Hey Hey They are the Monkees

  I really don't know how critics get their credentials. I was just listening to NPR where a critic and writer of the history of rock 'n roll was reviewing the Monkees 50th. His review was basically listing facts about how the Monkees got the best writers in the industry to write for them and I took away from it that his conclusion was that's why they had such a great sound. I could not believe my ears! He even said that he had no frame of reference toward the Monkees when they originally came out, because he was into the underground sound at that time that had just gotten started. His review showed that he had no frame of reference for the Monkees television show at all.

I have made the statement that we were from the Ed Sullivan generation because we would listen to music that was so different like the acts that Ed Sullivan had on his show, from Beverly Sills to Janis Joplin, from Perry Como to Mick Jagger, not to mention the Beatles, who the TV executives of the time wanted the Monkees to emulate. The television show the Monkees auditioned as many young men as they possibly could and they came up with four young men that seemed to have nothing in common or you might say that they were all from different backgrounds. That, in most cases, might spell disaster for the chemistry with actors on a sitcom. The TV show the Monkees however was not a sitcom, it was not a musical variety show, it was something the likes of American television had never seen before. You might say the television show the Monkees was a gumbo of a mixture of British and American pop culture in a soup base that had some of the best songwriters in the world simmering into an extremely good pop rock band.

  I myself loved the Monkees, their hijinks and off-the-wall acting wasn't meant to be the great American drama and it wasn't. It was entertaining to the kids of that day. The music that was presented by the Monkees to sing was fantastic. It was from the best songwriters around, of that there is no doubt. I however want to make this perfectly clear to everyone, if you would have put this same music in front of a mediocre group of young men who had no talent and didn't care, it would have been horrible. I do not think that you could have any better chemistry for a band as you did with Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork, Davy Jones and Mickey Dolenz. I don't care what was going on behind the scenes, I don't care if they didn't like each other, I don't care about the lawsuits, that's not what I'm talking about. What I am talking about is the simple fact that this group of young men came together and became a part of rock 'n roll history. Say what you want to, they were a good part of rock 'n roll history.

  The music that they put out had at least seven number one hits as far as I can remember. You can say what you want to about them having great songwriters which they did, but my contention is if they had not been a good band, they would not have been able to secure one number one hit let alone seven. All of this in just three or four years during and after their TV show. I, for one, believe that there was magic in the chemistry they produced on TV and stage.

Just to give you a for instance, there is a video circulating on YouTube from just a couple of years ago that shows Paul McCartney and his band, walking down the halls to the stage of one of their concerts, singing “Here we come,  walking down the street, we get the funniest looks from everyone we meet, Hey Hey we’re the Monkees…..”. I ask you, what greater tribute to the Monkees could there be than  Paul McCartney knowing one of their songs and singing it with his band for the fun of it.

I would also like to say that the songs they sang are caught in our minds forever. How many of you out there remember all the words to at least one of the Monkees’ songs. I personally know the words to at least three of their songs.

  It just makes me mad when someone thinks they have the right to review a group and still say that they have no point of reference of that group's heyday. This person listened to their music in retrospect today to review it in the context of what they know now. You can never have that appreciation for a piece of art if you never heard it when it came out. I'm telling you right now I love the Monkees television show. I had all of their albums and I also listened to the underground sound of the 60’s. I am part of the Ed Sullivan generation, I listened to almost every kind of music there was from the time I was a child till today and I'm 60 years old and I have never been able to understand how a reviewer can review a concert or review an album and come up with a totally different opinion of that music than those that appreciate it. I also believe that if you look at the modern abstract art and you don't get it you're not the person that should review it.

  He also kind of skipped over reviewing the movie Head that the Monkees put out after their TV show had ended, by saying that there are those that will defend it. I will not defend it, other than to say that looking at it today I see what they were striving for but the Monkees were never a psychedelic band, they're acting in the Monkees show was never part of the drug culture,  it was pop rock culture. I put the blame own it not being a hit, which it wasn't, on the directors and producers, especially the director who had absolutely no clue. Am I saying that I dislike Head, yes I probably am, but it is a part of rock 'n roll history and I'm sure there are people out there that did enjoy it, but I was thoroughly disappointed with that attempt.

  The Monkees shortly thereafter disappeared except for the occasional reunion concerts and the passing of Davy Jones seemed to have put an end to the concerts till here recently. Both Peter Tork and Mickey Dolenz have gotten together again for at least one last Monkees romp and I am happy about it.

For all those we’ve lost in 2016

When we lose an actor we don’t just lose that person, we also lose all of the characters they would have given us.  When we lose a musician or singer we lose the beautiful sounds that were yet to come.  When we lose a songwriter we lose those wonderful lyrics that will never be.  When we lose a writer we lose the stories that will never be told.  When we lose those historic icons of history we lose the possibilities that they might have achieved.  When we lose an athlete we lose the victories that might have been.  When we lose a soldier we lose a hero.  When we lose those we love we lose the possibility of telling them one last time how much we love them. 

                For all those we’ve lost in 2016 we will never lose the feeling of how much we will miss you

The Call of the Mountain

The Call of the Mountain

I walk the trails that lead through these mountains and I feel our ancestors that walked these trails before me. I hear the echoes of the birds in flight calling their mates from the other side of the mountains from days gone by. I can hear echoes in time of bears feasting upon the fruits that the mountain gives to its woodland creatures.

I hear the voice of the Cherokee who were the first to speak to the mountain and called this place home. I feel the winds that have blown through these mountains and carried the voices of the early settlers through its valleys to the tips of its chimney tops.

This land we call the Appalachians is a gift from God for His creations. It is up to us to talk to the mountain and keep it company for it has been there for us in good and bad times, keeping us fed, and blessed with its abundance of riches. We have quenched our thirst in the streams that come from the winter snows on its caps and, with the power of her fast-moving streams coming from its highest points,

We powered our mills to grind the grain that makes our bread that we farmed in the valleys around our beautiful mountains. Our ancestors settled within the borders of these mountains we call the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. We have not only worked this land to feed our families, we have also bled from our hearts into the very dirt and rocks that make up these mountains.

We have borne our children and buried our parents within its soil. It is not just a tourist attraction for those that live in distant places, this is where we call home. The history and the ministry that lay before us in these mountains is our destiny and we would have it no other way, for we are mountain strong.

Good by Debby

God is calling a generation of people home. I see so many of those that I admired and watched on a flickering screen in the dark movie theater or on my television set in my own home. He is also calling home those that I have never seen before. I feel the loss of every single man woman and child that has been called to our father side whether I knew them are not.

It is only human nature to hurt so much more when you feel that you knew them. Family members or people that you grew up with seem to hurt the most. I have always had a special bond in my heart for those that made the movies that gave me my escape from the harsh realities of daily life, almost as if they were part of my family.

Losing Carrie Fisher was a heartfelt blow to me. Now losing her mother Debbie Reynolds has torn a chunk from my heart, because I actually spoke with her and touched her hand. She was so giving a person and I hope I don't bore you but I would like to share a little of the story of our meeting.

It wasn't a one-on-one meeting where we were having coffee and cake or anything like that. It wasn't ultra-personal at all. Debbie Reynolds had come to pigeon Forge to announce that she was opening a movie memorabilia Museum and did a show at a theater in Pigeon Forge. After the show she stayed around and talked about the fact that she had purchased amazing amounts of movie memorabilia when the studios were closing their back lots and liquidating all of their assets. She also signed autographs and spoke to each one of us that had stayed personally. If you've never seen the news clips of what Debbie Reynolds purchasing her collection at those auctions when the big studios were closing down their back lots and liquidating their assets, let me just tell you two things that are so rare that she had it boggles my mind. She had Carmen Miranda tutti-frutti hat and she also had the one-of-a-kind ruby slippers that were made with the toes curled up like elf style ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz.

Not only did she have rare Hollywood treasures, she was also a rare Hollywood treasure. You see Debbie Reynolds was not only a part of the royalty of Hollywood she also was an admirer. She could step back and look at the movies and appreciate everything about them like I can or you can. She even tried to get the heads of the studios to open up the studios to the public and charge admission so that the back lots and the studios could remain intact for future generations. But as progress always has, it never looks at what the past can do for us. Progress in this country is always been a bulldozer that destroys everything in its path.

Because of Debbie Reynolds many Hollywood props and even clothing that the stars wore was saved from being destroyed the museum in pigeon Forge never happened, because that's when our economy collapsed. Unfortunately Ms. Reynolds had to sell her massive collection. I only wish that she could have seen her dream come true of allowing the public to enjoy the history of movie making as much as she did.

We have come to the final scene of the movie and the life that was Debbie Reynolds and like the character she played in the unsinkable Molly Brown she has left us with a treasure of movies that will keep her alive for generations to come.

God bless the Reynolds and Fisher families and comfort them I know their pain is great, because the two people they lost were great themselves.

Goodbye Carrie Fisher

Today there was a massive disturbance in the force, as if a billion or more hearts were broken all at the same time. Princess Leia a.k.a. Carrie Fisher left the bonds of this world to become an angel in God's heaven. Those of us geeks that loved the performances of Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia in the three best Star Wars movies had our hearts broken with the passing of the actress that will always be a legend in our hearts and minds. She did not have a varied acting career, but she was an entertainer all of her life, because she came from entertainment royalty. She was the daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher who were 1940s and 50s Hollywood royalty.

I don't think there's a person that went to see the first Star Wars movie that did not fall in love with the feisty girl dressed in white with a funny hairdo, at least any of the boys that went to see it. Star Wars will be missing a huge part of its being from now on. Her last line in Star Wars, The Force Awakens, was a passing of the baton to a new generation of actors, as she said, "may the force be with you". I can't help but think and pray for her and her family and paraphrasing the line she spoke may God be with her and her family.

I own several replicas from Star Wars, from a light saber, to R2-D2 and a millennium falcon, because Star Wars was the movie that changed cinematography for a whole generation of moviegoers. The acting and the storylines in the original Star Wars trilogy was the catapult for the technological leap in moviemaking and yet that was not the thing that put it in the depths of our hearts as moviegoers, it was three young previously unknown actors that won of our hearts and not the least of them was Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia.

I regret out of all the people I have met that I never got to meet her, I did however meet her mother at a show she put on in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee and I hope neither one of them would mind if I say that I actually could see both of them on the stage that night, because I saw so much of her daughter in Debbie Reynolds on that stage. After returning home from seeing Debbie Reynolds I was curious so I put on Star Wars A New Hope and I especially watched Carrie Fisher's performance and I was right, I saw a lot of Debbie Reynolds in Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia .

These people that we hold so dear that we call actors, I wonder if they know how much they mean to us, they come into our lives to give us hope and an escape from reality for a couple of hours in a darkened movie theater. I wish I had had the chance to tell Carrie Fisher thank you for all you do. I don't think most actors really understand how much they do for us and yes, I do know that they are only human beings that have their frailties and are trying to make it from one day to the next. There is always that inspiration, that glimmer of hope and the expectation of excitement that these people we call actors give us and we love them for it.

It's not as if a member of my family has died or someone that was really close to me has passed away. Even with saying that it still feels extremely sad to lose someone that has brightened my existence with the things that they had said and done and written. It's hard to imagine a world without these wonderful people that have given of their time to entertain us and give us a smile.

