My brother had always been close to our grandmother, Josephine Forbes. Like him, she had a great sense of humor. When he was at BU (Boston University) and living in Cambridge, they would often go to the afternoon symphony together. Even after she got dementia, he would regularly visit her, brightening her day. As I mentioned elsewhere, he told of a time when the radio was playing a Straus waltz and he coaxed her out of bed to dance with him. She was in heaven...

After our grandmother died, Forbes was asked if he would like anything in the house to remember her and our grandfather by. He chose two objects, both model boats found in a back room. (Our grandfather was an ardent collector of model ships, now at MIT.) One was a miniature ship which he donated to the Annapolis Maritime Museum (more on that later). The other was a ship made out of glass, including the rigging. He kept it, forlorn & forgotten, in his room in our parent's house until we sold it in the early 2000's. By that time, this noble ship had deteriorated through time, becoming unglued and a wreck of fallen glass... 

Forbes took the glass boat to an assessor in NH. Clearly it was priceless. He ended up donating it to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston where it was meticulously restored and now on display with one other glass boat (by the same designer). I cannot imagine the painstaking effort it took to put it back together again. My brother always liked to describe the tiny glass crew-- which (under magnifying glass) turned out to be anatomically correct!

SHIP MODEL: C. Andrews, about 1844, France.
Water line model, not to scale, of the C. Andrews; sails and rigging are of glass; on inlaid stand with small button feet; enclosed in bell glass. (16 3/4 x 16 3/8 x 7 3/4 in) Although the exact date and history of this merchant ship has not yet been discovered, all aspects of the model indicate that it was made by the same shop and at virtually the same date as the model of "Henry Newell," displayed nearby.This is a photo of the companion glass ship at the MFA. 

https://collections.mfa.org/objects/475527

My sister has been going through old boxes of photos and has found a few new ones of Forbes. This one was taken at her house in VT, mid 70's?, hanging around what I initially thought was a cooler-- then noticed Daphne was carrying a box of dishwashing powder!

Forbes did not leave a “note” but he left dozens of Zen notes (from calendars I would give him each year-- perhaps from other sources as well) carefully laid out on a glass coffee table in front of the sofa. At the time I did not discern a particular message and only now am revisiting… (I had placed them in a file, stacked according to each row so I could recreate what he had left.) I will now enter them as he had laid them out on the table, with columns starting from left to right. (Note that he carefully clipped off the date of each quote.) If you have any particular insights, I would be most interested in hearing...

Since I seem to have run out of photos, I thought I would start adding the Zen quotes that were clearly so important to Forbes. Some I know the source, some were just tucked away in folders I've lost track of. I will begin with the quotes and cartoons found in his will file, in no particular order, except if found on the same page. I believe this quote was entered earlier but thought appropriate to start with... Note that the order goes by clicking left, starting here, as the newest ones will appear first in the gallery.

Forbes with our maternal grandmother “Ga” (Josephine Forbes). As with our paternal grandmother (Elsa Tudor: see previous photos), Forbes forged a close relationship. No doubt his passion for classical music mushroomed from joining her on Friday afternoons at the Boston Symphony (when he was at BU and lived in Cambridge). Later, when she was bedridden with depression and dementia, he would continue to visit her. I remember him telling me that whenever he’d enter her bedroom, she would light up, always recognizing him. Once, when music was playing on her radio (glued she was to the BBC), he even coaxed her out of bed— and together they waltzed to a timeless rhythm... 

Some may think that this photo is perhaps a little too revealing. However, I would like to point out that Forbes's commune, based around the cabin that our father built at Willard Pond, NH, reveled in music and skinnydipping. I suspect the only time that Forbes in any way felt disconcerted while swimming there was when a loon suddenly surfaced directly in front of him, and then kept diving around him, a bit too close for comfort!

