Come Along With Me

 Come Along With Me

Come along with me on a magic carpet ride to the memories of a more innocent time. The echoes of the Mamas and Papas, the loving embrace of Sonny and Cher, the mystic melodies of Donovan, and all the way to Max Yasgur’s farm which sounded the end of the innocence of our youth. I still hear California dreaming and there is a scent of incense and peppermint in the air to take me back.

One of my most favorite genres of music seems to be getting lost in the definitions of the various genres of 60’s music. Flower power music only lasted about four years from 1965 to 1969. One of the reasons is that it was a mixture of various music types of the 60’s It was a mixture of light rhythm and blues and folk music and slow rock, but it definitely was not psychedelic music. Even the instrumentals of flower power were a little more laid back and melodic than the psychedelic or hard rock music that was starting to emerge in the latter part of the ’60s. Most of the stars of that type of music were crossing boundaries from pop-rock, folk-rock, and yes even underground rock to the music that was more about happiness, love, and treating your fellow human being with courtesy and respect. I guess that’s because of the movements of the antiwar and racial protests of that particular time. Rock took a dramatic turn to the more wild hard rock, while the folk side went on a rocky mountain high and as the country was in turmoil, artists were echoing this in the music that was being written and played. The best of it still remains for us to enjoy the music, but our innocence is gone.

What got me started thinking about my musical memories was the loss of one of the prettiest voices in music. Her name is Nancy Griffith and she had that folk-rock vibe to her music. She called it folk-a-billy. I thought she had the greatest sound of any artist I have ever heard. The types of songs she wrote reminded me of the flower power music I loved as a teenager.

For some reason when you look up flower power groups on the Internet they have no clue as to which years that flower power music was made. I find groups from the early 60’s all the way to the late 70’s pop up. It’s not that the music that other groups and other times had isn’t good, but it’s not what I’m looking for and is not what my soul desires. There was an innocence and a magic to both the music and the time. It started just as the Beatles landed in New York for the first time but it wasn’t British rock, it was totally and absolutely different than mainstream music. It not only fills the heart with joy, but it also had a message of peace and respect for your fellow man. Maybe it’s not that it’s not out there, maybe it’s that I can’t reach out with that innocence of the first love of music that I used to have and can no longer find. Maybe it’s me or maybe it’s that these younger programmers and computer whiz kids that I rely on to make the search into the inter-web for my memories have no concept of my heart's desires.

It wasn’t just wearing flowers in your hair or going to San Francisco. We were so happy together in those days no matter where we were. The music of that time emphasized the love and not knowing better than just being happy. I need to see what condition my condition was in, maybe my mind and heart have left youth and happiness behind as I have grown into a man. Finding my way back to hear the music that I love isn’t meant to be? That’s right, the songs that we heard and loved brought us to a plane of consciousness that is impossible to find with the cynicism of becoming an adult and realizing man’s inhumanity to man is not just stories we read in our history books, it was and is real and happening today.

Sadly, most of those artists are retiring or have retired and some are no longer with us. This is the time that they call our golden years, but if the truth be known, it is some of my saddest years to lose those great voices. The songs that they will never write are only brightened by the light of the music that they left us. That is why I am searching for the songs of my youth, the flower power music had a magic in those days and hopefully, I may find that magic again. It’s not too late, it’s never too late to enjoy the memories of youth and the joy that life has brought us.

No matter what type of music you enjoyed in your life, it has a magic that brings back the memories and feelings of that first kiss and even finding that one person that lit that light deep within your soul. I wish you all the same happiness of life and the love of music that I have. When someone tells you that there is no magic in the world today, pop-out that 45 of their favorite song and play it and look deep

into their eyes as they remember those special moments that only music can unlock within our minds.

The great singer-songwriters and musicians of the past have left a legacy of memories and love that can conquer any loneliness and misery and pain, just give it a try. It will take you back to a long and winding road that leads us to our past, yes, love is all you need. May God bless you and keep you and please be safe and healthy

your friend always,

Keith L House

0. Nancy Griffith

1. Scott McKenzie

2. Mamas and Papas

3.The Rascals

4.The 5th Dimension

5.Strawberry Alarm Clock

6.Melanie

7.The Loving’ Spoonful

8.Grass Roots

9.The Byrds

10.The Turtles

11.The Cowsills

12.The Grateful Dead

13.Donovan Leitch

14. Sonny and Cher

15.Arlo Guthrie

16.The Buffalo Springfield

17.Tommy James and the Shondells

18.Spanky and Our Gang

20. Oliver Urdaneta

21.Crosby Stills Nash and Young

I’m sure I left out so many so put in your suggestions in the comments.

The Best of times?

 

Memories seem to flash by way too quickly to catch all of them and remember them as I should. So when I do, I write them down so that my great-granddaughter can tell my great-great-granddaughter who I was and who her ancestors were. They will not have known me as I wish they would have because I will be gone by that time. I wish I had known my great grandparents even a little. I now look at names and I wonder who they were and did they have the same likes and dislikes as me? Would they have liked me or would they have even cared?