I have always prayed for everyone to be blessed by God and for those that need comfort or need His help, but I pray that God would bless this lady who has given us each a blessing with the work she has left and for God to comfort her family today and the days that come because no matter how much I or my fellow geeks will miss her I'm sure her family is hurting so much more. God receive this angel into your flock and comfort her mother and family who need you the most.

Keiths Memories In Time: "Summer Holiday" Voice from the Past

Keiths Memories In Time: "Summer Holiday" Voice from the Past: I made the most amazing discovery last night that I could not believe. I did not recognize this person that I have watched for more than th...

"Summer Holiday" Voice from the Past

I made the most amazing discovery last night that I could not believe. I did not recognize this person that I have watched for more than three years on Sherlock from the BBC. The actress was Una Stubbs

and the discovery brought back memories of a movie that I saw when I was only a teenager and fell in love with it was called Summer Holiday: starring Sir Cliff Richards and The Shadows as well as Una Stubbs. I know most of you are scratching your head going what is he talking about well let me explain Una Stubbs plays the character of Mrs. Hudson on the BBC's Sherlock and she also played Sandy in Summer Holiday.

I know you are still wondering why this would really matter well let me give you just a brief history, in the United States in the late 50s early 60s we had a young gentleman known as Elvis Presley who dominated the music scene and in the United Kingdom they also had a young man who dominated the music scene and his name was Sir Cliff Richards he was what we would call the Elvis Presley of Great Britain. The only time that I ever really saw anything of Sir Cliff Richards was from the movie summer holiday in 1963.

It was about three young men trying to show the British transportation system that they could make money with a double-decker bus touring the European countryside. On their summer holiday they took a double-decker bus to show British transport that it would be possible.  While on their holiday they ran into a trio of girl singers that desperately needed a different mode of transportation than what they had the gentleman offered to take them for a ride.

It is a British style beach party you know the ones with Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon. Yet however it was very British and the dark bobbed haired girl was known as Sandy in the movie, she was Una Stubbs

that was the star of the trio of girls as she is a brighter personality than the others just as Mrs. Hudson in the BBC's Sherlock is a bright personality.

The reason I found out who she was from my past was I was searching through the BBC's who do you think you are on YouTube and found that she was one of those that they had picked for their version, which by the way is the original version, the American version is not the original it is a copy of the British version of who do you think you are. They had stars like Robin Gibbs from the Bee Gees, Martin Freeman from the BBC's Sherlock, Graham Norton talk show host from the BBC, Stephen Fry from the BBC's Dr. who and Sherlock Holmes game of shadows and last but not least Julie Walters Mrs. Weasley from Harry Potter.

These are shows that we have never seen and it tends to aggravate me immensely that we never see them. I was so happy when I saw a few years ago that we were getting BBC America I thought wow we will now get to see some British programming, but there is very little British programming on the BBC America it is mostly American programs such as Star Trek the next generation. It was a complete letdown for me that I seldom watch it anymore.

Una Stubbs was one of those dancer actresses that got her start because she was multitalented I was so ashamed that I did not recognize her, but I knew that her voice was so familiar. Who do you think you are had a small clip of her dancing on one of either hers are Sir Cliff Richards British TV special together and I recognized her immediately and it came to me like a bolt of lightning that voice, her voice was that of Mrs. Hudson's voice and was the same as Sandy on summer holiday I knew it immediately my wife double checked on the Internet movie database.

I was astonished I could not believe that I had not recognized her on my own. She has not changed really like all of us she has gotten older but she still has that bright bubbly personality she puts in her acting.

I have always admired the British actors and actresses for their down-to-earth approach to acting and also when they are not in character. It's a different world for actors in Britain than it is in the US. I hope someday I might have some of my favorite British actors and actresses autographs. Any time we go to Great Britain I scour the markets to find those that have autographs and pictures of the British actors and actresses, because we never seem to have any of them at our autograph shows other than the most famous.

Just another of my memories in time that I love to think about.

The season of holidays is now upon us and families prepare for feasts and reunions that go along with these holiday seasons. I'm so deeply afraid that the young people today don't follow those traditions as our parents did and we tried to do. As I have gotten older it is harder to make the trips to see my family, but somehow I endeavor to try at least once a year to make contact with those still living in my family.
I came from a large and loving family from both sides of my parents and if you've ever seen me in the last few years you'll understand when I say that they were some of the greatest cooks I have ever known.I can't help myself I love the style of the southern cooking ladies that made up the chefs of my family.
I know I have told you all the stories of trying to make the buttermilk biscuits or the turkey and dressing with giblet gravy. that brought me to tears when I finally discovered how to make them taste as my family had made them taste when I was just a child. The flavors the smells and yes even the arguments that seem to happen every year are some of my fondest memories of my mother and father's family and of my mother and father.
You can say what you will about them but my family was not wealthy and they may not have been prim and proper all the time, after all they came from a long lineage of indentured servants and farmers that travel to this country as early as the 1620s. What my family did have was a strong and abundant love for family. Family always came first in our house when I was a child and the love shown to me was extremely great and fulfilling to one so young.
I feel the sadness come over me every year in October because that's when I lost my mother and a lot of my family, but that sadness did not come this year. The tears that I cry each October did however come but as I remarked to a very dear friend who lost their mother just a day ago. This time when the tears came they came with overwhelming joy knowing how much my mother loved me knowing how much my family love me no matter how much of a pain I seem to be to them. I have learned that these silly little things that sparked the memories that made me sad were not put in my life to make me sad they were put in my life to remember who I am and where I came from. They were put in my life help me remember my mother and my family.
This holiday season I am hoping that you have family surrounding you with love and I hope that your family remembers that our time with them is growing short. I, as you, am the patriarch of my family, that you tell your children and your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren how much you love them and that when you're gone and they remember you because of some silly little thing, that the memory that comes flooding to their mind is not there to make them sad it's put their to remind them that you walk with them side by side and you are still with them in their heart. These memories that they will carry with them the rest of their lives are not sad memories but happy memories of the magic of the love that you and they made for each other

Keiths Memories In Time: Rockin

Keiths Memories In Time: Rockin: Okay, I'm bringing this to y’all and y'all can tell me if I'm crazy, and if I'm making this up. I'll start by telling y...

I came from Memphis Tennessee and the area that is now known as Orange mound and later was known as the Charjean neighborhood and I have always referred to it as the Airways neighborhood because of the junior high that brought my generation together. There was another force that brought a lot of us together for a cause of good and Christianity, so in this story I will refer to it as the Charjean neighborhood because it was a small neighborhood church that brought a lot of us together and saved us from a life that might have destroyed us. I'm sure even in the Charjean area there were other small churches that a lot of us clung to for spiritual nourishment, but Charjean was the one that I remember the fondest. I know that the elders of the church were not pleased with the influx of kids that were not financially supportive of the church as much as they would have been if our parents had been members of the church as well, but there was a group of us kids that became members of Charjean Baptist Church in spite of some of the elders and there were those elders of the church however that opened their arms to us and were like second, third or fourth parents to us. For all of those elders of the church that did welcome us I could never thank you enough for what you gave us. It seems that little church has passed into history but not from my memory. It gave us sanctuary in times of need and it also gave us friendship of the best people I ever knew. We grew up in a neighborhood that was made up of working-class people that were not always the kindest our best people you would want to hang around with, but when it came right down to it they were good people and without the guiding light of God that these small neighborhood churches like Charjean Baptist Church gave us, I ask you where would we be and who would we be and if we would even be? God gave me a mandate to love everyone, even though I try I just as many of you fail to follow in the footsteps of our Savior way too often, I still pray for the strength and wisdom that it takes to love everyone. I ask God to bless all of those who went or attended or were members of Charjean Baptist Church and all of the little neighborhood churches in the Charjean neighborhood with health, wealth, wisdom and love for everyone. I would like to remind you without God there would be no wisdom. I would like to remind you without God there would be no wealth. I would like to remind you without God there would be no love. But I would like to especially remind you without God there would be no you or me. Thank you Lord for the tiny little Charjean Baptist Church. Thank you Lord.
As a side note I googled Charjean Baptist Church looking for a picture of our church to post I did not find one I liked, but one picture stuck out above all the others it was a picture of Ramona Haney. I don't think any more needs to be said, When you look for a picture to restore your faith it will be given to you.

You know as well as I do women have been held back by society.Women are just now getting to do things that have always been the exclusive domain of men, but for either gender to make statements like women are as strong as men, or that men are the stronger of the two is genders is wrong. You could argue all day on individual cases either way, but the truth is that we would be nothing with out each other. The genders are different and have a role in all aspects of life and work, no matter how much you may hate it the role of women is changing in to days society. Both men and women have there limitations and with the proper cooperation of both we will have a better way of life. It is not a competition for either men or women and it's not right for either side to belittle each other. It is also not an opening for feminist to emasculate men or chauvinists to take advantage of women or their cause. We all need to find our proper place in life.

A proud ME

How many times have you been told throughout your life that there is no ME in We. I’m here to tell you that is wrong, because I am the ME in WE and you are too. A team is made up of ME’s sometimes a lot of ME’s and sometimes only a few. To keep the team moving forward it may seem that the ME’s become one, but each ME has a special talent that make each ME the right fit for the team. Each ME has a responsibility to every other ME to pull their weight and keep the team moving forward as if it were one. So I’m Here to Tell you I’m one of the ME’s in WE! No matter where you belong do your best because there is a We that is counting on your ME.

Proud Great Grand Dad

I look out into the world today and I see a much different world for my great granddaughter than what I grew up in. The world is a more complex place than I knew as a child safety is a major concern for everyone today.

It seems that so many things have gone wrong with our society. I have always been one who looks at the glass as being half full and not half empty. She might find a world that is cold and distant compared to my world when I was a child. I don't think that is truly what she may necessarily find. When you look hard enough you find the warmth and friendliness of family and friends you can still find it today. The Christian Church is still as strong as it ever was and good people are as abundant as they were when I was a child; you just have to seek them out. People seem to be so much more withdrawn from the community the church schools and their surroundings. Even though there still is so much more magic in the world today with computers, movies, music and entertainment. There are toys that not only speak but have conversations with you. It has always been wonderful world for a child to engage in imaginary play with all of the toys and computers it seems that that imagination is so vivid that it almost comes to life today. We're almost at a threshold for virtual reality to give us our imagination firsthand. I used to think that I was born too late to enjoy the things that I enjoy such as old radio programs and music, but I have changed my mind without the technology that I have at my fingertips today all of it might have been lost to me when I can enjoy it the most. A small little child being born always gives parents, grandparents and great grandparents a new perspective on what we are leaving future generations.

