From Gerry Krolik of SOUNDTRACKERS WEEKLY LIST (a good friend here in L.A. as well)

JAN, 2005

A VISIT TO JERRY GOLDSMITH'S GRAVESITE

I had mentioned on the last Soundtrack List that I had a funeral to go to...and that funeral took me right back to the cemetery where I saw Jerry Goldsmith interred last year. Now picture this: Three weeks ago when I revisited Hillside Cemetery, it was raining hard, and though it was only 3 o'clock in the afternoon, the skies were dark. I had completely misjudged how long it would take me to get there, so I found myself about an hour early in a deserted rain- and wind-swept graveyard. And when I tell you that no other human being was there, trust me, I mean no one. Not even a caretaker. With time on my hands, I navigated my way through the downpour to where Jerry Goldsmith is interred.

They have yet to place a marker on his crypt (that's usually done one year after a person's death), but there is a little printed card on the wall that simply states his name. And right in front of Goldsmith's grave was a small basket of flowers along with a sealed note addressed to the composer. Hmmm.... So now we come to a new occasional feature of the Soundtrack List that I'll call "What Would You Do?" What would you do? You're all alone in a cemetery in front of the crypt of one of the greatest film composers ever. It's raining hard...there's no one else around...and there's a mystery note addressed to the composer that is still sealed and within hand's reach (yours, not the composer's). Do you open the note, knowing full well that there's no one there to "catch you" but also knowing that it's none of your business? Or do you exercise some human restraint and decorum and just pay your respects and walk away? What would you do? Hmmm. Hmmm? Well, it took me about two nanoseconds to decide what to do.

I figured that Jerry Goldsmith wasn't going to crawl out of his casket and read the note, right? So maybe I could read it aloud to him. Which is what I did. Interestingly enough, the note was hand-addressed to Jerrald Kingley Goldsmith (I think I got that middle name correct), which led me to believe that it was from a relative. It was dated February 10, so it was obviously sent to commemorate what would have been Goldsmith's 76th birthday. (Again, it seems like something that a relative might do.) Inside the envelope was a manufactured card that merely read "Love." No name, no scrawled signature, no nothing. And that's about the end of the story. (I'm not going to bore you with the part where the local villagers spotted me doing this and yelled "Desecration!" as they chased me out of the cemetery with pitchforks.)