An 86 year old friend and retired scientist and Jazz musician and I had a discussion of the song "Strange Fruit" the other day. There is NOTHING this guy doesn't know about Jazz and is one of the few people I've ever run into that knows it was written by a white Jewish school teacher and communist sympathizer named Abel Meeropol in the 30's. Billie Holiday made it famous and unless you've heard her sing it you haven't yet heard it.
 I was telling him how it makes me cry when Billie sings it, that it such a powerful song and it is the same with him. So a few days go I stopped in to work on my Mercury (he owns the garage I keep it in) and visited with him for a while. As I was getting ready to leave he stopped me and ran off and when he returned he gave me a copy of a book entitled Strange Fruit The Biography of a song by David Margolick printed in 2001. I can't wait to start it.