It also gives us a reason to pause and look back at our own childhood. To take a look at the magic and ministry of growing up in the future. To look at all the mistakes we made in our past and hope that that small baby is smarter than we were and doesn't go through those mistakes. Even if that were so I always tell people my age and older the reason that a small child can learn a computer, tablet or smart phone faster than we can is because they have no fear and they enjoy learning from mistakes just as much as they enjoy learning from their accomplishments that they did right. I know not to get frustrated with the mistake or something that I've done wrong because I've learned how not to do whatever it is I'm trying to do, but that is awful easy to say rather than to put in practice. So I know just as my grandparents or great-grandparents said when I was born I am concerned about the world that my namesake will grow up in. It is no longer a world that I recognize or influence; it is up to my children and my grandchildren to produce a better way of life for my great grandchild. I pray that she has a smart mind that will guide her through the many and wonderful adventures that I know she will have. I pray that she has the health to give her a long happy and healthy life. I also pray that she would have the joy of knowing someone special in her life to give her the joy and love that I have received from my gift from God my wife Ursula. I pray that she also comes to know God is I have come to know Him, for God to comfort and heal her in the good and the bad times of her life as he has done for me. I also pray that she knows a group of people as complex and as diverse as the friends that I grew up with and went to school with to travel along with her on her many adventures. God bless everyone, God bless our country and God bless you my little Layne.

Charjeam Elementary

I saw a picture of the high school that I attended in the early 1970's and that started me thinking about the schools that I went to. Memphis was, at one time, very concerned about the education of it's children. That has changed, from what I see today Memphis is a city that abandoned education and gave up it's school system to the county. Yes, the city that I grew up in showed that they cared and put a lot in to the schools they built. I cannot understand why this city and state did the things they did. The state of Tennessee changed the system that worked for years by turning the Jr High Schools into Middle Schools to save money at the expense of our children's education. When you take away Music programs like Band and Choir

from our schools you take away a child's ability to learn how to use math in practical applications and how to work with others as a team. Sports in schools is not just a monetary expense, it is a learning experience for every student, not just the members of the team on the field, but also the members of the team in the bleachers. The experience that our kids have been deprived of, like art and music,will give them less of an education then we had.

Airways Jr High School

The elementary school I went to was not as elegant as those that were built in the days before the Second World War and had a 1950's Tennessee State institutional style look. Charjean Elementary School was beautiful to all the students that went there, even if the style wasn't as elegant as some of her counterparts in a city that had abandoned them and the students that needed it and the teachers that would work to keep our kids educated there. I see more and more of the schools that our tax dollars built closed to the detriment of a once great city. Airways Jr High School was one of those schools closed and allowed to be taken over by an academy, whatever in the wide world of education that is. Airways also had a industrial beauty about her that was born of the late 1960's. Don't let her straight boxy look fool you, this school was built to be a state of the art educational facility of it's day and is still in the best condition it can possibly be. It is a shame that the city just doesn't seem to care about our school or the children of its citizens anymore. I went to Airways and love to tell anyone that will listen how great it is.

Memphis Tech High School

Memphis Technical High School was the first high school built in Memphis, Tennessee and it has that grand old southern style that lets you know that education is important to this city, or at least it was in those days. When you walk her halls you can feel the ghosts of her past. Her famous students were actors, musicians and educators. I would have said politicians but they are the ones that have made a mockery of the Memphis School System.

Both the state and city should be ashamed of the destruction of an education system that could have been the envy of the world. With the money that the state collects from the lottery for education why is this happening. You and I both know how good it can be and should be. If you were a corporation looking for a city or a state to locate in would you pick a state that has an education system in such a mess? It's not to late to fix this disaster, I see a few of the states politicians who are trying, but we need to get them all on board. Tennessee should be the number one state in education in the world. We have built the infrastructure for a great system, we just need to utilize it properly. Teachers and educators must be the leaders, not politicians, to get politics out of the class room. Parents must be involved to keep their children's interest in the forefront of the educational system. In the age of the information highway known as the Internet, we must innovate the classroom to get students involved and energized in their futures.

The schools that I attended endowed me with a love of purpose and people that I have nurtured for my 60 years. It made me wish that I had absorbed more from the teachers and the institution that was freely given to me.

An Angel of Sound

Those of you that read my silly little stories about my silly little life, in my silly little house, in my silly little town, when I was a silly little kid, know that I grew up in Memphis Tennessee. Memphis was a musical heritage to the world and those that lived in Memphis had strong opinions about the music of the day which, for me, was Rock 'n Roll. Now how do you categorize rock 'n roll when there were so many genres of music being listed as rock 'n roll. Even in the 60s there was flower power, folk rock, hard rock, pop, rhythm and blues, soul, Motown and even bubblegum categorized as rock 'n roll.

One thing that I do know is there was a king of rock 'n roll and the crown princes of rock 'n roll. They were Elvis Presley, the King of rock 'n roll, and the Beatles, the crown princes of rock 'n roll. Even to this day, people argue about who is better, Elvis or the Beatles. The music that came from both of them freed a musical generation to be innovative and to search for the best music they could possibly present to their fans. We have lost so many of the rock 'n roll music stars over the years and, unfortunately, we have just lost another, Sir George Martin, whom a lot of people considered to be the fifth Beatle. I personally think he was much more than the fifth Beatle, he was the one that freed the creative minds of the Beatles. He introduced them to musical instruments that they had never heard of and the wizardry of postproduction that they had never considered or realized was available before. He was as much an artist in his own right as John, Paul, George and Ringo were.

He gave them the sounds that they were searching for and helped them achieve perfection in each and every song they put out.

You cannot help but hear the difference between the Beatles and their counterparts that did not have the influence of George Martin when you hear the trumpets or a string quartet backing up a rock 'n roll band like the Beatles. George Martin went on to produce many other artists with great success. In my mind’s eye, he will always be remembered as the man who perfected the art of producing and arranging studio rock 'n roll. I don't intend to argue the point about produced music and unplugged music here because personally I love them both. I also love the music that George Martin produced and he not only created some of the best sounds in rock 'n roll music but he influenced generations to come on how to create wonderful music and great sound.

