I want to tell you about my best friend I ever had. The one I went to Airways Junior High School with. We were like Mutt and Jeff she and I. I always thought I loved her and as it turns out I always did and always will. You see she was the little sister I always wished I had. There was no pretense between us like there would have been with lovers. We didn’t have to keep up a phony appearance to impress one another, because we knew each other like we were brother and sister she and I. We could talk about anything and we did. I remember one partly cloudy day after lunch and before classes our little group would lay in the grass and talk about the strangest things. We would try and find familiar shapes in the clouds and laugh out loud when we had found something strange she and I. I don’t know what happened. I can't even guess what or why. It may have been that we had started dating other people she and I. As you do and you know how that can put a strain on friendships especially one like she and I. I’ve always kept her very near to my heart for she was my buddy, my Pal. I will never forget her quirky smile. I always think of her every day for a while. I can’t help it, she was always there when I needed her smile. She never seemed to cramp my style and I hope she remembers me as fondly as I do her. I’ve not seen her for over 30 years. I want to send her this special thank you and wish her well for the memories of She and I. You are the greatest friend this young boy ever had, Sheila

I know I haven’t written much about the Airways Junior High football team.  My memory of most of the things that happened with all of my friends that were on our team happened off the field.  I just seemed to zone out and think of nothing but my assignment when I was on the field.  I do remember, however, one particular incident and the reason I remember it is I hear so much on the news today about head injuries and concussions with professional football players. I truly believe I

suffered a concussion but I’m getting ahead of myself.  Let’s get back to the story from the beginning. I believe it had to have been our first year in the new school building on Ketchum beside Charjean Park where the old apple orchard used to stand.  All of us boys were so excited to try out for our school’s football team and we were going to be the ones to start the tradition and I’m positive the girls felt exactly


the same way about becoming cheerleaders. I only wish that there had been some type of counterbalance in sports for the girls like there is today.  I know I’m getting off track so back to the story.  We all had to have our physicals, you know, the old turn your head and cough and blood tests and eye tests and so on.  Then we were all given practice uniforms and went outside for our first formal practice. Oh my goodness, it was the roughest two hours of my life. I had tried all summer long to get into shape and I wasn’t.  I think I just need to say that again because I was so badly out of shape compared to what I needed to be and I’m here to tell you that was a fact, but somehow I made it thro

ugh all of the running, rolling and everything the coaches put us through to get us into shape.  Now we started doing drills to see who had the moxie to do the tasks that it would take to play football.  We had to push a two man sled from a down and set position. The coach would blow the whistle and two players in full pads and helmet would strike out at a sled with pads on each side for each player and push it until the coach blew the whistle again. I was always teamed up with or against Tony Boston and it looked like he was always a little ahead of me, so about halfway through the practice I decided to dig in and give it everything I had no matter how much it hurt because I was going to be on this team.  We came to one particular drill where we had to make two lines between a row of tires on either side of us with a space between us where the coach was standing, one line on his right and one line on his left and we were about 4 feet away from the coach on each side.  The players stood facing each other and the coach stood dead center in the middle on the outside of the rows of tires. He would toss the ball in the middle and it was the player’s job to get the ball so you would have to block off the opponent and this was one of those times that Tony Boston was across from me but we were three or four players back. I was noticing that most of the players were trying to block the other player combatant off before they went for the ball, leaving the ball wide open for

anyone going after it first.  To my recollection Tony must have figure this out too because we both went all out head first toward the ball.  Now let me tell you this before I tell you any more, Tony was as aggressive and as tough as any of the players out there and it was a difficult job for me to keep up, let alone surpass him, but I felt I had to if I was going to earn a position on this brand new football squad for our brand new, beautiful, state of the art junior high school.  Now back to our story, Tony and I were eagerly awaiting our chance when Coach Winters threw the ball into the center. He hesitated before blowing his whistle and the ball rolled closer to Tony and he was on the ball before I could have been but I bowed my head and with everything I could muster, and I also believe a little help from the prayer I had just said, and bang our helmets hit and I felt the ball come loose from Tony’s grip and I fell on top of it.  Some of it was luck and again I believe some of it was divine intervention because you see, I could not see. There was a blue white blinding light and I was blind but I knew I could not release that ball. I held onto it no matter how much Tony struggled to get the ball. Coach Winters was screeming with delight. I don’t know if anyone else heard the noise when our helmets hit but it sounded like a shotgun going off to me.  I got up and staggered back toward the area that I thought I had come from but one of the players turned me around to the other direction. I was going wrong way. I still couldn’t see but I said nothing. It would have meant I was weak and couldn’t

take it and I’ll be hanged if I was going to let anyone know that.  I attempted to stay along the line of the tires till I could not feel them anymore and turn and walked until I bumped into someone. I can still hear Coach Winters exclaiming “now that’s how it’s done”.  I could see the blue light becoming a haze and I could see shadows now and Coach Winters blew the whistle and said “that’s it boys, to the locker room and everyone has to take a shower before he can leave”.  By the time I got to the back door and started down the steps to the football locker room I had regained of my sight and felt somehow less dizzy now and I proceeded to take my shower and walked the short distance to my tiny little house in my tiny little life. I remember it must have been two weeks before school started that all this had transpired because by the time school had been in session for about a week or two, we had an assembly in our state of the art auditorium. Our coaches were announcing the names of the lucky boys that we’re going to start the tradition of sports at our brand new school that most of us felt had been built just for us.  Coach Winters and Coach Ramsey took turns announcing the names. I’m not sure if they did it by backfield, defensive line, offensive line or what they were calling after they called my name as a starting offensive lineman and a defensive guard. I don’t remember anything else.  I remember going back to my homeroom and a couple of my real good friends congratulated me, just like in the scene in Harry Potter where Hermione and Ron congratulate Harry and tell him that no one ever his age is picked for the team, let alone being a starting player.  I have to tell you, every time I see that scene it takes me back to my friends and that seventh grade class congratulating me and telling me it was unheard of for a seventh grader to be on the starting team.  Even my teacher said she was proud of me. That year was not our greatest year in football but we were just learning. We had no idea what to expect or even how to play the game to win.  I remember the humiliation I felt when we lost.  We came back to practice the next day and Coach Winters and Coach Ramsey told us to forget it, that we were going to have to work harder and give more of ourselves if we wanted to be winners and they asked us “are you