Despite their difficulties, our father was very much like Forbes. Neither of them could ever be confined to an office job. They needed their space. (Our father, chief pilot for TWA was asked repeatedly to take on the Boston office, but always declined.)
Both of them really liked to shoot the breeze with everyone, from all walks of life. Forbes, I heard recently, particularly enjoyed hanging out with a rather eccentric character when living in New Hampshire. Apparently no one else would get near this old guy because he never bathed and lived in squalor. That did not deter Forbes.
Our father was also always there to give a helping hand— plowing driveways, chopping wood, fixing things— whatever. Forbes, too, always there for his friends...

I remember this photo because I was excitedly heading off with Forbes to an NPR “Rockabilly” concert with Click & Clack the Tappet Brothers (of Car Talk renown). I had gotten the tickets and anticipated rockin with my bro. I shoulda known… I ran into a friend and my bro slipped away… I found him [as expected] on the dance floor— totally cleared except for him and some gorgeous girl who had met his match. Everyone mezmerized. Including me... (late 1960's?) [And no, he had not met her before.]

Forbes with two of our four uncles Jim (left) and Crosby (our mother's younger brothers). Jim, an artist, emigrated to Australia because he was vehemently against the Viet Nam war.  (Though why he chose Australia, also involved, is a little bewildering!) Knowing nothing about farming, Jim decided to buy a cattle ranch in Brisbane. At one point it was clear that things were going downhill, so Forbes (in the late-70's?) was delegated to go down under to assess the situation. I gather he helped make some difficult but constructive decisions. We thought Forbes might never return!  (Aussie cousins: do you have any details of Forbes's sojourn?) 

Note: you can see Forbes in his Aussie garb about 14 rows up from the first photo in the gallery. (Unfortunately the site does not number starting with the first photo. If it did, I could tell you the #. As it is now, every time I add a photo it becomes #1 and all the other photo numbers change accordingly... )

Forbes with Vaughn Monroe and his wife Marian, 1962. Vaughn was an American big band leader, baritone singer ("the man with the iron tonsils” I recall), trumpeter and actor who was most popular in the 1940s and 1950s.  When my parents were courting in the early 40’s, they would frequent his nightclub “The Meadows” in Framingham, MA and became good friends (Vaughn, like my father, was a pilot and loved to fly…). Whenever they would enter the club, Vaughn somehow immediately had the band switch tunes to “Day in, Day out” which was our parents' theme song… Forbes ended up dating the Monroe’s daughter, Candace, probably around this time. (Note: Vaughn was 6’2” but seems dwarfed in size next to Forbes!)

The  Patapsco River must have reminded Forbes of the rivers near the Sanctuary, Hancock NH (technically, it's in Antrim). This is a photo of the Souhegan River (an Algonquin name meaning "waiting and watching place") running through Milford and Wilton. The Contoocook River (a Pennacook name: "place of the river near pines") with four covered bridges runs through Hancock and Peterborough. 

Forbes and Marilyn must have spent many glorious days together here, enjoying the peace and tranquility of each and every moment in Nature...

I am sure recognition of this venerable tree was important to him...

For me it helps to know where and how Forbes spent his last hours on this beautiful imperiled Earth...  After spending the night of the 4th here , I believe he had breakfast in the Wayside Inn dining room.         
[Unfortunately, this "Stories" site won't allow me to show groups of photos so I will just put some of them up one by one...] 

On the afternoon of 4 November, 2020, Forbes decided to “get out of dodge” as he told several of us. He went to the Wayside Inn in Ellicott City where he and Marilyn shared many happy memories... With him he brought "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy, which had been recommended by Marilyn to her book club.          
[See more photos of the Inn under Stories.]

I only knew Forbes briefly at the end of his life, starting with a class I took of his at AACC. He was an extraordinary man, so full of passion about life. We all found him to have a magical presence. I am so happy to read these tributes to him and the wonderful photographs showing his life’s  journey.  

My best wishes, Lind

This is an example of Steve's playing (from his website):                https://www.nightheron.com/media/MP3s/scottish.mp3

Forbes did not leave a “note”. However, he left dozens of Zen notes around his apartment (from calendars I would give him every year). Most seemed to be memos to himself. On top of the microwave in the kitchen was a stack of personal notes expressing his deep and ongoing pain of losing Marilyn. They shed light on his insoluble and unbearable grief. 