He was, himself, a musical genius with all of the poking and prodding and tweaking and whatever else he did that made a huge difference in the sound of music and musicians past and present. He will be missed greatly by all music lovers everywhere. Being a techno-geek myself, I love being able to make things happen with the technological advances we have today.

I can only imagine how he came up with the sounds that he came up with, in a more primitive time, that blew us all away when we heard what he had added to the music we call rock 'n roll. He is one of the greatest and most influential people in the music industry of the last seventy years.

God bless you, George Martin, and I am sure the music in heaven has a much better sound today. John and George welcome you home with open arms.

Tools for Learning Part 2

I guess I could probably talk about being mentally prepared to learn for an extremely long time, but we did cover attitude and how important it is for learning in my last blog. It's the old adage of “you can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink”. So I'm going to bypass any more of my thoughts on the subject of having a good attitude for learning versus the attitude we grow into having as adults.

Now in the next part of my blog on learning I'm going to talk about physical tools for learning and how things have changed from when I was in school. When the teacher gave me a subject such as navigation and its importance to modern civilization I had four places that I could go to for research, our textbooks  first, which were very lacking in any information other than the obvious. I think maybe we should take a closer look or ask questions about what information can be gained from a textbook that only has the basic information about navigation and its importance to modern civilization. If it does give us the basic information, it would probably give us the names of either the inventors or names of people that helped research and develop what people needed to make successful navigation possible. These names are important so we come to the second physical tool that we're going to need to help us learn even though it will be two physical tools. I combined these two into one and they are pen and paper and their necessity in learning is to copy down anything that would help us research the subject which we are investigating. The reason for pen and paper rather than typing it into the computer is so that it can be spontaneous and easy to edit on the fly. The textbook would probably also give us dates in which important events, observations or inventions for navigation came about. Copying these things down from our first learning tool and, rather than calling it a textbook, let's call it our subjects basic information because many times the information won’t be coming from a textbook at any given time.

Research is the major tool that we will need to use in our exercise of learning. Back in the day it wasn't quite as easy as it is today to do research. The school library, even as good as a lot of our schools back then were,  those libraries were limited on information on some given subjects. They would have some of the best encyclopedias and reference materials available at that time. Encyclopedias and other research materials are just as limited as our textbooks were so it meant a trip to our larger community libraries. Our community libraries sometimes could be a long distance from where we lived and, if our family was unable to transport us to the library, that meant taking long bus rides and doing such things as riding the bus for a long day at the library doing research meant that it would probably have to be done on a weekend or not on a school day, so that we could give the proper time and effort in finding more information about our subject. As you can see this prospect was not the greatest environment for expanding our knowledge of our subject matter.  In those days this would have been what we would've needed to do to go beyond our normal memorizing of names and dates and trying to learn in depth about our subject we were given.

A person living in the 21st century however generally has at his fingertips one of the greatest devices ever conceived for doing research and it is the Internet. It can be accessed from a multitude of devices, from smart phones and tablets to laptop computers or larger desktop computers. If someone did not have access to a computer at home, most school libraries and community and city libraries have computers that can be accessed by anyone for a limited amount of time but in that limited amount of time a person can find more information faster and more in depth than we could in the early to middle 20th century.

Gather up all of the information we have collected either from books, newspaper articles, periodicals, blogs and any pertinent documents available. Read these research materials and find out the questions of who, what, where, when and why.

Make sure that we have researched each person that was involved with our subject even if it means researching each name independently of the subject, which can give us a more in depth look into why each one of these people got involved with our subject.

Take a look at each event that happened as our subject comes to its conclusion. It also may be of help to look at the dates in time that these events happened to see what impact or why our subject was affected by a particular date in time. This can also make us understand why the date might be of particular interest to our subject matter. Anything that can be added to the knowledge of our subject is fair game.

Be careful though not to get overly indulgent in obscure facts if you are on a time line that you have to meet, because doing research can sometimes become addictive and take more time than you have, so alot yourself the proper amount of time for research and then reading of your research materials so as not to get off track or get behind with the conclusion of your paper or work toward your subject.

In our next installment we will talk about writing a paper with our findings, conclusions and thoughts. This does not mean that writing a paper is important. Doing all the research and reading about the subject would probably be sufficient for just learning, but I have found writing a paper gives me an edge on remembering all that I have learned, which is, of course, what we are after, retaining knowledge, which is learning.

The first 60 years
You know a lot of us have seen a lot of things in our lifetime and I for one have enjoyed every single thing that I have seen or done or been a part of in this great big wonderful world of ours. When I came into this world in 1956 it was a simpler time for most folks who were just trying to make a living and have a family. I remember it as if it were yesterday, getting up eating some little something for breakfast and blasting through the front door to find my bicycle and see who was out there waiting for a great big adventure in the neighborhood that we called home. I don't think any of us were rich by any means but we all had our bicycles and various toys and especially our imaginations to power today's great adventure or even sometimes just relaxing in the woods behind our homes and eat a few green apples and talk about all the great accomplishments that we were going to be a part of in the future.
You and I both know that we probably weren’t responsible for any great achievement ourselves, but I do know however we made an impact on this world and I personally think that we made a good impact on it. Who knows one of our future ancestors may find a cure for cancer or have the knowledge to stop global warming. The possibilities are endless just because we were here and a part of this wonderful world.