winners” and we screened “yes”, he screamed back,  and he screemed back “you sound like little girls,  are you winners” and we screened even louder “yes”. He screamed “I can’t hear you” and I think every one of us darn near hurt ourselves trying to scream even louder  “yes”. “OK, go out there and give me all you’ve got for this practice”.  I know that everyone did give their all because it meant everything to us, absolutely everything.  The year went by and I think we still didn’t do much better.  The next year was the start of a whole new season and we were ready. We came out and played like we had everything to lose and we thought that we did. We wanted a winning tradition for our school.  I personally wanted to make my classmates proud of me. I thought this finally is how I’m going to fit in.  This is my chance to get the friends I felt I never really had.  We worked harder and longer with more determination than I’ve ever seen a group of kids have and the coaches felt it to.  The coaches knew something was different, something was better and we had the chance to make a difference and win.  We had won all but one game, the one game that would make the difference with us winning our division. We lost! Some of the kids at Airways were mean to us even though we had won all the other games. They were completely horrible to us, now that I think about it, it may have only been a few kids but, the thing that I remember the most, was someone saying to us “I knew you couldn’t do it. It couldn’t last”. There were similar things said to us but we had no way of redeeming ourselves. It was our last game but the team that beat us still had to play one more game and, if they lost, we would still win our division and, by divine providence, they lost. The next day of school was joyous for everyone but we still knew we had lost. Coach Winters called us all together before the presentation of the trophy and noticed that we were all hanging our heads low and I think someone even said “we don’t deserve this trophy”.  Coach

Winters turned his back to us. When he turned around he told us that “it could be at any given time we could’ve won or lost that game over and over again no matter how many times you would have played it”. We had “met a team that was as good as we were and there was no shame in losing when you’ve given it your all, but you have won and you should be proud of that fact. I don’t want to see anyone hanging their heads down and feeling sorry for themselves” and that he was proud of us and would always be proud of us. He passed around a football for all of us to sign.  That football still stands proudly in the trophy case at Airways Junior High School  for all that pass through its halls to see and I for one am proud of that accomplishment that everyone of us made at Airways Junior High School.  The first time in my life I had won something and I’m not talking about awards.

For the first time I was proud of myself.  I had done it, gone through more pain and sacrifice than any other time in my life at that time and, for once, I came out on top. I have to say, anyone who attended Airways Junior High School at that time, no matter what they did or didn’t do, whether they played sports are not,
if they were in the band, the glee club, if they were cheerleaders, if they were just students trying to pass their classes, to me they will always be the best there is in my book.  Airways and the friends that I made there are the best thing that ever happened to me.  Thank you all for being a part of those wonderful years.

         If you were in Mr. Payton Meredith's Industrial

Arts Class in 1969-1971 you know about the state of the art electronics board that we had in our shop. It was against the left wall along with a welder and a metal lathe. The electronics board was made to do all kinds of electric tasks but we had a more important test. You might find this shocking but all the boys would line up to hold hands together, but it was to test our ability to withstand an electric charge. The boy at one end of the line would grab the positive pole of the output and at the other end of the line another one of the boys holding hands would grab the negative output pole and then Mr. Meredith would turn the juice on. That was just the beginning. He would turn up the power till one of us couldn't take it anymore and broke the line, which would break the
circuit. That boy would be out like in musical chairs. The boys would do it all over again, till only one boy was left. My favorite class with Mr. Meredith was mechanical drawing. He taught us how to enjoy any task we were doing no matter how hard it might have been. He had an inner peace that none of the other male teachers had. I don't mean that he wasn't a good teacher, just the opposite,

he was a great teacher. If one of us made a mistake he was there to help fix it. He taught us to use all of the shop tools safely. I have the fondest memories of him and his class.

        One of most favorite things to do is to draw and I could spend hours with paper and pencil drawing. I would create worlds of my own and ships that could conquer the world’s oceans. I would draw planes that took me to the Seven Wonders of the World. When I found out that we could take art class, I was overjoyed till I found out that it was more crafts than art. I wanted to learn to draw and paint but we never did much, if any, real art.

         English class was terrifying for me. I was always afraid that the teachers would find out that I was faking it and taking short cuts to get a passing grade. My teachers were either saints or understood how hard it was for me. They probably had no knowledge of how to help me and they had more than me to worry about.

          History class was wonderful. We didn't have to read but a little at a time and it was about, we the people, that fought to make a wilderness into a great country. We would learn about the people as they came to a land of opportunity and traveled west from the east coast to find fame and fortune. The fight against injustice in our country is still continuing today. We learned of all the great people that gave their lives so we could be free to enjoy this great, great nation.

          My time at Airways was a shining moment in my life and was never surpassed till I met my beautiful wife and, with her help, we have had a wonderful life together traveling the world and the United States. I can't put into words what she means to me. She has helped me conquer my shortcomings. I can’t imagine my tiny little life without her.  

Keiths Memories In Time: I want to tell you about a boy’s memory of the gir...

Keiths Memories In Time: I want to tell you about a boy’s memory of the gir...: I want to tell you about a boy’s memory of the girls that he went to school with.  The first thing you have to understand is in junior high...

June 25, 2014 - A truly magnificent actor died today, Eli Wallach, he was 98 years of age.  I went to the New York Times website to read more about his passing, where his grandnephew had posted a video interview he did in 2011 with his great uncle.  Well, I was listening to his story and I was reminiscing of all the great movies he was in, The Magnificent Seven, Rhinoceros, Waltz of the Toreadors and one of my wife’s favorites, The Misfits and many other noteworthy productions he was in. He truly was one of the greatest character actors of his generation, which made me recall a conversation I had with a really good friend who told me that he was a D list celebrity and I thought, no you’re not, you have to be much higher on the alphabet than that, but as far as Hollywood’s concerned, he may have been right.  I can’t help but believe that the large group of friends and those that follow his career think differently.  The very first thing he did when he came to Hollywood was to be the headlining star in a movie. 