When we lived in Westbury, NY, our father had an adored lab called Kilty. One day Kilty crossed the road. Forbes, about the age in this photo (5 yrs?), called him back. Kilty was run over. I cannot imagine the trauma Forbes experienced... He always loved dogs. (See his story about Arnold, the wonder dog.) According to our mother, our father never really forgave him. The beginning of a needlessly fraught (and one might call "tragic") relationship… 

Forbes sent out the following essay to his email group on 10/29/20 (a week before he died…). There were several long-hand and typed re-iterations in his file. Clearly he put a lot of time and thought into this issue. He asked me to find the cartoon in question (claiming he was computer-challenged :) and told me that he was hoping this would start a stimulating discussion on line. I present this today because it is the new national holiday of Juneteenth. Forbes lived his life as an anti-racist and was always delving deep… inspiring others to do the same…  

********************************************************************

Philip Guston & klan paintings

This fall, the long planned traveling retrospective exhibition, “Philip Guston Now” which included the work “Riding Around” and 23 other klan paintings, was postponed.  The National Gallery of Art, Tate Museum, Museum of Fine Art, Boston and Museum of Fine Art, Houston announced the postponement in a press release.  “The racial justice movement that started in the US and radiated to countries around the world, in addition to challenges of the global health crisis have led us to pause.”  That “pause” is thought to extend to 2022 or 2024.

Is this position of the museums legitimate or a cop out?  A scathing response to this decision was in an open letter organized by a collective of American artists, Black &  White, young & old and diverse ethnicity that included Nicole Eisenman, Charles Gaines, Ellen Gallagher, Lorna Simpson and many others.  They decried the museums' “lack of courage to display Guston's work, attempt to interpret it or come to terms with the institutions' own history of prejudice.”  Additionally, the signatories demanded that the museums address the “long standing failure to have educated, integrated or prepared themselves to meet the challenge of renewed pressure for racial justice that has developed over the last 5 years.”  [wiki]

The institutional issues of racism and racial justice raised by the American artist collective's open letter prompts another contentious subject.  Superficially, we notice the cartoony klan image in “Riding Around.”  Drilling down the “Riding Around” klan with hoods image is symbolically freighted with the historical reality of violence, hangings and intimidation of Black Americans. Is the klan image like the swastika and the “noose” which are fraught with historical symbolism and the meaning, necessarily contingent on who is speaking, who is listening and the context in which the thing is said?

Is it that we understand that certain images and symbols may be objectionable but we also value freedom of expression and allow license?  Philip Kennicott, Wash. Post art critic, asks the question: “Are there certain words, images and symbols in any context, so offensive in all situations, no matter who displays them, no matter the intended meaning or audience?”  Or is the mantra of freedom of expression, which is a part of our cultural DNA, that gives license for provocative, controversial sometimes obscene and racist artistic expression?

Returning to our focus which is the postponement of the Guston exhibition and the role of  museums— which arguably is a bifurcated mission.  On the one hand, the mission of a museum is to preserve and display artworks that meet the highest standards of artistic quality.  On the other hand, museums are the catalyst between art maker and viewer, to stretch the viewer's consciousness.      

Attribution: In part, Wikipedia & “A portrait of NGA's flawed reasoning” article by Sebastian Smee in the Washington Post. 

*************************************************************

I include these excerpts from Wiki:

Philip Guston (born Phillip Goldstein (June 27, 1913 – June 7, 1980), was a Canadian American painter, printmaker, muralist and draftsman. Early in his five decade career, muralist David Siquieros described him as one of "the most promising painters in either the US or Mexico,"[1] in reference to his antifascist fresco The Struggle Against Terror, which "includes the hooded figures that became a lifelong symbol of bigotry for the artist."[2] 

The child of Jewish parents who escaped persecution by immigrating to Canada from Odessa, Guston was born in Montreal in 1913, and moved to Los Angeles in 1919.[2] The family were aware of the regular Ku Klux Klan activities against Jews and blacks and which took place across California.[12] In 1923, possibly owing to persecution or the difficulty in securing income, his father hanged himself in the shed, and the young boy found the body.