I have seen communication and information that most people would've never had access to become available at our fingertips 24 hours a day. I have seen knowledge become commonplace on something called the Internet, I wonder if we had mentioned something like that to any of our friends about something this mind-boggling in 1961, they would have thought what planet had we fallen to earth from. Yes it would have been considered ludicrous to even think of such a thing let alone computers being so commonplace that every household would has at least two of them nowadays. Instead of having only one television per household there's almost one in every room and they're even connected to this wonderful thing called the Internet.
If you don't know how to fix something or need a recipe for tonight's dinner you don't have to go grab a book and start reading on how to repair it or how to prepare it, all you have to do is go to your computing device and entergoogle it on You Tube and there will be a video pop-up of someone enthusiastically telling you how to repair it or how to prepare it. If you can't remember what actor played in your favorite movie no problem just go to the Internet movie database and find out every single thing about that movie that could possibly be known to mortal man and in just a split second. You don't even have to be using your computer to find out this information you can do that on what we now call a smart phone. Believe me they look absolutely nothing like a telephone. The telephone in my day had a base a receiver and cord attached from the base to the receiver and even the base attached to the wall with a cord which was attached to a chord that ran to the telephone lines that ran all the way back to the main telephone station in our town and the smart phones which are better known as cell phones have absolutely no wires and you can still talk to someone in China and not be connected by a cord at all. I guess these things are all done by satellites and cell towers.

The satellites are in orbit around our earth and the cell towers are basically just antenna towers were the cellular telephone companies have their antenna arrays so that we can bounce our cellular telephone signals from one tower to the next until it gets close enough for your aunt Martha to be able to hear your voice on the other end of her cell phone.
I even have something called a Roku box or stick that allows me to get over 3000 television stations and, at 60 years old, I find that completely overwhelming when, originally, our first television could only pick up two television stations and, I think, by 1960 we had the huge number of four television stations which included WKNO TV in Memphis Tennessee that signed own as Tennessee's first public television station outlet on June 25, 1956 from their studios at Memphis State University. Wow, that was the year I was born. So this June WKNO TV in Memphis Tennessee will be 60 years old this year, television has come a long way since then. I can remember the television sets having snow and ghosting pictures and really terrible reception, but not today, we have what they're calling either UHD or 4K television with dynamic picture range and all kinds of devices and they look so good you feel like you can almost walk right into the television screens.

I even remember that there were still passenger planes being flown out of Memphis's airport to far-off destinations that were using piston driven engines. I can remember as a kid going to the airport and sitting in the graveled area that was made for people to watch the planes coming in and landing and taking off and going to far-off destinations when the first of the jet engine aircraft for the airlines took to the air in 1959 and became popular in the airline industry of the 60's.
You see we grew up in an age where it was always changing from one day to the next you never knew what to expect. I even thought that the Jetsons' type automobiles would be flying around from house to house, from city to city, state to state and country to country by the time I turned 60 years old, but that hasn't happened yet. We are still driving around in these old piston driven engine automobiles wondering why aircraft have jet engines and we still are polluting the air with fossil fuel driving automobiles. I have to say though there is hope we're going back to the electric automobile. Yes, that's right, Thomas Alva Edison had an electric automobile back in the days of the model T and they just weren't popular and I have to tell you that they are not that popular today either, but with all the things that are going on with pollution and global warming we may have to learn to love the electric automobile. I just can't help it, until I can drive as far as I want to without having to stop for hours in between to let it charge back up I don't think I'll ever have one. You know I just thought of it, that my great-grandfather probably spouted almost the same words “until these tin Lizzie's can eat hay and make fertilizer don't think I'll have one”.
Don't want to make it seem like the world has gotten to be the Utopia that we thought it would be. Yes there are horrible things that happened today like mass shootings in schools and all kinds of other stupid stuff going on. I have to tell you that I have had a wonderful life my wife and I have traveled to exotic locations that I never thought I would ever get to see and that gives me one more thing to be so thankful about I really truly have met my soulmate. I want to tell you I never thought not one iota that love was more than just a state of mind or that anyone could be so perfect for another human being that they could call anyone their soulmate, but after 34 years of marriage I have to tell you and I mean it, I have found out what love truly is because I have found my soulmate in life. I would not want to do anything without her, go anywhere without her and, yes, I realize with such great love eventually will come great pain when we are no longer together. So you ask is it worth it or why would you go through that knowing what the outcome will be. All that I can tell you is that all that I am for all that I ever will be is because of the love and the patient's and the understanding of the woman that I am married to. Yes, it is worth it and I would go through it 1000 times more knowing that at the end either she or I will have great pain at the loss of our soulmate.

I just wanted to give you my impression of what a little tiny taste of what the 60 years have meant to me. Before I close I want to say something about my family life, my mother and father and my brother, none of them were perfect and some people might say that it was a dysfunctional family and that it was not an ideal environment to grow up in and I'm here to tell you, if you haven't walked a mile in my shoes and gone through the love and joy with all of the heartache and despair that I went through, the bullying and teasing, the taunting and having a loving mother wipe away your tears and a father who worked his fingers to the bone so that we could have more of the wonderful things that life had to offer than my mother and father had, then you don't have the right to think that. I always looked up to my older brother and for many years I thought he was perfect and, yes, nowadays we don't see anywhere near eye to eye on religion or politics or any of that kind of stuff as we did when we were kids, but he was then and is now one of my greatest heroes in life. So you see none of the bad things that happened to us as kids mattered, it was the love and the patience that my family had with an OCD and dyslexic child that made the difference from having a mediocre childhood to the absolutely fantastic loving childhood I had. I guess that's what I really wanted to say is that the first 60 years of my life have been wonderful thanks to the love of my family and the grace of God in my life “And A Little Help From My Friends”.

Happy Birthday to us!

Attitude is the most important tool in learning!