I ask you how many D list celebrities can say that. He also co-starred on Matlockand Nash Bridges and made guest appearances in a multitude of TV series since he’s been in Hollywood.  He appeared in a string of box office hits where his name is listed in the starring

credits.  This young man from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania is, in my opinion, a hit in Hollywood and extremely blessed.  I’ve heard so many horror stories from people that went to Hollywood to become successful and lost everything including their moral compass.  He has always been an inspiration to me and I’ve always felt like he was someone to aspire to be like. No, not as an actor but as a human being because I’m not an actor and could never be as good as he is.  I’m going to tell a story now and I hope his children don’t mind.  We were visiting him one summer as we had done the previous summer and his daughter had done something wrong.

Rather than getting angry and screaming as so many of us do, he pulled her to the side and spoke to her in an extremely soothing, quiet and calming voice. I have to say, it kind of shocked me. I had never seen a parent do this quite like he did.  His young daughter cried and I felt so sorry for her. She looked like she had been spanked with a paddle and he had never laid a hand on her and whatever it was she had done wrong, she would never repeat it.  He was the parent that I wished I always should have been.  He upheld his moral values to the highest level and welcomed strangers in his life with the kindest and utmost understanding way of anyone I have ever known.  So
you see, he may be known to others as a great character actor but Daniel Roebuck is someone that I hope will allow me to call him my friend for the rest of my life.

Best Birthday Ever ?

It was one of those to torrential downpours that seem to have no end in Memphis, Tennessee.  It was 1974 and it was my birthday and I was 18 years old.  This should have been a huge celebration for any young man in those days. 

There should have been good friends and some kind of celebration, but I was alone in my little tiny house with my little tiny life.  I decided that I was going to go to the movies. The closest movie theater was around Airways and Lamar. So I donned a rain jacket, my normal baseball cap and set out walking. For some reason my car wasn’t running at that time.  I had gotten just barely passed Airways and Ketchum when a squad car pulled over and they told me to get into the back seat.  Not only was I not having the celebration for my birthday but now I was probably going to jail for something.  They were playing good cop and bad cop.

The good cop asked me what I was doing. I did not want to tell him that I was going to a movie because what moron would walk all the way to the movie theater in this downpour.  I  told him I was on my way to a friend’s house and they asked me what friend. I refused to tell them because it was none of their business. I hadn’t done anything wrong.  Of course, they didn’t believe me. Now it was the bad cop’s turn. He yelled at me “we’ve got a report that you’ve been out here breaking antennas off of cars”.  So I asked him “why would you think I would be out here breaking off antennas in this pouring rain”.  Yelling back it me he said “I can take you to jail, I can take you to jail right now boy”.  The good cop explained to me “he’s having a bad day” like I would care. “We can clear all this up if you’ll just tell us what you’re doing out here”.  I guess they were hard of hearing because I’d told them at least three different times that I was going to a friend’s house.  They finally decided to let me out and I was like another 10 miles out of my way to go to the movie theater.  So to avoid them, I decided I would take all the back streets up to the movie theater.  I knew our neighborhoods of Charjean, Bethel Grove and Cherokee like the back of my hand at that time.  I knew it would take longer but, at least, I wouldn’t be harassed by those two morons in blue.  I would just like to say that I have respect for the law but they had overstepped their authority and had really no reason other than someone walking in the rain and in an extremely heavy rain.  I walked past friends’ houses and no one seemed to be at home so I
continued my journey to the movie theater, crisscrossing from one street to another until I reached where the movie theater had been.  I had not been in that area of Memphis in a longtime and I guess I wasn’t keeping up with the times because it was closed.  While it seemed to add to my perfectly lousy birthday, I just couldn’t catch a break. Not only was it still raining but it was coming down even harder than it was before and it was starting to get dark and I could see lightning in the distance and it didn’t bode well for me.  It was a very unhappy young man that walked all the way back to his parent’s house on Durby and took a shower and went to bed and hoped for a better day tomorrow.

Unrealistic View of Women

Having a daughter and two granddaughters of my own, I have to say it makes me a little angry when I look at what is considered beautiful for a woman today and then when they try and correct it to the way women really look they go overboard.  Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with skinny women but that’s not realistic. Women usually don’t look like they weigh 300 pounds either. If you’re like me, I have struggled with my weight most of my life and so has my wife.  She was no skinny minnie as she said when I met her and I never looked for someone like that.  I have always hoped that I was attracted to beauty but it was their personality and their soul that I treasured most.  I have dated both what I would call skinny and what I would call curvaceous women.  I once laughed when I was watching Dancing with the Stars and Sherry from The View made the statement that” if you go thick you’ll never go back”.  I honestly think that there’s too much emphasis put on girls to be a skinny size all of their life, that’s just not going to happen. The emphasis really should be on being a good person. Some of us get smaller and some of us get larger. It’s usually never made any difference to me how I felt about someone because of their size.  Yes, size does matter in things like your health but that should not matter in getting a job, being accepted by your peers and especially in beauty contests, which brings me to the reason I wrote this post. It was something that I read about a Miss America or a Miss World or whatever she was a contestant in, that she wasn’t the typical beauty contestant.  I looked at her pictures and she is thin too and a size 4, so where do they come off saying that she weighed more than the typical contestant. What’d she weigh, two more pounds than the other contestants.  I’ve fussed about this long enough but I found a picture that I have to share with you. It’s of a doll, which is ridiculously skinny to start off with, but then they put a not so thin doll that went overboard next to her. I know this was not the makers of the dolls that did this

but can’t anyone get it right, not that a lot of us don’t look that way and not to say that that’s not beautiful too, it is.  I just don’t think that you can represent every body with two completely overboard ends of any spectrum, especially weight.  Take a look at these dolls and tell me if you don’t think that it’s going overboard either way.  My thought is that women really fit somewhere in between these two.  I wish they would make a doll that fits in that category so that young girls don’t go through life with the wrong expectations. All women are beautiful in their own way.