"Guston worked in a number of artistic modes, from Renaissance-inspired figuration to formally accomplished abstraction,"[3] and is now regarded as one of the "most important, powerful, and influential American painters of the last 100 years."[4] He also frequently depicted racism, antisemitism, fascism and American identity, as well as, especially in his later most cartoonish and mocking work, the banality of evil.

…several paintings of hooded Klansmen which Guston explained this way: “They are self-portraits … I perceive myself as being behind the hood … The idea of evil fascinated me … I almost tried to imagine that I was living with the Klan.”

finis

A letter to Forbes from our mother (age 88) who was an accomplished golfer. Forbes always had a love/hate relationship with the game which he was determined to master in Annapolis (with mixed results, I gather :)  His usual refrain: how to spoil a good walk…

***************

May 26, 2003 

Do you remember when we played in an official “Mother-Son Golf Tournament“ at the Dedham Country Club? It's listed in the enclosed article from The Boston Globe in 1959. 

You stepped up to the first tee and hit a drive that looked as though it would land in the middle of the fairway. But at the last moment the ball went sharply left ending up in some trees and bushes– unplayable. 

So you hit another drive which went about 60 yards– a 10 foot high slice!- headed for the swimming pool. When I looked over to see where it landed, I saw an attractive gal sunning herself on her back– oblivious to the golf ball you hit that had dribbled between her legs! I decided it was unplayable. 

The rest of the 17 holes were uneventful and we didn't do too badly getting 108. I remember being relieved when we walked up the hill to the 18th green. 

What do you remember!? I figure you may recollect more than I do— it was September 10 so I guess you were almost 18!

I found this introductory saga of Arnold, the wonder dog in Forbes’s files. (See photo of Arnold under Gallery with story attached.) I believe Forbes always wanted to write a book to honor his special relationship with Arnold… I have attached a photo of Forbes’s rescue dog “Rin Tin Tin” (who now lives with me :). I am always reminded of Arnold with her wistful “hang dog” look. (For more information on Rinty, see Stories: Forbes’s humor.)


Arnold The Wonder Dog 
First Meeting 

In the fading light of an overcast afternoon and the snow fitfully falling, I was cutting oak logs in a gully near a dirt road. The work warded off the chill of late fall. Slowly, I became aware of something warm pressing against my leg. A white and brown dog with distinctive blue coloring on its haunches was standing next to me. Well, not standing exactly, more like wriggling. I was reminded of the saying "tail wagging the dog.” As I reached down to pat the dog, she leaped into my arms licking my face.

After a wet face wash, I put her down. She looked expectantly as if she wanted me to stop working, to sit with her awhile. I sat down on a log and brushed the snow so she could sit on dry leaves. Her intelligent eyes seemed to suggest "take a break” which worked for me. We sat quietly for awhile. 

As if sensing that I needed to keep cutting and the danger of the chainsaw, she beat a hasty retreat back up the path into the shadows of the setting sun and the quickening snowfall, turning occasionally to glance back.

Later, just as dusk began to settle into early evening, I dragged the first of the cut oak logs to my truck. Reaching the road I noticed a snow covered mound in the middle of it. The mound moved. Then with a burst of snow this dog bounded into my waiting arms. Shivering, tail wagging she licked my face welcoming me with open paws.

Who is this extraordinary dog and where did she come from?

Carrying forward his grandmother’s (Elsa Tudor) and father’s vision of protecting the Sanctuary at Willard Pond was Forbes’s most personal legacy. I was fortunate to share  a very magical and special time with him at the Sanctuary. Here are some memories from our hippy days at Willard Pond. 

