 |
| The Lovingly Eccentric Rufus |
In fact, Rufus might have been the first and only African-American bagpiper in any musical genre. This unique job-description – black, jazz bagpiper –got Rufus on a bunch of TV shows from “What’s My Line” to Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show.”
However, the man was uniquely, weird in many other ways, too. Get him talking (which wasn’t difficult) and soon your head was swimming.
The man had his own odd philosophy of life – bits and piece of world religions, numerology, cosmic vibration.
He liked to deliver babies (within his extended family) and present miniature replicas of the Liberty Bell to scores of people, ranging from the Pope and U.S. Presidents, to Nelson Mandela and Bozo the Clown.
The contents of his modest Germantown rowhouse might provide some feel for this unique oddball: burning candles, cattle horns, voodoo statues, Zodiac signs, a Russian icon, a statue of Buddha, pictures of Jesus, the Virgin Mary and Frank Rizzo and much, much more.
Painted on the walls were various numbers and symbols . Several simply read “ME.” Ask about “ME” and you would learn that ME is the third note in the scale – do, re, me. Earth is the third planet from the sun. You can hear that word three in freedom.
Rufus wrote something called the Consti-three-ion, which he gave out with his miniature Liberty Bells.
As wacky as all this sounds, Rufus was also a very likeable and pleasant guy. And he was a really good musician on many instruments, particularly sax.
He showed musical talent and a unique personality as a child.. “I was always an eccentric, difficult kid,” he told a reporter in a 1990 interview. “When I was nine years old my mother took me to a psychiatrist at Children’s Hospital. He tested me all day. He said, ‘There’s nothing wrong with your kid.’”
He was an optimist, a vegetarian, a life-long Philadelphia booster who played bagpipes at weddings, bar mitzvahs and many jazz festivals. He died in 2006 - a loss to all those who love genuine eccentricity.