“Well, Wayne, that’s what I was calling to talk to you about tonight”.

    I will never forget those words, spoken to me late on a Sunday night in mid-August of 1979. Jeff had moved to the northern Virginia area from Colorado close to a year earlier. He had already had some bouts with the bone cancer, but for the most part seemed to be beating it. He was working on Capitol Hill that summer and we hadn’t seen much of each other for a few months. But then the cancer started coming back and the doctors didn’t like the looks of it. Meanwhile, Jeff had gone down to Roanoke to attend a fraternity brother’s wedding.

    Jeff had been pretty well known and well liked when he graduated from Roanoke in May, 1978. He was good at everything he did. He graduated with a high grade point average and had lots of activities on his resume. He had been the editor of the college newspaper. He was tall, blonde and athletic. He was the only child of very devoted parents. He had everything going for him. Then the nagging bursitis that had cropped up in his left arm shortly before his graduation was diagnosed as a form of bone cancer. He had already had one major surgery which removed a section of bone from his upper arm and replaced it with a metal rod. And he had gone into that surgery not knowing if he’d come out of it with his arm still there or not. Then things had started looking up. Until now.

    Many people  knew about Jeff’s ordeal with the cancer. And as word spread in the summer of '79  that things were looking less optimistic, his fraternity brothers at Sigma Chi decided to throw a big party in Jeff’s honor once the school year started back up. Clark Cochran and Ed Brown were visiting Bob Murphy in Richmond that summer where he was in law school.  Clark was entering the MBA program at William & Mary, and Ed was a parole officer in back in Salem.  These three friends and fraternity brothers realized that their old friend was facing a major challenge and decided that an event in Jeff's honor was in order.  And they were going to go all out on this one. They decided to rent out the Cavern, hire a band, and invite everyone who’d ever crossed paths with Jeff, from President Fintel to the new pledges. It was going to be a night to remember.

    Now Jeff was back in town and on the phone to me explaining all the plans for the party and making sure that I could commit to being there on September 15. It was only a month off. Of course I’d be there, I told him. Then he told me that he was particularly excited about the Sigs committing to hire a band. This was to be a serious party. And it was all as a tribute to him. It was all because he had so many supportive friends. When he was told that the band was a definite go, Jeff asked the Sigs to let him take care of the arrangements for the band. They didn’t know what he meant so he just replied, “I’ll take care of the band”. So I asked him what he meant and he said that his band would be playing at the party. I was quite surprised, not knowing that he had formed a band that summer. Then I heard those fateful words. He knew that I had an old set of drums in my basement, and he knew that an old friend who played bass, Fred Barrett, had moved into town. We were the band. Jeff was going to call Fred next. He knew that we couldn’t say “No” to this offer.

    By now it was 11 pm on a Sunday night. We had one month to get together and learn a whole night’s worth of songs. And I considered myself a guitarist at the time, not a drummer. So, I hung up the phone and went straight downstairs and started practicing on those drums.

    Jeff and Fred came over to my house a couple nights later and Jeff started telling us what songs we were going to play. It was mostly mainstream rock and roll from the last 20 years. It wasn’t yet called Classic Rock. The Rolling Stones, Elvis, Beatles, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, that sort of stuff.

    But Jeff had also written quite a number of songs himself. It seemed that whenever the cancer had gotten him down, mentally or physically, the creative juices flowed and songs popped up in his head left and right. He came up with blues tunes, old fashioned rock and roll, and middle of the road soft rock. He wrote funny songs about the Texas Tavern and April Goetz, he wrote songs from the heart, and he wrote songs that just gave him an excuse to get loud and rowdy. As with all songwriters, he wrote about things that he saw happening in the world around him, and about the things that he wanted to see happening. Then, when he was healthy again, he’d spend a lot of time practicing those songs. Often he’d record himself on a portable cassette recorder so he could play it back and listen. Sometimes he’d even give out copies of those tapes if he liked the way the songs came out. Everybody who knew Jeff started becoming familiar with his songs and had their own favorites.