You know I always had trouble in school and it was because I had dyslexia and

attention deficit disorder (undiagnosed at that time) especially with English. I always struggled to put my thoughts on paper. It seemed almost impossible for me to write how I felt but somehow, here recently, with the encouragement of my friends and loved ones I have been able to conquer my fears and disabilities and put how I feel on paper. I know it’s not Shakespeare but a lot of you seem to like it. My wife started the blog about a year ago and it had never gone anywhere, but with everyone urging me to write a book, I decided to try out my writings on you and my blog to see if other people were the least bit interested. A lot of people on the Charjean Facebook page cheered me on and unexpectedly, I have people from Venezuela, Indonesia, Germany, Ukraine, Canada, Russia and the United States that have read my blog. I am so very humbly proud to tell you when I looked at the numbers this morning they are now over 800 views. I realize that that’s not viral as they say on the web but it would be hard for me to understand any more than two people reading my writings and liking them, let alone 800 or more people reading them and coming back and reading more. So, as a thank you, I intend to take some of your advice and write a book. My wife says I should write it about things I know. One of my friends said that I should write it for kids so that they will know that more than just themselves have shortcomings and feelings. I want it to be a mystery series, so that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to write a mystery series about a family of boys with their girlfriends, their dad and the ghosts of their grandparents. I’m sorry but that’s the only peak that I can give you for now but if I ever finish it, and I hope that I will, you my friends, my wife and my family are the

inspiration for all I do. I will write as often as I can. I love the fact that you guys like what I write and I also want to make everyone on the Charjean, Bethel Grove, Cherokee and Airways page happy, so don’t worry, I will still write stories especially right now when they seem to be flooding back to me as if I was back there when we were young. I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for being so supportive and believe me I do know because I grew up with you, you can also be so critical, that means even more to me for that reason. I love you in my own way so thank you so very, very much. And I have to give a special thanks to Nancy, my biggest fan, thank you. Thanks to all of you that red My Blog!

It has been since recorded time

It has been since recorded time that people have said that youth are less respectful (Plato or Socrates) and that society is going to hell in a hand basket. Today is no different. We complain about the youth of today and all of the horrible news about the schools with all of the shootings and stabbings, but what are we doing about it? I, just like you, have opinions and they’re probably just as bad as everyone else’s. I too, however, have noticed that no one knows his or her neighbors and no one seems to check on each other anymore. “When we were young the world was a much different place” (as it was in our parents’ time as well). The neighborhood I grew up in, in the 1960’s, was an area known as Charjean and Airways in Memphis ,TN USA and the neighbors knew each other and looked after all of us kids and each other. If someone in your family died your house would be full of food and neighbors dishing it out to all of the mourners. The love that we had not only came from our parents, but our friends and their parents. Our parents were not scared for us to stay out after dark because they knew where we were and who was looking after us, but it wouldn’t be long before you would hear someone calling or whistling for their children to come home because the street lights had come on and, magically, all of us kids would disappear into the comfort and safety of our homes. What I think is wrong with America today, is that our social networks are impersonal and long distance and without personal contact. We know more about people several states away from us, and sometimes people we've never met before, because of all of the digital, texting and socializing that we are doing today. The world has gotten so impersonal that we forget

that the person next door has feelings and needs to be wanted and loved. I can’t help but think that a loving touch or a hug from a neighbor to a neighbor is more important and rewarding to our soul than how many “likes” you have collected on what you have written today. Yes, I am caught up in it as well and I couldn’t tell you all of the neighbors names that live on my street but I bet my parents could have told you the names of the neighbors that lived on the adjacent four blocks. It’s a sad state of affairs that we are no longer in touch, not only with our neighbors, but our extended families, with only the written word to comfort us. So I do my best to find at least one stranger a day to say hello to. Love is a universal cure for all that ails us and I also think it is a good remedy for America’s problems as well and a prayer would not hurt either.

Fantastic Features
I was a TV fanatic from as far back as I can remember. I watched everything, movies, dramas, varity, sitcoms, PBS, cartoons and the News. I had my favorites over the years but one program stood out, way out above all the others. It was hosted by a local legend Watson David. It started in 1962 and aired till 1972. I saw my favorite movie of all time on this program. It started on Friday nights and later it earned a slot on Saturday night as well. The opening was filmed behind the Brooks Art Gallery in a ditch with smoke to give it that ghoulish feeling. It showed its presentations in black and white only and this local show is still remembered fondly by all that watched it with a blanket wrapped around them for protection. Yes, I'm talking about Fantastic Features with that monstrous host Sivad that brought you such great hits as the She Creature, The Invasion of the Saucer Men and, my favorite of all times, The Ghost of Drag Strip Hollow. There were scarier movies than those but I liked it when they were funny too. I remember that the guys at Charjean would get together to discus the movies on Monday that Sivad had brought us on last Friday and Saturday night. We would lie to each other about how scared we got watching them. No one had ever been scared ever, yeah right, like pigs fly too, don't they. I remember one time when my cousin was visiting, we stayed up late watching it and were too scared to get up and go to bed, as if anything could get into that small house on Durby St. Without us seeing it, what "wusses" we were. When I saw Frankenstein for the first time, I felt sorry for the monster. I thought he was so misunderstood because he looked different and they thought he was bad. Because I was so much taller and bigger than most of the kids my age in the neighborhood, they would pick fights with me. I never knew why till one day, Tony pushed me and told me he was going to fight me. I asked him why, I had not done anything to him. He told me, if he beat me up, because I was the biggest kid in school, every one would leave him alone. I felt as different as Frankenstein did in that movie Sivad showed on Fantastic Features. If I remember, Tony was disappointed I would not fight him.
Happy birthday Tony
I told you my mind works in crazy ways.

Young Love First Love

Let me tell you about the most romantic summer of my young life.  It was the beginning of summer and I and my cousin Melinda had been running around together and having a great time along with her and her boyfriend Billy. They were my good friends.  They were trying to fix me up with some of their girlfriends and it just never worked.  One day Melinda called me to tell me that her older sister’s daughter was coming in town from San Diego, California, and she thought that I might be able to hang out with them that summer to give us something to do together.  So I went over that afternoon, after her niece had arrived and I was astonished she was around our age and was a stunning brunette and had a figure out of one of those teen model magazines.  I couldn’t help but notice her beautiful eyes and beautiful hair.  I must have seemed like a weirdo to her because I couldn’t keep from staring at her.  She had the perfect name too, Wendy, and she was intelligent and I don’t mean just smart, I mean that she was well educated and knew way more than I ever hoped to.  We all sat around and talked about what to do that summer. We all suggested some music concerts, so we put together a plan to see two of the biggest names of that time.  We were able to get tickets and the concerts were later that summer. 