My Dad was a good man in his younger days with us and took the time to do things with us. I remember one day in the back yard he was carving toy guns with just a pocket knife that look amazing, well at least to a 3-year-old boy (me). He made a revolver that the cylinder turned on it. He made two long rifles that also looked real for a carving. It is one of the only times I remember my father not yelling at me or calling me stupid. He just didn’t have the patience with me as he did my brother because he had gotten older and wore himself out with all the neighborhood boys on the baseball teams.

I understand how hard I was on him now, but it did hurt as a small boy that looked up to him and loved him that had no concept of age and tolerance. I see him in me with my grandson when I have had to deal with him one on one. I mean well and so did my father but we are a product of our upbringing I hope that becoming a US Marine will break the cycle of this for my grandson's sake.

My mother on the other hand got me, and did everything she could for me and even took on two couches and a principle on my behalf in a battle over “The Airways Jr. High Great Side Burn Scandal of 1974”.

The year I left to go to Canada, I first went to see my Grandfather Whitehead and spent the night with him. That was the last time I got to talk with him or saw him. He told me his favorite story of a date he had with the prettiest girl he had ever seen (before our Grandmother Whitehead, of course).  He rode his mule into town and went with her to a picture show(remember this would have been in the 1890s to the early 1900s). A person who knew him stopped him on his way home after the show and told him that the girl was a black girl and he said he didn’t know what to say or do, but he knew he could not see her anymore. Very sad I thought, but life is sad sometimes if we don't try to make it better.

I have been sitting here with my memories, Crying and laughing at the best of times and the worst of times. I’m glad that I’m at the age that even the worst was pretty good!

Thanks for reading the ramblings of an old man's little life!

Keiths Memories In Time: Wonder Filled Life

Keiths Memories In Time: Wonder Filled Life:   It has been many a year scene the cowboys and Indians roomed my neighborhood and Batman and robin rode their bikes down our streets. ...

Wonder Filled Life

 

It has been many a year since the cowboys and Indians roamed my neighborhood and Batman and Robin rode their bikes down our streets.

I still hear those faint echos of the Merry mobile with the popsicles and ice cream treats, bells and music calling to us all.

Life sometimes slows down and allows us to see the times of our past even if it is only a glimpse of the face of someone you remember like the girl you took to the prom or a mistake that sends shivers up your spine. I can't remember as much as I used to but sometimes different memories of the past come to me at times as if to taunt me to look back and remember the days when we were young.

I remember a trip to a shopping center where they had life-size Dinosaurs for us to see and for 50 cents you could make a wax Dino toy to take home. What wonders we saw as children and never noticed the significance of what we saw. I saw in my mind rocks that glowed in the dark at the Pink Palace Museum on a school trip. We, the baby boomer generation had if nothing a full life.

Just think, as our life began, TV was becoming more popular over radio

and commercial flight was becoming affordable and safe. Computers may have been only in a University or government office if at all. Phones were wired to the wall and no social media other than writing a letter.

We’ve seen the growth of the race for space by a government project to companies bidding to be the first on Mars. I have seen science fiction become science fact right before my eyes.

What wounder will I see before I die, and what wonders will my Great-granddaughter see in her lifetime?

I’m not the smartest person out there and I’m not the dumbest either, but I do know we have been a blessed generation with love and wonders that filled our lifetime.

The Queen Of The Skies

Let us go back about 110 years ago when a young girl asked why not. While at an air show in the early days of aviation a girl asked why she couldn’t be one of those daring young aviators in the sky above her?

Keeping in mind her love of the adventure she saw in the freedom of flight, she knew on her first flight that this was where she belonged in the sky, flying her own aircraft. She would go on to fly in and pilot numerous aircraft in her lifetime.

Not only was she the first female to be a passenger to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, she was also the first female pilot to fly across the Atlantic Ocean.

She was a member of the National Woman’s Party and an early supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment. Who knows what might have happened if things had had a different outcome?

She became one of the most notable females in American and world history when she and Fred Noonan attempted a clandestine flight around the globe. The fight had a number of drawbacks that every pilot today would take for granted. Even the compass they had to rely on was not like the compass that navigators today use. Fred Noonan was one of the best navigators she could have chosen, you see he was one of the team that helped to navigate the flight paths that Pan Am Clippers used to reach the Orient. This was still the time that dead reckoning was the only form of navigation there was. There was no GPS, no radio navigation signal, and what there was, was not in any way as helpful as they are today.

It was July 2, 1937, on the leg from Lae, New Guinea to Howland Island, desperately trying to reach the safety of Howland Island. It is a widely held belief that they ran out of fuel and crashed into the Pacific Ocean never to be heard from again.