I met Forbes in 1970, when a very tall, very handsome man showed up on my doorstep in response to an inquiry I had made about renting his cabin.  I had fallen in love with Willard Pond that spring and reconnected with a deep part of my soul there and felt more at home at the Sanctuary than any place I had ever been.  Forbes offered that I could live at the cabin if I didn’t mind him showing up on weekends. Shortly thereafter, Forbes brought up a friend, Roz, from Boston who also ended up living at the cabin for a while and becoming a life long friend of mine. And so began a most wonderful chapter of my life.

Before long, Forbes and I became romantically involved.  He would go off in his green and white VW bus, selling  Amway products during the week, and return on the weekends, bearing a case of Boones Farms Apple Wine and food and occasionally other folks.  Soon, he was living at the cabin most of the time.  

Forbes loved sharing the magical energy and beauty of the sanctuary with others.  He often invited folks up to the cabin to visit, eat and make music.  In the open society of the hippy days, people showed up and joined in whatever activities were happening. Often there would be folks sleeping on the cabin floor— weekend visitors or people passing through. 

Though the wine flowed freely and there may have been some pot smoking going on, the hippy life at the sanctuary was more of the back-to-the-land variety rather than a heavy drug scene. 

Other back-to-the-land folks  who heard about “the hippies at Willard Pond”  would come and check out the scene. At times all three cabins had residents, and it was a bit of a community.   Likewise we would venture out to Vermont or other towns in the hills to see what other back-to-the-land folks were up to. 

We once went in search of a tin tub that would fit Forbes’s length and ended up with a beautiful 6 foot tin tub, with wood paneling on the side.  Forbes mounted it up off the floor in a niche, next to the stone fireplace, put a plywood lid and mattress on top, making a cozy sleeping spot with a woodsy view.

I remember one trip to Vermont in the VW bus.  We got stuck in some road construction with a local traffic cop on the other side of the flat windshield, watching us suspiciously as we giggled and laughed uncontrollably  for what seemed like the longest time (OK— we were probably stoned).

There was such a carefree feeling living at the Sanctuary that year.  I remember roaming the woods as I did as a child, marveling at the red of the cardinal flowers along the stream feeding the Mill Pond, the Blue Gentian blooming by the lake below Bald Mountain, the beautiful and deadly Amanita Muscaria mushrooms.  There was one afternoon when a very large and ornery snapping turtle was blocking  the driveway near the garden.  (Forbes was not a fan of the snapping turtles, who would pluck off  little ducklings as they swam  in a line behind their mothers.)  Finally it ambled out of the way, so we could leave.  

One fall day, Forbes and I took a really long walk through the woods, galloping along old farm roads as I had when I was young, pretending we were riding horses.  He cherished that memory and the childlike joy we felt, and would often remind me of that day. 

Many summer nights,  the  notorious Lowell boys from up the road would come down with their guitars and Arnold Dog tagging along, and soon music would drift out the open windows of the cabin. One friend, Danny Thiebault wrote me  “I met Joanie (his wife) at Forbes’s cabin. There had been an evening of music and get together”.  I have never had such fun making music and harmonies and remember Forbes either playing his flute or big drum, with Roz and I singing harmonies to  Bob and Gary’s  excellent guitar playing and vocals.

Forbes was also known for quietly helping out folks in need.  Several women hitchhikers were sheltered at the sanctuary while getting their bearings  following big life changes. One friend was leaving her abusive husband and hitchhiking in a snowstorm, when Forbes gave her a ride and offered her refuge at the cabin while she figured out a plan. She told me of his kindness years later, when we realized we both knew Forbes.

Forbes loved helping people get their gardens going, offering to rototill and often bringing manure to them.

Marcy Brown confirmed a story I remembered about the truck Forbes was driving with a heavy load of manure breaking the bridge going to Marcy’s island house:

“He brought a dump truck full of wet cow manure for my garden in Stoddard and he had to cross a bridge that Thurston Williams had built years before to get to it.. Thurston let us live there rent free in exchange for fixing up the old farmhouse there as was our style in those days. Thurston had bought that property and renovated the land for access with only one house left standing from the early 1900s when it was a “excelsior”mill village..(many house foundations there and the old mill stones left but no other buildings).

