WHEN JOHN CULLUM SINGS...

I love this photo of  my husband, John Cullum, in costume, on the set for the  movie "1776."

The candle on the table, the shoulders seen on each side of John indicates that other people are with him -- the photo tells me it's John as "Rutledge," the senator from South Carolina thinking about how he'll vote while other senators are voting.

Golly, the look on John's face is so real -- so typical -- just the way my husband looks when he's thinking about one of our domestic problems.

John told me that this scene in the movie had been done as a long shot -- cameras and lights re-positioned for the medium shot and filmed again -- the set up was again changed for the closeups -- he'd already sung "Molasses to Rum" twice. He told the director, Peter Hunt, "Better get it this time, I've just got one more "G" in me."

(JC told me just now that if I listened to the film again, I'd hear how he "slipped into the high note, that "G." He's a Baritone -- a G can be tricky.)    
   
Wife, fan, lover of John Cullum delights in studying that photo of the man she fell in love with at first sight, the guy who had evolved from a very good looking, handsome, leading man on a stage, a leading man who could rivet an audience -- into a man who could truly star in a show and draw thousands of theatergoers.

Why am I jabbering about all this? I'm doing it to remind you that people with whom you are intimately involved change, grow up as you change, and viewing them freshly grows you up too.

Here's John yesterday at 10 a.m., mike in hand, my book in his hand, recording a video for one of our projects -- on our A.I.R audio-video channel, he reads aloud a chapter a week from one of my novels and publishes it on Facebook.

Yep! Wife Em WAS, IS, on Independence Day, enthralled by John in that marvelous film, stunned by the power in him, artist, musician, singer, actor, performer that he is. I am gifted by Mother Nature, God, and happenstance, to have been able to grow up with him.