I miss John Prine.
John Prine could combine the innocence and humor of a twelve year old boy with the empathy and sage wisdom gathered over a lifetime of experience.
April 7, 2020
For me, John Prine was the heart of Nashville,
Mary Gauthier
the reason I came to this city, my teacher,
my songwriting hero, my friend.
A brave truth-teller, who, with a wink and a grin,
showed us who we are.
We songwriters have lost our reluctant leader.
John was the kindest man I knew,
with the most childlike, beautiful heart.
God bless John Prine forever, amen.
Sending my love to Fiona and everyone
in the Oh Boy family tonight.
Mr. Prine says it best himself:
“I guess I just process death differently than some folks. Realizing you’re not going to see that person again is always the most difficult part about it. But that feeling settles, and then you are glad you had that person in your life, and then the happiness and the sadness get all swirled up inside you.”
“If I can make myself laugh about something that I should be crying about, that’s pretty good.”
“Bewildered, bewildered, you have no complaint. You are what you are, and you ain’t what you ain’t.”
“When I turned 40, I invited Johnny Cash to my party, even though I knew there was gonna be 200 people roasting a pig and wild as can be. He didn’t come, but the next day, I got a bowl of chili he’d made and a note that said, ‘John, I’d love to come to your party, but that would mean I would have to leave my house.’”
“I always had an affinity for older people. I had a job delivering newspapers, and one place I had to go was an old people’s home. Some people would introduce you to their neighbors as if you were a nephew or grandson. They didn’t get many visitors, so they acted like you were coming to see them. And that stuck with me for a long time.”
Early life
Prine was the son of William Mason Prine, a tool-and-die maker, and Verna Valentine (Hamm), a homemaker, both originally from Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. He was born and raised in the Chicago suburb of Maywood. In summers, they would go back to visit family near Paradise, Kentucky. Prine started playing guitar at age 14, taught by his brother, David. He attended classes at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music, and graduated from Proviso East High School in Maywood, Illinois. He was a U.S. Postal Service mailman for five years and was drafted into the United States Army during the Vietnam War era, serving as a vehicle mechanic in West Germany before beginning his musical career in Chicago.
Wikipedia
Death
On March 19, 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, Prine’s wife Fiona revealed that she had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 and had been quarantined in their home apart from him. He was hospitalized on March 26 after experiencing COVID-19 symptoms. On March 30, Fiona tweeted that she had recovered and that John was in stable condition but not improving. Prine died on April 7, 2020, of complications caused by COVID-19 at the age of 73.
Wikipedia
For Future Scholars
For future scholars: Let there be no misunderstanding. John Prine was killed by the depraved indifference of Donald Trump. Due to Trump’s position of power, wealth, and privileged, he escaped any kind of earthly responsibility in America’s multi-tiered justice system.
The following is an excerpt, published on February 7th, 2021, 307 days after the death of John Prine, in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. It was written by Charles Moster, a republican lawyer. Red on red on red.
Moster is a former litigation attorney in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush presidential administrations who has offices in Lubbock, Amarillo, Midland/Odessa, Abilene and Georgetown.
Even though former President Donald Trump has been exiled to Mar-a- Lago, there will have to be a price paid for so much death and deceit. With over 437,000 deaths as of the date of this entry, casualties have exceeded American losses in WW-1 and the mass carnage of WW-2. If the projections of the CDC remain accurate, we may exceed Civil War fatalities.
The evidence is now direct and not circumstantial that the president lied to the American people about the dangers of Covid and caused the death of thousands of gullible and patriotic Americans who dared believe in the integrity of their leaders and existence of basic decency.
The lies and callousness of Donald Trump lost their shock value even when he announced last month that the 350,000 American who perished at that time were “fake news.” I believe he is a deeply flawed and dangerous man who would sell the American experiment in a NY minute with the abbreviated style of a real estate transaction. His falsehoods rival the viciousness of the Nazi Master of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels. I believe he will go down in history as a vile and despicable character who posed the greatest threat to American Democracy. He will share this distinction with Benedict Arnold and Ted Cruz.
The question raised is not an esoteric topic for ethicists or law students to debate. Death on a scale unseen since the reign of the Nazis has taken place and a price must be paid.
The president raged against the truth of the deadly virus and deliberately misled the American people as established by his interviews and other direct evidence. He publicly scorned the wearing of masks and continues to label Covid deaths as “fake news.” I see no difference between this behavior or the wanton recklessness of firing shots into a passing Amtrak train replete with early morning commuters. To be more specific, the president and others should be indicted for depraved heart murder (or its equivalent in Texas) where an individual acts with a “depraved indifference” to human life and where such act results in death, despite that the individual do not explicitly intend to kill.
This is about former public officials large and small who committed serial murders in name of political influence, power, or money.
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal