DOO WOP

I got home late last night, plopped into my TV chair, flipped around the channels without finding anything that stirred me and went to Plan B.  Plan B is when none of my first choices are on and I’m in scramble mode to find something of interest.  I clicked on an already started public television show on the Doo Wop music of the 50’s and early 60’s.  We called it rock and roll then but Doo Wop seems to be the term these days. 

These were my high school and college years so the pleasant memory portion of my brain kicked into high gear.  Granted they are the year’s most of us accumulate especially vivid memories but damn, those years produced some great music. 

As song after song was performed, often by the original group, there was a dominate theme.  Romance, be it loving someone, missing someone, hand holding or wedding bells, it all related to romance.  Songs such as In the Still of the Night, A Thousand Stars, Little Darlin, and the anthem of the day, Earth Angel.  There was the harmonizing of The Platters and Drifters, and the synchronized moves of The Coasters, The Cadillac’s and others in brightly colored suits.  Shots of the audience confirmed romance was in the air as couples were taken back to school dances and slowly swaying back and forth on a darkened dance floor.

I love music of all types and I try hard to appreciate the sounds of each generation.  The big band sound of the war years, the protest songs of the late sixties, the Saturday Night Fever fad of the seventies, the Michael Jackson and Madonna era and more recently, the Hip Hop/Rap sounds.  I admit, each has its thing, but when it comes to songs about love, I’ll take the early rock and roll days. 

Each of these generations, at some point, will be old enough that their music will be in the “Oldies but Goodies” category, as mine is now.  I wonder if they will be able to sit in a chair late at night, as I did, and be taken back to good times and good memories, revolving around love.   

I sure hope so but I am worried about the current trend.  When their music is in the OBG category what kind of flashbacks will they have?  First off, I cringe at the thought of rap artists of today, such as Ice Cube, gyrating around the stage at the age of 65 plus.  Secondly, if they can pull off the gyrating, will they be able to remember the novel length lyrics?  Maybe the artist can but I doubt if you will.  How will you be able to sing along?  Can you picture you and your friends on karaoke night?  And seriously, will Eminem, Grand Master Flash and the Furious 5 and Notorious B. I. G. make you long for the old days.  Maybe if you knocked off the corner grocery store or pistol whipped your girl friend. 

I’ll be the first to admit that the low, low base sound of rap is infectious and gets me bobbing my head back and forth and trying to shrug my shoulders like I have some sense of soul, but romantic it’s not.          

 

     

THE ALBATROSS

We had reached the southern end of our fishing trip and were headed home.  After a two month journey of close to 5,000 miles we had dropped anchor in Callao, Peru and spent a few days in nearby Lima.  After clearing customs, we pulled anchor, left the harbor and pointed our bow north just before darkness set in.  Our next stop would be Cabo Blanco, some 600 miles up the coast.

The next morning we were well off shore and heading directly into a head sea pushed by winds of some 30 knots.  Our 110 foot boat would rise as it rode over a wave, then dive into the next, throwing spray everywhere.  We had gotten used to such weather and everyone on board found a comfortable niche to ride it out.  Mine was in the all glass wheelhouse where I could observe the ocean in all its majesty. 

It was my turn on watch.  It was up to me to keep an eye on all the instruments, make sure we stayed on course and scan the horizon for other vessels.  As I looked behind us I saw this magnificent albatross some 200 yards back, in our wake.  He was effortlessly gliding over the waves, slowly crossing from side to side.  Even though they have the coloring of a sea gull there is no mistaking the albatross for anything but what it is.  A recent National Geographic magazine said this: “A parent albatross may fly more than 10,000 miles to deliver one meal to its chick.  Wielding the longest wings in nature-up to eleven and a half feet-albatrosses can glide hundreds of miles without flapping, crossing ocean basins, circumnavigating the glove.  A 50-year-old albatross has flown, at least, 3.7 million miles.”  

As the day wore on the bird trailed behind, keeping its distance, mostly inches from the water, occasionally swooping higher as if to take a look around then descending again to wave height.  As darkness fell he disappeared from sight. 

After breakfast the next morning I ascended to the wheelhouse, looked aft, and there he was, still trailing in our wake.  At lunch time I threw a few bits of food off the transom, followed them with my eyes until he picked them off with a mere dip of his head. 

As the afternoon wore on he gradually approached closer and closer.  All hands were now on deck watching as he finally rose above us and then, with a spread of his enormous wings, descended to land on the railing around the deck.  Seemingly pleased with himself he surveyed us as we stared in amazement. 

Not wanting to spook him, we carefully placed food at a safe distance. 

The next morning I could not wait to get to the wheelhouse and see if our passenger was still with us.  He was and the food was gone.  

  

As we approached Cabo Blanco and perhaps sensing we were nearing land, the great bird decided to leave.  Fortunately I was looking right at him when he slowly spread his wings, tilted them at an angle to catch the wind, and then gradually rose above us.  Once clear of our boat, he dipped his left wing, swooped down close to the surface of the water and was gone. 

The journey of some 400 mile with this creature is a very special memory.  If it is possible to have a bird as a soul mate, this one was mine.                                       

THE iPOD OBSESSION

Even though some consider me a relic I feel I am relatively hip.  I have made a concerted effort over the years to keep up with trends, fashions and the goings on of the successive generations.   There have been a few over the years, such as the hippie/flower child movement, protest music, Saturday Night Fever music and fashion, bell bottom pants, the grunge look, punk and tattoo culture and on and on.  I have recognized each as the rightful expression of that generation’s feelings and mood at that point in their lives.  They should not have to worry what the rest of us think.

But one trend/fad I am having trouble accepting is the obsession with the iPod.  Maybe it’s because I feel we were given a mouth and vocal cords for a reason and that is so we can communicate with each other.  Maybe I am being extra sensitive here but when someone is with me and they are blankly staring into space, absorbed in whatever is emanating from that little square thing into their head, I feel as though I could set myself on fire and they would not notice or care. 

I respect the fact that there are times when people want to be left alone with their own thoughts.  Solitude can be good.  So can listening to your favorite songs.  Be it in your home or bopping along the sidewalk while bobbing your head and feeling Madonna or Jay-Z or whoever, can be one of life’s pleasures.

What a person does on their own is up to them.  But if that person is “with” me or with a group that I am a part of and they are so rude as to chose their iPod over the rest of us, forgive me if I take it the wrong way because I will take it the wrong way.  The wrong way being I will feel you have no desire to be in my company, you don’t care what I think, you would much rather be somewhere else, you have zero interest in my thoughts and I am boring you.  Kapeesh?

Nothing personal, it is just the only conclusion I can come to.  Next time we are together I will come with a note pad and pencil.  If I feel compelled to I will tap you on the shoulder and show you my note pad with my trivia scribbled thereon.  If you chose to, you may take your ear phones off and verbally respond or I will hand you my notepad and pencil for you to write a response.  It’s rather awkward to carry on a conversation this way but we can make it work. 

My suggestion is to enjoy your iPod all you want while in your world but when you are with family and friends, be with them in every respect.  It is just common courtesy.               

THINGS I WAS GOOD AT

God gives all of us some talent.  Sometimes he gets carried away and gives one person way too much such as a good looking individual who can sing, dance and is a 4.0 student.  But mostly he spreads talent around.  Often times we go years without knowing what our particular ability is but sooner or later it will surface.  In my case there were 3 things I did well quite early in life.  Not particularly what one might be proud of when remembering things you do well but you take what you can get. 

At the time I was a young boy cities were designed with a main street and then parallel streets forming blocks.  Each block had its own group of kids that generally ran around together and became close friends.  We lived on Marconi Street.  That was our block.  We had the usual assortment of weirdo’s, nerds, kids who liked to play and stud athletes. 

Most of the time kids played with those on their own block.  Once in a while those from one block would issue a challenge to one or more of the others.  It could be in one of the ball sports, foot races and relays, bike riding, roller skating or even marbles.  The one being challenged got to decide where the throw-down would take place.  Invariably, it was played out on their home turf.   

During this time I learned I was pretty good at 3 things.  One was running backwards.  Even though each block had its own football team it wasn’t until you took the best players from each block to form the cities flag football teams that you found out who the real men were (if you can call 11-12 year olds men). 

At these team practices we were coached by guys that knew what they were doing.  Thus we had to run certain drills that were designed to find out what we were good at and then make us better. 

When our team was on defense I would play defensive back.  One of the main tasks for a defensive back is to cover the other team’s receivers, which means you must run backwards as fast as they are running forward to stay with them.  So our coaches had us run sprints backwards to determine which among us had the speed to play the position.  I was unbeatable.  Even though I had close to glacial speed going forward I was a burner going backwards.  Guys that could run off and leave me were eating my dust in these sprints.  Talent number one.

Talent number two was bike riding.  I had a red, decked-out Schwinn that fit my style.  I could make that bike do everything but talk.  If I had fallen asleep on it I don’t think it would have tipped over.  Word spread that I was pretty fast.  Then the challenges came. 

All the kids would meet at the end of one block.  We would line up across the street, someone would drop their arm signaling the start and we would race off to the finish line near the other end of the block.  I could not be beaten.  But the strange thing was, I could trade bikes with any of the guys and I would still win.  No matter whose bike I rode or who rode mine, I would always win.  Pretty cool, huh.

My third talent was Dodge Ball.  I was a off-the-charts good at this.  Most often we played during recess at school.  A whole bunch of kids, both boys and girls, would get in the middle of a circle.  Outside the circle a couple of kids would try to hit one of us with a rubber ball.  If you were hit by the ball you had to leave the circle and join those on the outside.  The last one left in the circle was the winner.  There may have been a time or two when I was not the last one but I can’t remember when.  At that age girls were more advanced than guys so once in a while some smarty pants girl would be going against me at the end but to no avail.

I had a move where I would run full speed, stop on a dime and at the same time throw my hips backwards, making my body in the shape of a U.  The ball would go whizzing by in the middle of the U.  This move served me well at crunch time when there were only a few of us left in the middle of the circle.   

So when God passed out talent he did not miss me.  Granted it’s kind of weird but at least I was good at something.                    

VALENTINE'S DAY

Forty eight years ago my wife Terry and I were engaged on Valentine’s Day.  We had met on a blind date the previous November, I proposed on our third day (she said yes), I had formally asked her mother and father for Terry’s hand in marriage and here we were having an engagement party on February 14 with a date set for a June wedding. 

The party was at her parent’s home in Santa Ana.  A small, two stories, white house on Washington Street with 3 bedrooms and 1 bath room.  I say small because there were 9 kids living there besides Terry’s mom and dad.  With both sides of this upcoming marriage being Irish Catholic, there was extended family galore in attendance.  No catering here, just every one chipping in with a dish of some kind and oodles of libation.  There were numerous teary-eyed toasts, as the Irish can do with the best of them, and another step passed in our becoming one.

This Valentine’s Day it was just the two of us.  Each of our four kids and five grand kids had business to attend to or romantic evenings of their own planned.  I had mailed to Terry a formal invitation to a sumptuous dinner for two from a Rachael Ray cookbook that I would be preparing at our own home, cocktails at 6, dinner at 7. 

I went to our local Sur Le Table and bought a white Chef’s hat for the evening, then the florist to get roses, only to be told I was too late.  A stop at the market for some key ingredients Rachael requires and I was ready.  If you have ever prepared a meal from a cook book you know it can take as much time to assemble and ready all the goodies as it can to cook the meal.  In this case, Terry knew if it was left up to me we might not eat for days.  For that reason she had everything laid out ready for sprinkling, mixing, stirring and whatever else was needed. 

As I began my meticulous preparation of salad (with Terry’s favorite Caesar dressing from El Torito), pasta with scampi, and chocolate surprise cake with Starbucks vanilla bean frappaccino ice cream, Terry became quite nervous.  With pans burning and all kinds of warning signs everywhere she began to look like Ralph Cramden did on the Honeymooners when he grew impatient with Norton.  About the fifth time I glanced at the cookbook to gauge my progress she couldn’t take it anymore.  As politely as she could she explained that while she appreciated the gesture of my preparing a romantic meal she thought it might be best if I allowed her to salvage things.  I am sure I failed miserably but I did my best to show bitter disappointment at the thought of being asked to stand down.  After all, a man has nothing if not his pride. 

As she has done for 48 years she magically pulled everything together.  We sat down with our TV trays, I toasted my best friend and we watched a review of the Red Carpet from the previous nights Grammy Awards.  The perfect evening. 

WE CAN DREAM

This morning’s news story had a different twist to what has become everyday fare.  In a small town one mile south of the Texas border in Mexico, they had decided to try something different.  Every recent police officer and official in the town had been murdered.  In an effort to provide some form of security for its citizens, the town elected a woman as its new head of the police.  Surely, the drug lords would not have the audacity to harm a woman.  Her home has been burned to the ground and she has disappeared.  In broken English, a tearful woman explains to a reporter that their town no longer has any police protection and all water and electricity to the town has been shut off. 

It is very discouraging to be deluged by all manner of media sources daily with accounts of brutal acts against men, women, children, clergy, politicians, law enforcement personnel and others, innocent bystanders or not so innocent, in the name of the “drug war”.  If someone is “playing with fire” you could say they knew what they were getting into.  If someone has the courage to “fight the fight” in an effort to stop the madness, I suppose they were aware of the dangers.  But what do you say to those who lost loved ones that fate placed on the fringes of one of these slaughters and paid with their lives?

I am aware that the staggering amount of money involved is enough reason for those with twisted minds and morals to become involved in these wars.  From the drug lords at the top with reputations to warrant folk lore names such as El Mas Loco and Winnie Pooh, to their hit men such as Oyster and Gordo, down the line to those in law enforcement who have acquiesced to the lure of big money and become facilitators, the enormity of it all cannot be overstated.  The demand is there so it continues to grow.

I will leave for others to debate the merits or the methods of the on-going war on drugs as well as the argument by many that the most effective way to fight back would be to legalize drugs, but I would like to see what would happen if demand ceased, if people just said no.  What if all of a sudden nobody bought drugs anymore?  The drug dealer in the dark alley did not have any more customers?  There was no longer any need for dealers, runners, snitches, protection and all the rest all along the chain all the way back to the growers?  All dressed up with no place to go.  All of a sudden they would feel like American auto dealers all over the country feel that are stuck with gas guzzlers on their lots.

I am convinced we can strike fear in their hearts.  I am not so naïve as to think the hard core addict would be of much help but a trial “abstaining” by casual users could have a staggering impact.  Say a 30 or 60 day period during which all those casual users that feel it is fashionable, chic, cool and that their self esteem is at stake if they don’t do what everyone else does, suddenly stopped buying.  The guy standing in the shadows on a street corner selling to kids and adults is now looking around saying “Where is everybody?”  The phone stops ringing for the pusher that supplies the white collar buyer.  Suddenly the supply/demand equation becomes supply but no demand.  Economics 101 teaches us that won’t last very long.

Obviously the intent is to make this source of demand dry up forever but let’s not get greedy here.  Baby steps initially.  I have a feeling support would soon follow from mothers and fathers of addicts, recovering addicts, ex-gang members and other concerned citizens.  Granted there are those hard core users and addicts that will consider this drivel but I feel we can appeal to the others.

The drugs coming into our country on the back of a mule or in the hold of a ship don’t know where they are going, who paid for them or who the ultimate user will be.  All of those users, no matter how far removed they feel they are, share some responsibility for feeding the insanity that is the drug war.  They can each equally share in the effort to end that insanity.                            

We can dream.

It’s us or it will never get done.

RFDA

     I can’t figure out why but my mind has absolutely no control over what my right foot does. I can send a message from my mind telling any other part of my body what to do and it will follow instructions obediently but my right foot ignores me. I have known this for years of course, but it happened again today so I thought a good confession might help.
     I was driving to the post office to mail a letter. Along the way there is a particular stretch of road where it is common for those in the left lane to suddenly realize they must get over to the right lane to make an upcoming right hand turn on to a major street. Those of us who live in the area and are alert are already in that right hand lane prepared for the turn.
     As several of us in a row approached the turn a car came up alongside poised to cut in front of me. Now, being the safe driver I am, I had allowed a reasonable amount of distance between me and the car in front of me. I say reasonable because it was a safe distance to follow another car at the speed we were going. If another car pulled between us it would no longer be reasonable.
     I have always told myself “What is another car length in the grand scheme of things?” Just ease off the throttle a little bit and allow the lurking driver to move over in front of me. It is probably an elderly person, on their way to church, who would appreciate the gesture and wave “thank you” as they merged. It would be the right thing to do.
     My brain sends a message to my right foot to ease up. But noooooo. It had other ideas. It immediately mashed on the pedal, hurling my car forward so the gap narrowed between me and the car ahead, not allowing the other car to pull between us. My right foot had taken the attitude this was some punk kid trying to cut in line and no way in hell that was going to happen.
     As I was now window to window with the lurking car and ashamed of what my right foot had done, I looked to the right as though I was checking my right side mirror, in order to avoid eye contact. I was ashamed of myself as the other driver was forced to drive straight ahead and miss their turn.
     Maybe I need counseling. This is a problem that has plagued me for quite some time. Surely there are others with the same problem. Maybe I could start a support group called RFDA (Right Foot Dominant Anonymous).