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Here's the rub: It led to a career

Grave-rubbing inspired success in public speaking

By Jack Etkin, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published January 23, 2009 at 3 p.m.

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Max Donaldson sits in Fairmount Cemetery with a framed grave-rubbing he made of Stan Laurel's tombstone. At left is his rubbing of John Wayne's tombstone. Read more about Donaldson's grave rubbings at RockyMountainNews.com.

Photo by Ellen Jaskol / The Rocky

Max Donaldson sits in Fairmount Cemetery with a framed grave-rubbing he made of Stan Laurel's tombstone. At left is his rubbing of John Wayne's tombstone. Read more about Donaldson's grave rubbings at RockyMountainNews.com.

Donaldson's rubbing of John Wayne's tombstone.

Photo by Ellen Jaskol / The Rocky

Donaldson's rubbing of John Wayne's tombstone.

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Nearly eight years ago, Max Donaldson and a friend were visiting the Kansas City cemetery where jazz luminary Charlie Parker is buried.

Parker played his inimitable solos on an alto saxophone, but the horn carved on his gravestone is a tenor saxophone. Donaldson, a trained musician, recognized the error immediately. Had Donaldson or his friend been carrying a camera on that summer day, a photograph would have recorded the error.

Instead, Donaldson got some light brown wrapping paper from the trunk of his friend's car, a veritable closet on wheels cluttered with all sorts of stuff, including a black crayon. Donaldson didn't realize it then, as he did his first grave rubbing, but he had found the tools for a new calling.

What followed produced a humorous anecdote that he always includes near the start of "Stories Under the Stones," the title of his fast-paced, entertaining slide- show presentation.

"I wrote a letter to the Kansas City Star," Donaldson recently told an audience of about 65 at a retirement community in Broomfield, "and they published it under the headline: Kansas City Blows It Again."

The audience chuckled. And then Donaldson regaled them with tales about, among others, Bing Crosby, Irving Berlin, Frank Sinatra, John Wayne, Nat "King" Cole, Lawrence Welk, Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, Paul Revere, Betsy Ross, W.C. Fields, Lucille Ball and Robert Ripley of Ripley's Believe It or Not fame.

On this mid-December night, the 73-year-old Donaldson was doing his 34th show since Oct. 1 - a schedule that had taken him to five states. He is a light year from Parker's grave, a visit that spawned an unusual avocation, not to mention Donaldson's eye-catching vanity license plate: RUBBER.

Much to Donaldson's amazement, all those quiet hours he subsequently spent doing grave rubbings in more than 150 cemeteries stretching from New Hampshire to southern California have mushroomed into steady, and rather unusual, work. During an entertaining hour, Donaldson doesn't wind his way down memory lane so much as hurtle down it, telling stories about celebrities, none of whom is alive.

"It's the kind of thing that I think some of our kids should hear more of, just to make them aware that history can be alive, too," said Tom Sweeney, who listened to Donaldson recently at the Aspen Lodge in the Anthem Ranch retirement community in Broomfield.

Kids, though, are not Donaldson's target audience. He speaks regularly at retirement homes, community centers, service clubs such as Rotary, Kiwanis and Lions - very often breakfast meetings where Donaldson scales his one-hour talk down to 20 or 30 minutes - and even private parties. And not just in the Denver area and Colorado; Donaldson has taken his show to California, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri, with Oklahoma scheduled for the near future.

After his recent presentation in Broomfield, Donaldson shared his greatest satisfaction: "I've created something out of nothing."

A touchy subject

Donaldson discovered grave rubbings are popular in Europe, but infrequent in the United States. It was a pastime Donaldson realized he could do on his own, so soon after visiting Parker's grave, he went to Southern California and returned with about 15 grave rubbings.

"It kind of avalanched from there, if you'll excuse the expression," Donaldson said.

Donaldson's program is rooted in the finality of the famous. Hence, to those in the 55-and-over set, particularly those well beyond that chronological milepost, slides showing grave rubbings or gravestones can be touchy.

"It's a little macabre," said Arlene Olson, who was in the audience at the Aspen Lodge. "And especially when you're playing to an over-55 group . . . We're getting too close to that place for it to be fun or entertaining or joyful."

Donaldson is acutely aware of that. "That's why I try to keep the show light. And frankly, I've gone back and really, over the last year and a half, tried to eliminate a whole lot of anything to do with gravestones."

Last year, Donaldson gave 112 talks. "I got my speaking chops down now," he said, using what for him was an appropriate musical reference.

Donaldson is a drummer/percussionist, who played with three symphony orchestras; and for more than a dozen years, until 1972, had his own group, The Shenanigans. The four played jazz, show tunes and even some rock in clubs in Southern California. To Donaldson, the dues he paid as a musician were similar to his speaking engagements, the first of which Donaldson said was before eight men in a Rotary Club in Aurora in summer 2005.