    We practiced two or three times a week at my house for several weeks. I became a drummer. Fred was already a pretty good bass player. Jeff was good with his guitar, his treasured cherryburst Les Paul. Jeff did just about all the singing. In another stroke of good fortune, it turned out that Fred was the owner of a PA system that he’d gotten stuck with when the members of a previous band sent Fred out to buy it with promises of splitting the cost. I don’t think that Fred considered that to be too lucky, but it sure worked out well for us at this time in history.

    This party was a very big event for Jeff. It was for many of us, but of course he was the focus of it all. The doctors wanted to operate on him again in late September and they weren’t too optimistic about saving his arm this time. It would probably be the end of his guitar playing days. And the guitar and the music are a big part of what kept him going during this ordeal. Everything was going smoothly as we prepared for the big day, until a few days before the party when Jeff starting to get very ill. This illness was an expected part of the disease and it was starting to look like he wouldn’t be able to make the trip. But he must have summoned up every last bit of energy he could muster to pull himself together because he made a sudden recovery shortly before we were to leave for Roanoke.

THE ROANOKE PARTY WEEKEND

    We traveled to Roanoke in two cars so that we could haul all the equipment. Fred had an old station wagon that we put everything into. And Jeff and I rode in my MG with the top down on a nice sunny Friday afternoon. We almost didn’t make it. A very sudden and strong storm came up with almost no warning while we were on Route 66 and forced us to the side of the road to try to put the top up on the car. It all happened so suddenly that Fred, who was driving behind us nearly hit Jeff when he jumped out to help with the convertible top.

    But we made it to Roanoke in one piece and spent the night at the Sig house wherever we could find unused beds. On Saturday a group of people set up the Cavern for the party and we did the sound check. Otherwise we visited with many old friends who had gathered at the college. All was set to go.

    Saturday night was party time. It started out with speeches. Although the party was a tribute to Jeff, the beginning was more of a roast than anything. Clark and Ed both had plenty of Jeff stories to tell, both real and fictional.  The place was packed. President and Mrs. Fintel were there, as were other professors, staff, alumni, students, and friends. The band led off with a rendition of Louie, Louie, and we built up from there. It wasn’t long before people were dancing up a storm. Our last set must have lasted for at least an hour and a half nonstop, maybe even two hours. Jeff was in his glory and there was no stopping him until the time came when we just plain had to evacuate the room. I was so exhausted at the end of the last set that I started to stand up and just toppled back on to my seat for a couple minutes. But the audience would have stayed all night, and so would we, if given the choice. I must say that it was one hell of a party, and was definitely one of the high points of Jeff’s life. There is no proper way to thank the Sigma Chi Fraternity for the excellent job that they did in setting up this tribute to their brother

                              Pictures from the Roanoke party    

THE STUDIO RECORDING

    We drove home to Northern Virginia on Sunday. We stopped and took pictures on the top of Afton Mountain. It was a beautiful day out. I think we were all still recovering from the night before. Halfway home, Jeff mentioned that he had read about a professional recording studio in nearby McLean, Va. He suggested that we all go into the studio before week’s end and record a few of his original songs. I thought he was joking and didn’t take it too seriously. But a couple days later he called me up to ask if I’d booked the studio time. He was serious. I looked up the studio and got on the phone right away and explained to the owner that we were under a time crunch because of Jeff’s impending surgery the following week. We were given several hours on Friday afternoon, September 21, 1979. The studio was called The Loft, because it was constructed in a garage that had been converted to a mother-in-law suite with the upper story holding a loft overlooking the main room. Later the owner converted the building into a studio.

    None of us had ever been in a studio before, so we didn’t know what to expect. Jeff and Fred were in the main room, but the drummer is put in a separate soundproof room with only a small window to look through to see the other guys. The studio had its own set of drums and they just told me to bring my cymbals and sticks. Unfortunately, one of my two cymbals had started to crack while playing at Roanoke, but it was all I had so that is what I took into the studio. We didn’t have much time to get set up, tuned up, and familiar with this environment. The clock was running. We didn’t even know what songs Jeff wanted to record or how many.

    The first selection was Fallen Angels, a soft song that many people of all ages had taken a liking to. I know his dad liked it a lot. We found that when you are in a studio, you notice every little mistake that is made. Then you must start over again and see if you can get it right. Sometimes, if the mistake was minor enough, we could just play back the tape and “punch in” a correction, but the technology was quite a bit different back then and it was hard to make such corrections cleanly. After numerous attempts, we decided to move on to the next song. Given the time constraints and the pressure we were putting on ourselves, the stress level was getting high. Somebody was always slipping up somewhere along the way. Or maybe we just didn’t like the tempo. One thing or another. Although it was pretty exciting after each take to run up to the loft level where the recording equipment was and listen to a replay on a pretty impressive sound system, the repeated takes were wearing on us.

    So, we moved on the April’s in Love Again, a funny song about a girl at Roanoke who Jeff was friends with. It had a good rock beat and everyone knew April, so it always went over well. Of course, we always found new and creative ways to embarrass April with it when she was in the audience. I remember the recording of this song better than any of the others. I remember watching Jeff and Fred through the my little window to the rest of the studio. Every time that someone made a mistake I could see it on Jeff’s face or in his body language as he would resign himself to stopping the music and starting a new take over again. Time after time this happened. Then, one time, it started off well and kept going well. It all felt good and we were hoping that this would be the final take.

    At this point comes one of my clearest recollections of the whole recording experience. Something happened which can still be heard on the cd today. We were past the halfway point of the song and were moving into the bridge verse. The first line is “She’s so cool, she never does sweeeaaat”. As Jeff started to sing this line he stepped over to the window to my drum room and looked at me and smiled the biggest smile just as he was reaching the last word of the line. If you listen to that line and the inflection of his voice, you can hear that big smile coming through. His optimism made me so nervous that for an instant I started to lose the beat, but recovered quickly enough that it is hard to notice. The song had a definite hard ending to it, but on this cd it fades out quickly at the end. We got all the way to the end and Fred’s very last note was a half-step off and Jeff’s very last chord was the wrong one. We tried recording the song again, but knew we could not top this take, so we just faded the end out to cover the mistakes. Also of interest in this song is the play on words with April’s name. There is a line late in the song that says, “Because, what April wants, April gets!”, a clear play on the name of his friend, April Goetz.

(l to r)   Maryanne Marzo, April Goetz and Lisa Barrow at the party

    We then moved on to Don’t Tell Me the Truth. By now we were feeling the strain of having to get this done, but, in a way, were also getting used to the stress. Numerous takes later we felt that it was as good as it would get and we were running out of time.

    Lastly, Jeff picked a blues medley that he called Prelude/I’m Ready. The prelude was something that he had written himself and tacked on to the beginning of an old blues song that he had heard somewhere. It starts with a slow blues and then transitions into a fast blues-rock song reminiscent of the late ‘50s. I have seen many a woman listen to this song attentively and calmly only to react strongly at a point where Jeff’s singing sounds like Elvis has just jumped in. Even as recently as March, 2000, the recording engineer who transferred this music from tape to cd couldn’t help but remark about the Elvis sound that came through on one line in the song.

    We had only played this last song a couple times before. I don’t think that any of us new exactly how we even planned to play it. I know that I sure didn’t. In fact, we were still experimenting with all these songs. But we did the last one in one take, and even though we knew of parts that we would play differently if we were to do it over again, we decided not to press our luck any farther. Our time was up and the studio people were ready to transfer the music from the master tape to cassettes for us and go home. On the whole we were pretty happy with the final result. Even despite the sounds of my cracked cymbal coming through.

AFTERMATH

    A few days later Jeff went into Walter Reed Hospital. They all knew what would probably have to be done. The doctors found too much cancer in his upper arm and shoulder, and they removed both. As one could imagine, waking up to find a left arm and shoulder missing was rather depressing. Especially for a young guitarist and songwriter.

    I can’t remember the timing for sure, but at around this time a good friend did came up with the coolest gift that I have ever seen one person give to another. Lisa Barrow came to me and asked for a clean copy of the studio tape and copies of pictures of the band taken on the Roanoke trip. She then went to a recording studio in Maryland and had the tape transferred onto a vinyl LP record (this was before cds or anything digital and vinyl was the standard in record stores). She took another album cover and painted it and affixed the photos to it and presented it to Jeff. I have never seen a more creative or meaningful gift in my life. And it meant so much to Jeff. And, I must say, that Lisa’s gift is probably the true motivator that gave me the idea to produce this cd.

    Jeff’s parents were staying in the Washington area to be with Jeff now during his medical treatments. They had made arrangements to be house sitters. Not just any house. But somehow, John Hanes, a wealthy local diplomat and part of the family that founded the Hanes underwear company, had become aware of Jeff and his family’s situation. He offered them his historic mansion in Great Falls to stay in for an indefinite period of time. They must have stayed there for 6 to 9 months. The house held a grand piano and Jeff realized that even with only one hand, he still could play chords or pick out notes on a keyboard. With the help of Clark Cochran we located another guitarist, an old friend of his named Chase Libby, and we revived the band. Jeff bought an electronic keyboard and was ready to rock and roll again. With all the space in the Hanes mansion we had some pretty good parties, too. And the nearest neighbor was far enough away that we could play as loud or late as we wanted.  And we had some pretty good parties there.  Many recent Roanoke grads had landed in the DC area for their first jobs, and it wasn't hard to get them to gather for a party.

    Jeff continued to write new songs. We practiced regularly at the Hanes house now. Eventually we picked up bookings for some sorority parties back in Roanoke and we received a congressional appointment to play on the Ellipse behind the White House one summer day, courtesy of Senator Armstrong of Colorado. But by spring Jeff’s health was going downhill. We had to cancel all the bookings. Somewhere along the line, Chase brought in another friend of his as a second guitarist, Mark Tennenbaum. We still practiced whenever we could, but the handwriting was on the wall.

    The cancer had spread to other organs, most particularly his lungs. It did so several times. Eventually it spread elsewhere. He spent more time in the hospital. By October it was clear that the end was nearing. On November 5, 1980, I called down to the hospital around midday to say that I was coming. My call did not go through to his room. After grilling me for a couple of minutes to decide whether to tell me anything or not, a nursing supervisor told me that I was a couple hours too late.

    There was a beautiful service for Jeff at Little Falls Presbyterian Church in Arlington, Va.  on November 7, 1980.. Many people came. Many of them drove long distances to be there that night and many had to turn around and drive back that same night. The service featured a few of Jeff’s songs. The Fallen Angels recording was played over the PA system. I switched back to guitar and Mark and I played a couple of his songs live.  At the end of the service Craig "General" Schisler held aloft the white cross of flowers sent by Jeff's Sigma Chi Fraternity, strapped it to the back of his car, and lead a procession of Jeff's friends to a nice reception hosted by Bob Murphy and his parents at their McLean, Va., home

A TRIBUTE

    Jeff touched many people’s lives. His energy, his personality, his talent, and his intelligence all stood out of the crowd. But, most of all, his perseverance and positive attitude in dealing with the constant medical problems, the surgeries, the chemotherapy, and the great uncertainties that go hand in hand with a lethal disease which had a very low cure rate have made Jeff a giant among men. All of the people who lived through this experience with him can not help but to have become better people for knowing him. We all learned lessons about life and death. We learned more about how to live life. We certainly learned about how to deal with adversity in a world that sometimes isn’t fair and often doesn’t make sense. I know that my time with Jeff made me a much stronger person and helped prepare me to face the world and all that it would throw at me for the rest of my life.

    Jeff was possibly the best friend I’ll ever have in my life. We were very close during the two and one-half years that he fought the disease. From the time that he called me from Colorado right after his graduation from Roanoke and told me of the first cancer diagnosis, to his moving to Virginia the following fall, to being Best Man at my wedding, to getting a job working with me at the mortgage company where I landed after Roanoke, to the forming of the band and our big night at Roanoke, to recording the songs, to reforming the band and plugging along with new music and new instrumentalists, and through to the end, I will never expect to know another character like Jeff. And my many vivid memories of those years far exceed the already lengthy space I have taken up with my writings here.