We seemed to have a lot in common such as our taste in music.  Something just clicked. We enjoyed, or at least, I enjoyed her company much more than anyone else I had known at that time.  For some reason and I don’t remember exactly why or when, we were both talking, sitting side by side, and we turned and looked at each other.  I had lost my zest for life at that time in my life and was somewhat depressed. As I looked deep into her eyes, I saw a kindred soul, a zest for life that sparked something inside of me and I kissed her and she kissed me back. There was no turning back now. We felt something for each other, yes, something more than just friends, something more than just second cousins, and I know what you’re thinking.  Believe me, I thought it too! This was a love that was not meant to be and it couldn’t be.  It was like a never ending track in my mind playing over and over again, she is your cousin but she is a second cousin.  I thought, well, it’s only going to be for the summer but, boy, I hoped I was wrong. It seemed like it lasted forever but yet it also seemed like it only lasted a day.  Melinda, Billy, Wendy and I did everything together that summer. We had picnics, we went to the movies, we drove to the local parking spots but it was all very innocent.  That’s not all that I remember. I remember a sweet girl riding beside me in my little 1970 red VW Beetle.  I was having the time of my life.  The first concert we went to was Seals and Crofts at Overton Park.

We sat in the grass beside the shell and listened to music that I dearly loved at that time but I did not hear one song. I was not listening to the music.  I was looking straight at her and listening to the aura that came from her enjoyment.  Only one other time in my life would I experience that feeling.  You can imagine how much fun we had together. It was like she was my best friend and my confidant.  Again, I have to tell you, when I looked into her eyes, I melted into a serene place of happiness. We even went to a family reunion together. I’m getting old now and I can’t remember everything, but I can tell you everything we did was like the first time I had ever done it in my life.  I still was fighting with myself over the fact she was my cousin and I am sure she was too. It’s not like it was never done in our family’s, but society and other pressures made it an

uncomfortable decision to fall in love with her.  This may sound a little romantic but there was no decision made, it just happened.  Her grandmother, my aunt, had no problem with our dating.  She even told us that we made a cute couple and she did know we were dating.  We did sappy things like hold hands and chase each other in the park.  I’m not sure but I think I also pushed her in a swing at the park.  It was childish and I know that, but I enjoyed being with her. If I could have, I would have put her in a book and put her on my shelf so that I would be able to keep her always and I would have.  It was getting close to the time that she would have to leave. Should I have begged her to say, should I have move to San Diego?  I just couldn’t bear to think of it. We had a concert to go to and it was the Rolling Stones

at the Liberty Bowl Stadium, but I didn’t enjoy that concert either. All I could think about was that she was about to leave me.  The day approached so fast, it was like I was blindsided and she asked me not to go to the Airport and see her off.  I agreed under protest and had no intentions of not seeing her for the last time.  I went to her grandmother’s house to say goodbye and gave her roses and with tears in my eyes, I kissed and hugged her and ran to my Volkswagen and drove away.  She probably thought I drove home or something, but I followed them to the Airport and watched as my cousins, my aunt and uncle said their goodbyes.  I watched her go through the door to the ramp that went to her plane. I watched it taxi and setup on the runway for takeoff and in just a few seconds I watched it get airborne and I continued to watch till it was completely out of sight.  As I got in my Volkswagen and sat down I thought “Oh my God, you can’t let this be goodbye”, but in my heart I knew that it probably was the final goodbye and as it turns out, it was! I don’t remember ever speaking to her again except once in 1978, though I did try.  I sent her cards and letters and tried to call once or twice but I don’t remember getting an answer.  I guess our union was always doomed and was only meant to last that short summer.  But I will always remember that sweet wonderful soul.  She made

an overwhelming impression on me, you see she was my first mature love and, even to this day, I think extremely fondly of her.  To let you guys know how much she meant to me, I named my daughter after her.  As it turns out, my old saying that things happen for a reason came true once more.  I had never known what real love was and she showed me.  So when I met the wonderful lady that I’m married to today, I knew it was real, thanks to Wendy.

Memphis Good Humor

I remember a sound that could instantly empty the yards, the playgrounds and the houses of our neighborhoods in Memphis, TN.

You remember, don't you, of course you do! Every kid I knew went into a trance like the Pied Piper was playing his flute. It would have been a bad day if you missed it for it only came by once a day. Have you guessed what it was yet? Ok, I will tell you. It was the MerryMobile, yes, that round little ice cream ah? Truck? that looked nothing like a truck. The merry-go-round looking vehicle was painted red, white and blue. It was round and had a cut out for the driver in the center and freezer

compartments beside him with three wheels underneath it. It had a metal circus tent for a roof supported by six steel poles. It played its bells like a siren call to the children to come and purchase the creamy delights. There were Dreamsicles, fudge bars, push ups, ice cream sandwiches, buried treasure  and,

my favorite, the drum stick. If you so desired, they also had all kinds of Popsicles. Everyone waited patiently as the driver filled the wants of each child. It was not an easy job. I did it one summer for a youth minister that was getting a group of kids together to go to Spain and minister and the money they made was to pay for it. That is what they call another story for another time.  Seems that it was the idea of Robert. Heffelfinger, a local ice cream vendor. Wow! It was a Memphis phenomenon. Other kids didn't see this marvelous ice cream delivery vehicle. I feel sorry for them. it was a unique sight
coming down the streets of our neighborhoods in Memphis.They were in use from 1954 to 1974 and like so many of the memories of our past, they went to the scrap yard. Later, at least one of these magnificent ice cream vehicles was restored to thrill the child in all of us again. 

Thanks
I wish that I could find the words to say how much every single one of you meant to me. it would be hard to single out the ones that meant the most to me, because I can’t think of anyone that didn’t mean so very very much to me. So many of you touched my soul and made me a better person. I remember the faces better than I remember the names now that I have grown old. I still walk the sidewalks of our neighborhoods and I still play with all my friends around the pavilion at Charjean Park. I play four squares with that big red bouncy ball with all of you. I still run through the sprinkler at the wading pool at our park. I can still hear our parents yelling "run" to a very young baseball player that it just hit the ball and didn’t yet know quite what to do. I could see all of our parents lined up in their lawn chairs behind our bleachers cheering us all on. I can remember the assembly’s in the auditorium at Airways. I walked the halls of Airways in my mind every day with all of you scurrying past to get your next class. It was an easy time; it was a simple time that we all shared. We shared so much more, we shared the moments, the events of our lives with each other. We have a bond that will never be broken. I know you’ve heard me say it before but I just can’t say it enough. Thank you, Thank you everyone for all you are!

