good morning folks, 

Since my recent fall, life has seemed quite cloudy, full of uncertainty and mixed emotions. I have several more tests to find out the source of pain and inability to move my legs but because of staffing difficulties they are months away. Health Care can be dark and dreary sometimes. Clouds block the view but sometimes they are the only view available. So many songs and poems are about clouds…from Joni Mitchell’s iconic tome, to lightweights like Simon and Garfunkel’s "Cloudy" to the edgy Rolling Stones belted out by Mick Jagger "Get Off of My Cloud". Wordsworth ‘wandered lonely as a cloud across the sea of daffodils’, but my clouds today seem to indicate a pending storm and I am fearful that I cannot see beyond them. Clouds represent every mood and emotion possible….and of course, they block the Sun. Clouds can hide meaning and meaning lends credence to existence. BUT…. Sometimes we just have to see past the clouds…

And herein lies a story of how the sunshine returns home. 

Sometime, around forty years ago, Maryann "Sunnee" McCourt, the mother of my first two children, was commissioned to create a stained glass window for guitar dealer, author and raconteur, Jay Scott. Sunnee was an artist in many different media and she was just beginning to experiment with stained glass. Jay had asked her to make a window using the design of what he considered the most beautiful of all American vintage instruments, the Gibson F-5 Mandolin. That was the only instructions he had, except for the size. It had to be large enough to fit in a double hung window. She worked on it day and night, learning as she created. After several months she presented it to him. They worked out the price and Jay took it home. Not long after that Sunnee tragically passed away. Now, as way leads on to way, Jay traded the window to David Stutzman, the proprietor of the revered, Stutzman’s Guitar Center here in Rochester, where it was sometimes on display. My oldest daughter Kara, often would ask me what has ever happened to the window that mom had so proudly created. I told her, as far as I knew it was still there at Stutzman’s store.

Last week, sadly, Kara and her husband Mike had to put their Great Dane, Ramona, to sleep after 13 years with their family. That is always a time with so much emotion. The day afterwards Kara and Mike came down to visit me and take me for a ride around the Finger Lakes. While we were at a winetasting she mentioned to me that she had gone to Stutzman‘s and asked him if he still had the window. She said Dave replied with a long pause, that he thought it was still in the basement somewhere. He went downstairs and returned after about a half hour and said he still had the window. She took a deep breath and asked him whether he would sell it. He then said that he had actually promised it to a man a few years ago but the man never picked it up because of Covid. When she told him that her mother had made it he realized of course how important it was to her. He told her to call him in a week and he would find out if he could sell it. The day they came down to visit me he said, with compassion, that he would agree to sell it to her for a very fair price. The next day she and Mike picked the window up and brought it to their house. The story is in the pictures on the side. It was with a great amount of emotion and tears that this treasured family artwork was finally brought home where it belongs. The clouds have lifted and the sun shines forth.

Sincerely,

John Bernunzio 

The Cloud

BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, 
From the seas and the streams
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid 
In their noonday dreams. 
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken 
The sweet buds every one, 
When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, 
As she dances about the sun. 
I wield the flail of the lashing hail, 
And whiten the green plains under, 
And then again I dissolve it in rain, 
And laugh as I pass in thunder.

I can see clearly now the rain is gone
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It's gonna be a bright, bright sunshiny day
.…. A song by Jimmy Cliff