    So, this studio tape has now been transferred to cd as a tribute to Jeff. I am hoping that many people will get hours of pleasure from listening to the music, and maybe will be motivated to tell their children about their old friend Jeff who has been gone for over 20 years now, but will never be forgotten for the impact that he had on so many lives.

THE JEFFREY C. BERGESON MEMORIAL SCHOLARSHIP

    Jeff’s parents set up this scholarship at Roanoke to memorialize their only son. Each year it is awarded to a student based on the following criteria:

    Over the years many people have contributed to this scholarship. My wife (Joy Inglis, ‘75) and I have personally contributed several thousand dollars to the scholarship in recent years. I don’t know how much the endowment holds now, but there is always room for more. For each cd that is sold, one-half of all sale proceeds will be donated to this scholarship fund in the name of the person who has made the purchase. The remainder will go toward defraying the costs of producing and distributing the cd. Of course, anyone can contact the college (www.roanoke.edu , 540-375-2230) and contribute more to this fund. Any questions about the scholarship, or how to contribute to it, can be directed to Judi Nelson or Jack Williams in the Resource Development Office.

    Also, as a tribute to Jeff, the formal lounge in the Sigma Chi house at Roanoke has been named for him and various mementoes are kept in that room.

Thank you for taking the time to read this long story.

Wayne V. Jordan, ‘77

P.S. - Thanks also are in order to Mike McAdoo for helping me to transfer this recording on to cd, and to Bob Murphy for his contributions to this article.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

    So, what has come of all the people who were involved in this story, one way or another? I can list a few of them here, but I need people to contact me to tell me the names of some of the people appearing in the photos that grace this page. If you were a friend of Jeff, let us know where you are and what you are doing now. If you know where other people are, let me know that, too. I’ll keep adding information to this site as it comes in.

WAYNE JORDAN, ‘77, married JOY INGLIS, ‘75, with Jeff as the Best Man. We now have two daughters, Shannon (b. 1982) and Kristen (b. 1984). Wayne and Joy were the original franchisees of the Chesapeake Bagel Bakery and currently operate four stores in Northern Virginia. They spend a lot of time in Ocean City in the summers. They own a condo at the Carousel and their daughters spend summers working there. Wayne is back to playing guitar and you can often find him playing with friends in bars in Ocean City.  More info can be found at Wayne's web site www.chesbagel.com/waynejordan . 

FRED BARRETT currently lives in Reston, Virginia, and is a project manager for Dynalectric Corp. He still dusts off the bass and plays every once in a while.

KATHY BARRETT, is Fred’s older sister and known to many as Jeff’s longtime girlfriend and the Sweetheart of Sigma Chi. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and kids.

COL CHARLES BERGESON, Jeff’s dad, died in the summer of 2000 from stomach cancer. His wife, BETTE, is still well and spending her time in Colorado and Arizona where she has friends and family.

LISA BARROW recently moved to Beverly Hills, California. After many years as a reporter with Public TV, she now works for Daimler Chrysler.

APRIL GOETZ lives in Maryland with her two kids and husband.

BOB MURPHY  '78, works as a financial planner and lives  in Richmond, Va, with his wife, Ruth, and his daughter, Kathleen (b. 1989).  He can be reached by email at mail2murph@cs.com, or by phone at 804-639-1061.

CLARK COCHRAN the last I heard was living in Centreville. VA with his wife and kids.

ED BROWN '78, works as a juvenile counselor and lives in Somerville, NJ with his wife, Kathy ('80) and their kids.

THE REST - PLEASE LET US KNOW WHERE YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU ARE DOING. FEEL FREE TO INCLUDE ANY COMMENTS, MEMORIES, OR PHOTOS THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO HAVE ADDED TO THIS WEB PAGE. ALSO, IF YOU’D LIKE, LIST YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION SO THAT OTHER PEOPLE CAN FIND YOU. ALSO, IF YOU PROVIDE AN EMAIL ADDRESS, I’LL CONTACT YOU PERIODICALLY AS THIS PAGE IS UPDATED. - WJ