I remember a time that my girlfriend at that time, Kay, along with Millie , Margaret and myself went up to a warehouse on Monroe Ave. in downtown Memphis. They would not tell me what we were going there for but what red blooded American boy would not have followed these girls anywhere.

Once we got there we walked inside and an older man with glasses spoke to Margaret and said “I see you brought friends this time, thank you so much we can use the help and I have just the job for you four, come with me”. He sat us down in front of a table that was filled with all kinds of candies. It had tootsie rolls, it had butterscotch drops, well, you name it, it was in that mixture on the table.  He told us to grab a handful and put them in the bags he gave us.  We started to work putting a handful in each bag but my curiosity got the best of me. “What are we doing here? Why are we doing this.”  Kay seemed to get mad at me and I couldn’t understand why I was working as hard as I could. I just had no idea. They didn't tell me why we were here, the man didn’t tell me why I was here.  Millie stepped in and said “give him a chance, he doesn't know why we're here, we didn’t tell him what we're doing or why we're doing it”.  Margaret, who seemed to have known the man and done this before explained that this was part of the Good Fellows organization in Memphis and that we were filling these bags that were going to be part of the Christmas for children that would otherwise not have any. 

Well, at that point, I thought I was only working as hard as I could before, but now I was trying to break my neck to get as many bags as I could filled before we had to go. I think we did this for the next two weekends or maybe it was just the next weekend. I don't really remember. I know we did it more than once and they asked us if we could come help on the day they gave out the presents to the kids. Everyone agreed. I had a previous engagement but as soon as it was over

I would come help. I arrived there late that day. The kids were coming out and I rushed in to see what I could do to help. The Ellis auditorium looked as if a tornado had hit it. I found the man who had shown us what to do with the candy and I asked him “what can I do to help now” being a little let down that I hadn't been there to help. He seemed happy that I had asked him and he eagerly said “if you don't mind, we could use help cleaning up
”, so I set to the task of picking up all the paper, stacking the chairs, folding the tables and sweeping the floors.  Unfortunately in the years after that, Kay and I had broken up and I had lost track of Margaret and I had no clue who to talk to about helping and I really would have liked to.  I hope they had plenty of help all these years for it was really great to think that something I had done had helped to put a smile on an innocent face.

Let me just take a second to tell you, it's amazing how all these memories are coming back to me now.  I haven't thought about that in years. I don't know if any of you remember helping out with something in Memphis like that. Also, my memory may not be exactly right, it may have been either Kay or Millie and not Margaret that knew the man with the candy for the kids but I've told it as best I could.

It is not just a memory it is about the effort that four teenage kids put forth for kids they didn't even know. I wonder if the high school systems should post the help wanted lists for these organizations to get the volunteer help they need. 

If you remember anytime that you did something like this, please share it with us and if anyone knows Kay, Millie or Margaret, let them know that I was thinking about them.

!"Thank You to all those Men Women that give their time and money for others"!

I have noticed lately that there aren’t any children out riding their bikes.  The only people I had noticed riding bikes were the bike racers that use one of our streets where I live now. They use it as a training ground and they have several races during the summer months on that road. I seem to recall that our bikes, for a long part of our lives as kids were the focal point of our activities. Let me take you back to one Christmas in particular where I couldn't help it, I had to get up and go to the bathroom and when I came back, I caught the glimpse of two shiny fenders and they were from a Western Flyer Bike, 16 inch wheels with horn, headlights, tail light, book rack and they even had the tassels on the handlebars. My mother came to rush me back to bed and hide my eyes from what was in the living room. It was too late! I had seen them and I told her, so she asked me “are you sure you know what you're doing”. I told her, “it was nice, but yes, I know there's no Santa Clause” anymore. I had kept quiet for so long and my brother, who was five years older, had never said anything to me or my parents, the one thing my brother didn’t spoil for me. This age of computers has turned our children into homebodies, not to mention the excessive violence on the

streets of today keeps kids inside. I know as well as you do, this can be unhealthy.  It probably is one of the reasons for our childhood obesity problem. I remember, until I got my first bike, I was the fat child, but from that point forward (even though I thought I was still fat), looking back at pictures, (which is hard to do-our family never took very many photos most of the ones I have are from other people) I really wasn't fat. From the time we got up till the time we went to bed for several years all of our activity centered around our bicycles, well especially the boys.  I can remember Keith Shaw and I playing Batman and Robin and with our towels around our necks, Oh, I'm sorry, our capes around our necks flopping in the breeze as we rode down Durby Street looking for the Joker. We had races with all the neighborhood kids as if we were Mario Andretti or Richard Petty. It was even sort of a rite of passage for us his kids to get our first bike and show it off to the neighborhood kids. I completely wore out that first bike. The bearings were gone in all of the places a bike had bearings. I had replaced the tires numerous times, the seats were worn out, the lights no longer worked and the horn hadn’t worked for a few years. I hated to give it up. All the other kids were now riding Stingrays, it was a shorter sleeker bike with high handlebars and banana seat. I remember I wanted that easy rider sissy bar on the back and I saved my allowance and put it on my new bike. I also had saved the old bike and took out the front fork because it was longer to accommodate the 16 inch wheels.