The first tool is "attitude" and it is the most important tool you can develop. Let me give you my favorite example, give a child a tablet or a computer and they light up with excitement, however give the same device to someone over 50 and you might get a completely different reaction. Why is this? Most people will give an answer like this "the child grew up with all this stuff”. That's just not true, a child has not grown up yet so it has only the experiences of right now. On the other hand, we the older generation"50" and above have grown up with technology expanding faster than most of us wanted it to. The major difference between the child and the adult is the lack of fear and looking at everything as if it is game and we, the older generation, look at an increasing lack of time and a fear of failure or a lack of joy of learning anything anymore. We tend to hate change.

Changing our attitude may be the hardest tool to develop, because we have trained our minds to hate change and fear learning for many diverse reasons as we have grown older.  I have tried to keep my mind open and enjoyed learning for all of the professions I have been employed at. Change has come at an ever increasing pace over the years that I have been at my professions. Technology in many jobs or industries has incorporated computers, to our horror, most of us were having to learn skills that we thought were not available to us. That’s just not true. It has grown just like we have and was available for us to learn before we had to.  Because of our fear or just plain laziness, we were reluctant to embrace the changes and learn these skills to be ready for them in our jobs and our life.  

I was surprised when people my age got angry when confronted with smart phones, tablets, laptops and computers with more categories of devises to come in our future. Why is this and how can we ever hope to overcome this block of learning something that will enhance and improve our way of life. It is something that we must overcome. So many things, especially government forms such as unemployment registration and Social Security registration that we will have to fill out in the future are going to be only available on the Internet,

which means we will have to be able to use some type of device or computer to navigate these forms.  So you see it is extremely important that we give up our mental blocks of devices that we are afraid of learning how to operate. I have come to look at learning new ways of using and understanding my computers in the same way I look at going to Walt Disney World. When I walked through those gates I become 12 years old again and I wanted to see and do and learn everything that these parks had to offer. In the same aspect, when I turn on my computer I turn 12 years old again and I want to learn and find out about everything that they can do for me and make my life much easier and happier. Don't get me wrong, not everything that Walt Disney World has to offer is something that I'm crazy about, but most things are. Keeping that in mind, not everything that my computers can do is that interesting to me, just as it won't be to you, but having a basic understanding of everything that your computer can do is essential.

I have used the example of computers to show you that it is possible to change your attitude and have a more childlike enthusiasm about learning and this particular tool, “attitude”, is something that must be acquired within you.

No one can find out what excites you the most about learning. Sometimes it may be learning how to cope with some type of adversity that you or a loved one has acquired with age. You might also be excited about a new grandchild being born in the state further away than you can travel and learning how to receive pictures on e-mails or how to Skype (which is a videophone conference type system) so that you can see and speak with your children and new grandchild. But no matter what it is that you need to learn you will be much more successful with the proper attitude.

I know that I have introduced you to the most horrible thing about life and that is change. It is inevitable that we change our attitude about learning to a more childlike state. For us to enjoy learning we must look at it as if it were a game or something enjoyable for us. If we have to, make it into a game that we will enjoy and indulge in every single day.

This is going to be a multi-part story of an adult student’s (I have found that I have never stopped being a student and I am learning, each and every day, something new and wonderful) retrospective looking back at learning and the possibilities and problems thereof. I am writing these little stories in the hope that it may help someone see from the mistakes and observations that I have made, from a better vantage point in time. Thank you for reading my stories. 

I don't really remember now who the teacher was that told me that no one could teach you how to learn. Boy, do I have an argument for them now. You see, I believe that you can teach someone the mechanics of learning (I will endeavor to explain in the second part of my story for my blog on learning what I mean about the mechanics of learning) and I agree with them that learning is up to the individual. There is always a spark within someone that excites them about learning. For me, back in the day before computers, before we could look things up on the Internet and find a wealth of information instantly at our fingertips, I was more excited about the physical tactile touch of learning. I will endeavor to explain to you  what I mean about the physical tactile touch of learning. What I mean is, if I could read a how-to book and then I could do it, in other words if I could read it and shape it and mold it with my hands, it was easier for me to understand and grasp the nuances of anything.

I once had a class that was taught by a teacher at Tech High School in Memphis, Tennessee in algebra that was taught by an elderly professor from some college or university. I don't remember which school it was anymore and I don’t know if I ever really knew.

It seems that every time I asked him a question that seemed to me to be a simple and an appropriate question, there was always an insult at the end of his answer directed at me when he answered. Being a very cocky 17-year-old I had my fill of his sly and insulting remarks toward me because I found them degrading, unnecessary and a waste of my time just as I guess he felt that my questions were a waste of his time. For me to understand what the equations that we were working with, when the properties of the equation had no physical meaning, in other words, X was only being shown as X and it had no numerical meaning, then why were we going through this exercise? I would hear something about a baboon's brain at the end of his explanation that was directed toward me. So I answered him back “it's better to get knowledge from the person riding a mule northbound, rather than the mule’s southbound end”.  So he sent me to the Principal’s office where I saw one of the assistant principal’s. I explained to him what was going on and I must not have been the only student that had this complaint because he explained to me that neither one of us would be happy with me being in his class.

I later found out there were as many as 10 students over the last two years that went to study hall for the same reasons rather than taking his class. He was the only teacher that I ever lost respect for. Belittling or berating someone is bullying and should not be tolerated from either a teacher or student. I would never have learned anything in his class. I was robbed of the knowledge either by my stubbornness or by his bullying of me. I'm sure though that his technique may have worked for some people, but he should have been ashamed of himself. I know that I now am ashamed that I said anything back to him; I just should have walked out of his class and never returned and made formal complaints even though in those days nothing would have been done. Students’ complaints in those days seemed to fall on deaf ears. I would have loved to have the knowledge that I lost by not having an algebra class and using the time for a study hall. Because of his bullying, I was deprived of the education that I deserved.