"As a musician, I knew I had to play a lot of free jobs in order to get paid. And I knew I had to do a lot of speeches in order to get paid doing this."

When he began giving talks, Donaldson literally was doing some heavy lifting. He'd cart 15 or 20 grave rubbings - framed, with brief write-ups Donaldson put together on each individual - to his car, then to the show, then back to his car and finally back into the basement of his house. Then he would repeat the process a few days later for the next show.

"And I got tired of doing that. I said,'There's got to be an easier way.' I bought a laptop and taught myself to do PowerPoint."

"What a difference that is," he said. "It makes it pleasant. Now I can go on the road. I couldn't go on the road and do these shows. I wouldn't get to the first state without breaking something."

On the road

The speaking engagements became Donaldson's full-time work in October 2006. That's when he left concessionaire Aramark after 14 years. Donaldson had served the suites at Coors Field, but work became less steady by 2005.

"I used to make some pretty good money at the suites," Donaldson said. "Now it was down to pretty sad. And I kept thinking, 'Well, I've got to figure out something else to do here.'

"When I started doing the speaking, I was still at Coors Field working, but speaking was gaining some momentum. And I kept thinking, 'It is more fun, but it could be monetarily rewarding, too.' "

Nowadays Donaldson saunters into speaking engagements, pulling a bag containing his computer and cables, carrying two smaller bags and, presto, he's ready to go.

"My name's Max Donaldson," he said by way of introduction on this night in Broomfield. "And we're going to have a little fun tonight. I'm going to take you back on some memories, and we're going to talk about a lot of very famous people."

Donaldson warmed up the crowd with a few jokes, related his musical past and told how he once wrote for Soupy Sales' television show. Soon his rubbing from Charlie Parker's grave was on the screen, and the show was rolling.

While pacing back and forth and offering insights into some well-known people, Donaldson, as always, watched the back two rows and happily saw the people there were following him, their eyes or heads moving right as Donaldson moved left.

"I thought he was very professional," said Arlene Olson, the audience member who was uncomfortable with the macabre underpinnings of Donaldson's talk, after the show. "I think he had some good one-liners. He wasn't an amateur or self-conscious."

"It takes a lot out of you because you're 'boom, boom, boom,' hopping, hopping," Donaldson said on the drive back to Denver, the adrenaline rush subsiding after this performance.

"I guess I am in show business like I used to be, but in a totally different vein. Now I'm not relying on a band. I'm not relying on side men. I'm not relying on arrangements. I'm not relying on, 'Are the lights working?'

"I go and I do my show. It's a one-man deal, and I'm in charge of everything. And I love that control to make it right."

GRAVE MATTERS

Max Donaldson said one of the most elaborate graves he's visited was movie director Cecil B. DeMille's. Donaldson said DeMille's gravestone, in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles, "is just a giant thing -- 8 feet tall and 10 feet wide. Many blocks of granite and many carvings on it. It's like one of his epics, like Ben Hur."

Hollywood Forever is adjacent to the back of Paramount Studios. Donaldson recalled being at the cemetery with his nephew, Mark Ward, searching for Mel Blanc's grave.

Suddenly, they heard music and saw a man, standing amid flat gravestones, playing a trombone. When he finished, Donaldson and his nephew learned the man was playing at the graves of his grandfather and grandmother, who raised him.

The man explained he was a studio musician on his way to work. Donaldson asked where work was, and the man pointed to a row of buildings on the Paramount lot, then added: "When I get a studio gig at Paramount, I come over here and play for my grandfather and grandmother and that's how I warm up my chops."

"It was just the most unheard of things I'd ever seen in a cemetery," Donaldson said. "This guy standing out there all by himself playing. And he was a great player."

After he does grave rubbings, Donaldson's careful to wipe down the gravestone with a rat tail brush and a damp cloth. Mowers deposit grass and clods of dirt on graves, but Donaldson said "when I do a grave rubbing and I leave, that grave is in better shape than it's been in in years, because I clean it completely."

Donaldson, on occasion, has felt something different, something noticeable, at some graves. "I felt spiritually involved with some of them," he said.

The first time was at the grave of explorer Meriwether Lewis. "It wasn't a spooky feeling. It was calming."

Donaldson said the feeling returned when he was doing grave rubbings where Daniel Boone is buried, as well as Meredith Willson, Cole Porter and Hoagy Carmichael.

"It was almost like a presence. I can't put my finger on it. It was just a feeling. Whenever I felt that, I always felt that they would approve of me doing what I'm doing."

etkinj@RockyMountainNews.com

Comments

  • January 24, 2009

    12:20 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    RStone writes:

    Fasinating story! I've heard Max speak at a luncheon. I was amazed at the amount of interesting stories and insight he brings to his presentations. His humorious delivery of unique stories are insightful and entertaining bits of Americana. I also can't wait to read his new book!