I changed it out with the front fork on the smaller bike and I changed out the pedals, sprocket and shaft for the one on the Stingray bike.  This made the ratio of the gear so much better and stronger than I could gain more speed quickly and I was still able to maintain it. The front fork from the old bike made it look even more like a chopper however, it was a little bit less stable, but not too bad. I soon became accustomed to it. Boy, I thought that bike was something.  Later I had seen copies of bikes like mine that were overdone and extremely hard to ride because the front fork was way too long and made those bikes extremely unstable and, in my opinion, unsafe. I guess I was just defending my work that I had done on that bike of mine. I remember seeing the girls when they rode their bikes with their hair blowing in the breeze. I always thought how cool that must feel, having your hair flopping behind you on all those hot Memphis summer days. I was too young to think how good their hair looked, flowing behind them as they rode their bikes but, in retrospect, it was pretty neat.  Once I had gotten my first fulltime job when I was older, I always wanted to buy the perfect bike so I went to Western Auto and purchased a Western Flyer Stingray with all the bells and whistles and it was pretty cool. I was much too old for that bike and I knew it. I had a girlfriend and she was just a friend that I hung around with at that time and I had noticed that her little brother was always trying to fix his bike. I even helped him fix it several times and all the time I was thinking that bike I bought just sitting in my room being wasted but I really hated to give it up and really didn't want to. Then one day he came home and the chain and the pedal sprocket had broken on his bike and they didn’t have the money or at least I didn't think they did, to get the parts to fix it if they were even available. I spent a lot of money on my bike and I knew he would never understand what that bike meant to me. Then I thought about what that bike would mean to him. So I went home without saying a word and put that bike in the back of my dad's pick up and went straight to my friend’s house. You know, I don't really remember but I think they lived on the corner of one of the streets that crosses  Ketchum. I knocked on the door and my friend opened the door and I said that “I brought this for your little brother”.

She quickly stepped out the door and asked me what I thought I was doing and I said this was my bike and I don't use it, you know that I don't and it was made to be ridden and not set in a room to be looked at. She asked me if I knew what I was doing. I said no but I have to do it. I can't see him not having the bike after all of his hard work and he felt so bad when his broke that I knew it was the right thing to do. So she called for her little brother and went in the house and got her mother. They came out and she and her mother just looked at me and her little brother, somewhat confused, asked me if the bike was for him. I said yes it was, I needed someone to take care of it for me because I no longer used it (I never used it) and I told him to take extremely good care of it and I knew he would. My friend’s mother hugged me and they went back inside and I left. I don't think I returned for the next few days, but when I did my friend was happy to see me again. Sometimes you just have to do the right thing.  

Annette Funicello, what does one say about America's sweetheart. I and many others swooned over this good-looking brunette who came across our television sets on the Mickey Mouse Club in the infancy of television

. She made her mark on entertainment. Whether you like the younger Annette or the older Annette, she stayed America's sweetheart up until her death and she will always be in my heart and be remembered as the perfect American sweetheart.

My favorite thing that Annette did was the Mickey Mouse serial “Annette”.  I have tried most of my adult life to acquire autographs of all of the cast members of the “Annette” serial.  I've done pretty well  but there are still several that I don't have that might be completely impossible to get, one being the one Mouseketeer that I was head over heels in love with, Sharon Baird and also Judy Nugent, Rudy Lee and most of the adults on the show. Even though it's a little on the adolescent side, I still enjoy watching the serial “Annette”. Her nemesis in it is played by Roberta Shore.  I've had the pleasure of meeting her in person twice and each time she has been more than gracious and sweet to me and my wife. She even introduced us her to her husband.  Just recently I had the pleasure of meeting David Stollery and Tim Considine (aka “Spin and Marty”) and they too were extremely pleasant to talk to.

You know, I don't even think the kids were as innocent as this serial makes them out to be, but I long for the days of my innocence like it was in this serial. For me it brings back some part of my childhood and I just can't
get enough of it. When it came out on the Walt Disney Treasures DVD series I purchased two copies because I knew that I would wear the first copy out. I haven't yet, by the way, but I'm trying.  Annette also appears in the New Adventures of Spin and Marty and it is also a wonderful little series. Please, just because it's black and white, don't put thumbs down on these or any of the early Disney TV productions. They are wonderful for adults as well as children and how much television can you say that about today. It's either so childish that it is sickening or it’s so adult oriented that you dare not let your children watch it. I absolutely long for the days on Sunday nights when you knew that you were going to be able to watch family movies or some type of Disney special that the whole family would enjoy. This is the legacy that people like Annette Funicello have brought to us. God bless her and all of those Disney stars that we remember with fondness.

 Do you have any old favorite Disney TV or old Disney movies that you just can't get enough of. The Walt Disney Treasures series has been a Godsend to me especially since, in their stupidity, the Disney Channel decided to discontinue “Vault Disney” in the late evening hours and now, it seems to me, that all they show on the Disney Channel is adolescent tripe, teenage comedy that's embarrassing and not funny. Unfortunately, I very seldom watch the Disney Channel anymore. Fortunately for the Disney Channel though, they do have some good children's programming and I won't get started on the new Mickey Mouse cartoons that make Mickey, Donald and Goofy look like Ren & Stimpy. That type of stylistic animation just does not go over well with me but I said I would not get started on that and I'm sorry. I love Disney, I love the parks, I love the movies.  I just love sharing my Disney memories with y'all.

I want to tell you about a boy’s memory of the girls that he went to school with.  The first thing you have to understand is in junior high school I was just becoming aware of the differences between the girls and me. That was a good thing!

So now you must know that I was a teenage boy with raging hormones and no clue what to do with girls or how to talk to them.  Let me tell you about the girls at the junior high school I went to.  I can’t remember any of them that I would’ve called homely or ugly. That’s right all of them were drop dead gorgeous.  I know most people only meet one or two girls in their lifetime that were pretty enough to be models. Not me and the other lucky boys that went to our junior high school.  We were overflowing with girls that, if they wanted to, could’ve been models.  It was like a boy had a smorgasbord with no knives, forks or spoons and he’s wearing mittens that he can’t pull off.  No matter how hard you tried, you just couldn’t get a handle on how to talk to the girls.  They didn’t seem to know or care anything about baseball.  Most of them hated comic books and wanted nothing to do with fishing.  So how in the world were you going to start a conversation?  And did you ever notice, as soon as you got up the courage to go over and say something to one of them, 20 of them huddled together and seemed to be looking and laughing at you. Great confidence builder, you know. 