I was there watching him cross that bridge with the manure and heard it crack and he gunned the truck!!!!!...and luckily barely drove that thing over that last lip... !!!!!! We almost lost him then!

Such a story for the record of Forbes’ extraordinary life…”     Roz remembers being in the truck for that memorable ride. 

Early that first summer, Forbes and I put in the first vegetable garden either of us  had ever planted.  It was in the flat field below the cabin, right on the lake where the canoes are kept now.  Corn, broccoli, carrots, beans…We made the pathways in the shape of a peace sign. I loved that garden!!  

I have never felt as connected to the earth and natural rhythms as when I lived at the Sanctuary.  My feet knew the way between the stones on that winding soft pine needle path to the dipping stone at the water’s edge where we scooped  pails full of sparkling clear, sweet water to carry back up to the cabin.   We washed in the lake in the mornings by the little bridge-even in late fall.   I remember cleaning and filling the kerosene lamps every day;  chopping wood for the kitchen stove;  baking my first pie in that stove from Willard Pond wild blueberries; picking vegetables from the garden for dinner. Skinny-dipping  and sunning on the flat rock in the afternoon were daily activities in the summer.  Going out in the canoe later in the day, we’d watch the beavers at the far end of the lake and look for the loons, or pick blueberries.  We hiked the trails through woods that breathed with presence, and climbed Bald Mountain for the reward of the view from the top and Goodhue Hill for the raspberries. The trail around the lake led to the peaceful pine cathedral at Sandy Point.

Forbes loved to tell a story about one day when Roz and I had gone up Goodhue to pick raspberries.  Arnold Dog stopped for a visit at the cabin, and Forbes told her to go find us up on Goodhue, and sure enough, she did!

  We loved listening to the loons call across the water and the Barred Owl’s unique hooting at night —  “Who cooks for you. Who cooks for you all”.  Jerry Cutlip, the NH Audubon warden who lived at Forbes’ Grandmother’s   house with his young family,  would sometimes answer the Barred Owl and on occasion, I think between Forbes and Jerry, there was no Barred Owl calling at all, but the two fellows hooting back and forth to each other. Forbes would tease Jerry the next day about that lonely  Barred Owl looking for a mate.

Feeling the seasons move through the woods, we did  the seasonal chores that a simple lifestyle requires. In the summer, we would have to buy blocks of ice for the bright yellow ice box which resided in a corner of the bedroom and the tin kerosene container always needed refilling for the lamps at night.

A trip to town for supplies typically took 2 or 3 times longer than usual, as Forbes loved to shoot the bull with various folks in town.  He particularly enjoyed some of the local color. I remember “Dirty Dave”  who had a car repair shop and junk yard on the outskirts of Peterborough.  We were never quite sure what he was saying sometimes, his NH accent was so strong.   We finally decided that “Pecan” was actually “B’ God”.  He also favored the word “commenced”.   “Waltah”  and  “Highway Higgie” who worked on the road crew in Hancock were other local folks that Forbes loved to schmooze with.  He  just loved to tell a long tale and make folks laugh.

Fall meant cutting wood for the winter, and we got a workout sawing longer logs in the sawbuck to stove length in the yard of the cabin and splitting them on the big log with the maul, then stacking the wood.

I remember Forbes always getting up early and starting a fire in the stove, before I ventured out of the warm bed.  In the late fall and winter, we had to break the ice on the water buckets in the morning.

Finally winter chased us out of the woods and the uninsulated cabin and back to Forbes’ Pearl Street apartment in Cambridge, where I found a life long friend in Mary (Giovinazzo Cartwright) Meyers, who was living there with her then husband, Dennis. That apartment  was a hoot, with a refrigerator in the dining room, which served as Forbes filing cabinet (as the dining table was his office).  We swore there was a hole into another dimension in that room as things frequently vanished there. Musical evenings happened in Cambridge too. Forbes would go out for an errand and often end up at the Plow and Star pub on Mass Ave, Mary recalls, and he sometimes brought musicians home with him.