The first time I ever got up the courage to go over to talk to a girl and ask her to the athletic banquet, Oh yes I remember it well, it was in the cafeteria and it was just before the bell was about to ring for us to go back to class and I was going to ask someone to the athletic banquet, so I strutted like John Wayne over to the table where she was at, because I knew girls would like that. I leaned over and quickly put my hand down on the table, which flipped a spoonful of mashed potatoes and gravy right into my face. Luckily, the bell rang and I rushed away to the boy’s room to wash my face and my shirt off before my next class.  I still had time. The banquet was still a couple weeks away and the school was full of girls that I liked but couldn’t talk to (I kind of felt like the Indian boy Raj on “The Big Bang Theory”). So this time I had a plan. I would call her on the telephone, whoever she was going to be.  Now how do you get a phone number if you can’t talk to them?  Eureka!  I now had a plan. There was a Rolodex on the secretary’s desk that had all the boys and girls numbers in it, so I would go into the office in the evening just after school and look up a phone number.  I stayed in the library until they made me leave. I knew the secretary had already gone by that time so I snuck into the office, going behind the counter and flipped open the Rolodex and there was Cindy ‘s Rolodex card and I did kind of like her.

Oh no, I heard someone coming so I ripped her card out of the Rolodex and carried it home with me.  It was just like any other Rolodex card but it had a small picture of the student in the upper left-hand corner and below it, all the vital statistics that were needed for emergency contact. It had both the father and mother’s name and their address. Seems she lived in the apartments that were behind the grocery store on Ketchem just before you got to Airways. I thought, Oh no, that’s a long way to ask a girl to walk in a party dress just to go have a meal and listen to the coaches give out the awards to somebody she probably didn’t even know.  I, in my adolescent mind, thought “problem solved”, I would get her to sit on the handlebars of my bike and I would ride her to the school to the banquet.  I could not build up the courage that night to call her, so I thought I’ll do it tomorrow and give her just enough time to get home.  So I ran home that next day and watched Dark Shadows or Hullabaloo or something like that on TV. That lasted about an hour and I then dialed the number. Cindy answered the phone and I said “Cindy, this is Keith” and she quickly replied, “my father doesn’t allow boys to call us at home. You must never call me at home again” and hung up.  I was devastated. I thought this was my last chance to get a girl to go to the banquet with me.  I walked to school very slowly the next day knowing that I would have to tell the coaches I wasn’t bringing a date, but as soon as I walked through the door, Cindy met me there and said “I’m so sorry but my father was listening on the phone and I could not talk to you. What did you want”. I said to her, “I guess he wouldn’t let you go to the banquet with me either would he?”  She hesitated and said “would you give me till tomorrow? I will talk to my mother. She will make it all right and, if she can, I will be happy to go to the banquet with you.”  So I said “OK, just let me know as soon as you can tomorrow”.  She met me again the next day at the door of our school and was rather sad. She said “the only way my father will let you take me to the banquet is if you come over to meet him and I know you won’t want to do that for me”.  This time I hesitated and thought which would be worse, going to meet a father or going to the banquet alone.  Which scenario would end my life sooner?  I knew I had to think quick. I had to give her an answer of some kind. I just wanted to disappear. This was just too much stress. How can my school do this to me and put me through the horror of trying to find a date and then the torture of having to meet her father.  She started to walk away and I couldn’t let her do that. I really wanted to take her to the banquet, so as I started to speak my voice broke into pieces of course, “I would be happy to, ah, meet your, ah, parents” avoiding saying father.  She quickly hugged me and ran away. Did that mean she was going or was I off the hook and didn’t have to meet her father and did I have to go to the banquet alone?  Girls, who can figure them out?  She found me in the cafeteria at lunchtime and told me that her father would see me that weekend.  Saturday if it was all right with me about 3:00 PM and “please be on time” she said.  Oh no, what had I gotten myself into, what was he going to ask me, what would he do to me if he didn’t like me?  I could just see him throw me off the fifth story balcony of the apartments they lived in.  I was in a cold sweat for the next three days before I had to meet her father.  I walked over there dressed as best I could and I had put on at least 10 layers of deodorant, it didn’t help.  I knocked on the door and, I swear, the Jolly Green Giant answered the door. He had to be at least 6 foot three and looked like he could take Bruce Lee in a fight.  I must have sounded like a little girl when I said “you must be Cindy’s father” and, at this point, I just wanted to leave, but I didn’t. I introduced myself and put out my hand for him to shake. He looked surprised and he shook my hand and I went in and sat down. He asked me questions like what did my father do, how old was I, had I ever murdered anybody, you know he didn’t ask that but I knew it was to be the next question after each question he asked me.  I guess I met with his approval. He told me I could take her to the banquet and he expected me to be back with her a minimum of one hour after the banquet ended.  My brother and his girlfriend took me to pick her up in my father’s car (no bicycle). We went to the banquet and, to be honest with you, I remember absolutely nothing about that banquet. I do remember how pretty she looked.  Somewhere that night I knew I was going to kiss her. I remember it because it was the first time I ever kissed a girl and I put every bit of emotion I had in me into that kiss

and she pushed me away and asked me if I was going to use my tongue. I did not know how to answer. Who came up with that rule, in what universe did you stick your tongue down a girls throat?  So I figured you were supposed to do it, so I said “I didn’t know if you really wanted me to” like I really knew what that was all about.  Thank god we pulled up in front of her apartment. I walked her to the door before I had to put my tongue in her mouth.  I kissed her on cheek and knocked on the door for her go in and her mother came to the door and I told her “thank you for letting Cindy go to the banquet with me”.   I don’t think Cindy and I ever went out again and, for short time, I was pretty happy with that idea but eventually I learned more about girls, how to talk to them and how to kiss them.  The wonderful thing about the girls that I knew was that they were sweet, loving and never tried to hurt you, even though young love is full of pain and pitfalls for both girls and boys.  But I have to say the pain was made much easier by the fact that all of you girls that went to Airways were so pretty.  I think, at the time, my head was coming unscrewed from walking down the hall and looking left, right, back and forth to see all the pretty girls hurrying to their next classes.  I hear some of you now saying that you were not popular and the boys didn’t like you. That’s absolutely not true. All of you were gorgeous. Everyone of us boys adored everyone of you but we were scared to death of you.  I remember one time, I walked a girl home and kissed her in front of her door. It was a screen door and her father was sitting on the couch. He grunted real loud and I ran all the way home as fast as I could.

It’s not that we didn’t want to make you feel beautiful and appreciated, you know you girls didn’t come with a handbook. They just threw us into classes with you and expected us to know what we were doing.  We had just learned how to walk a few short years ago.  I’m glad you girls finally gave us the time to grow up.  I can look back and laugh about those days now and I hope you can to.