I was happy to enjoy a second idyllic summer living with Forbes at Willard Pond, before we went our separate ways.  Forbes became friends with my brother David and they worked together for years, first as “Frick and Frack” at the Dillon Farm, learning carpentry from Al Dillon, and later they formed VAL Associates with Geoff Aldrich, building spec houses and  doing renovations. 

We always stayed good friends through the years and I have always considered  Forbes a central  soul in my “soul family” who connected me to many of the people who are still important in my life.

-Jan Voorhis     1/10/2021

Early on, Forbes was a jazz aficionado. When confined to boarding school (they did not get along), he decided one Sunday in the late 1950’s to escape. (He disliked meaningless rules.) Somehow he got public transport taking about an hour into Boston, and made his way to the Jazz Workshop, a nightclub on Boylston Street. Using his charms and dogged persistence, he wiled his way in, under age (it may even have been through the kind graces of a band member at the stage door…). I can’t recall who he went to see, but certainly the likes of Miles Davis, John Coltrain, Duke Ellington… As Forbes's luck would have it, one of his teachers just happened to be there, spotted him, and regretfully informed him that he would have to report this serious infraction. Whatever punishment he had to endure, I am sure that it was all well worth it. [Years later I remember going with him to the same club to see Stevie Wonder, when he told me this story.]

I heard from his friend Rob Doyle that in the late 60's when living on Pearl St, Cambridge (a 3rd floor walk up with space heaters) that Forbes would frequent Lennie’s-On-The-Turnpike. 

Lennie’s-On-The-Turnpike
“You had to work to get here, but it was always a happy ending.” So said Lennie Sogoloff, owner of his eponymous legendary jazz club, Lennie’s-On-The-Turnpike. While most of the region’s jazz scene focused on Boston venues like the Jazz Workshop, the Stable, and Storyville, Lennie’s North Shore location, on Route 1 in Peabody, was a comparatively remote, genuine destination, and one to which many jazz greats made a pilgrimage.

Originally conceived by Sogoloff in the early 1950s as a small bar (then known as the Turnpike Club) notable for its jukebox well-stocked with jazz records from his day job as a salesman for Columbia Records, Lennie’s began hosting live local jazz musicians in 1959. As the venue’s reputation grew, so did the club itself, expanding its capacity from 56 to around 200. By 1963, nationally-known musicians began adding Lennie’s to their tour itineraries — trumpeter Roy Eldridge, saxophonist Sonny Stitt, and trombonist J.J. Johnson were among the first national acts to play there, and jazz giants such as Buddy Rich, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Nina Simone, Duke Ellington, Bill Evans, Earl Bostic, Jaki Byard (whose April 15, 1965, performance there yielded two live albums on Prestige – 1965’s Jaki Byard Quartet Live and ‘66’s The Last From Lennie’s), and Gary Burton soon graced Lennie’s small stage. Lennie’s also hosted instrument-focused workshops, starring trios of guitarists, pianists and drummers — including a well-known May ‘67 drum night featuring an, uh, over-tired Elvin Jones.
https://www.mmone.org/lennies-on-the-turnpike/

How I will miss his compassion; his understanding; his generosity and his sense of humor.  No matter who you were, Forbes always made you feel like the most important person in front of him.  He and his long-time companion, Marilyn, shared so many memories with my husband and me that will be held close to my heart forever.  Our mutual love of music was always a constant.  His love of jazz and my disdain of jazz gave him many opportunities to bait me with discussions about "real music."  By the same token, we went to many many classical concerts where I was in my element but he seemed to know as much about the composers, programs, etc. as I did, sometimes more.  How I will miss those discussions on music, life, and just being friends, for that is surely what Forbes was - my friend.  I am so blessed to have known him and will be eternally grateful for his love.  As the eagle soars, Forbes, I know you will, too.  Be at peace. Be with Marilyn.  Know you were treasured.  Until we meet again~