There have been many searches for the Pilot and her navigator, starting with the largest search and rescue mission for a Civilian aircraft ever launched by F.D.R. There were many more private missions launched in the years following their disappearance. Even with today’s modern technology, still no substantiated, beyond the shadow of a doubt, evidence of them has ever been found. She was declared dead in absentia on Jan. 5, 1939.

Not only was she a pioneer in aviation, she was and is to this day an inspiration for girls and boys to reach for the skies. Who was she: Amelia Earhart, American born of part German descent. She has become what is known as a Legend. (24 July 1897 – 2 July 1937).

Keiths Memories In Time: Rough Road in Italy

Keiths Memories In Time: Rough Road in Italy: I have taken many an adventure with my wonderful wife Ursula, but the last one was to Rome and Vatican City. It was magical, the sights an...

It's not Winning or Losing it's how you play the game

After hearing about Notre Dame Cathedral I have been in kind of a sad mood and on the way home I was listening to broadcast about the old days of the coalfield ball teams in West Virginia.
I don't know if other people experience it but there's always a memory that comes flooding back with certain associations that is at such an extreme level that it almost gives you cold chills thinking about it. That memory will need some explaining and I'm going to try to do just that with the story I'm about to tell you.
I can't say that I was a saint by any means but I did try to play by the rules as much as I could. Some of my examples when I was growing up were not exactly what they should have been, but not all of them. I can remember wanting to play basketball desperately but I was not good enough for our school team and I knew that so I tried out for the church team and lo and behold I made the team. You know what, I was shocked too! I worked hard and got frustrated one day in practice with what I was being taught and said something to the coach that I probably shouldn't have, I apologized and he forgave me, so I was back on the team. Finally, we started playing other churches. In the league we were in we played all around Memphis. One day the coach pulled me from the bench and told me to go in and take out a player? I did not understand and I asked somehow for clarification. I didn't remember exactly what I said but he said don't break anything but put him out of the ballgame. I was shocked but I wasn't the brightest bulb in the box in those days, yes, I was a little nieve in those days and I did so want to play basketball so I did as I was told.
We were lined up for a free throw and I came up and under him with a knee in his thigh to do my best to hurt him just enough to keep him off the floor for as long as possible. The official, you know the guy with a striped shirt and black pants, pulled me to the side and told me if he ever saw me trying to hurt another player he would make sure that I never played in any league again.
 I lied to him and

said I wasn't doing anything. He told me he wasn't born yesterday and he had played basketball himself and knew exactly what was going on and to just mind my pees and
cues and I would be all right, otherwise, it would be trouble.
Something like this came up later in my life and I think I've told a little bit of the story before. I was umpiring a baseball game and the game was extremely close. I was sweeping off home plate and thought I heard someone say don't let it hit you in the head but take the hit. I thought maybe I heard it wrong so I didn't think much about it but I did see the coach talking to one particular player. The first batter hit a double and the second batter hit a single and then the young man I saw talking to one of the coaches of his team came to bat and I noticed he was just a bit anxious and he was bobbing and weaving in and out of the strike zone which, in itself, is not incriminating but it made me a little more curious than normal. I was watching him just as close as I was watching the pitcher and the strike zone. The picture wound up looking at first and second, he threw the ball and it was looking like it was going to be a perfect strike, then I noticed the young man crouch into the strike zone and pull his leg up as if to step into the pitch to hit it. I noticed the strangest thing, his eyes were closed as tight as they could be and he was making a face as if someone was about to give him a shot of penicillin. Then I heard a thud, the baseball hit him directly in the shoulder which was right over the strike zone. He
made no attempt to move out of the way or fall to the ground or any movement like he did not want to get hit by the pitch and that's just not natural. A lot of things raced through my mind,
the coach that asked him to do something that was unsportsmanlike and who I presumed was a coach asking a child to put himself in danger for a game, this not only was unsportsmanlike but it
was dangerous. A batter can not block the plate and the strike zone by the rulebook. I could've called it a strike and or if I thought that the player was doing it intentionally I could
call him out, and I did. I also walked over to the coach and told him why I called him out and I said if I could prove what I suspected I would not only rule the player out but that I would
see that he never coached again.

The opposing coach couldn't understand my reasoning because he was on the opposite side and couldn't see the boys face like I could. Mr. Haney, yes, Wallace and Ramona and Diane's father (childhood friends) was there for the next game or he may have even been one of the opposing coaches (I don't remember) also chastised me for the call I made and I felt like I was totally alone with the decision that I had made and I also questioned myself for a split second, but I knew in my heart it was the right decision that I had made.
I, for one, don't believe that someone that a child should look up to should ask them to do something that should not be done whether it's morally or ethically or in the spirit of the game. Winning has little to do with it, it's that you will always be someone that they look up to and someone that they need to have as a role model and mentor and, as such, asking them to do
something they should not do is breaking a sacred trust because remember it's not whether you win or lose it really is how you play the game.
I have to tell you that most of my coaches through junior high and high school were people that I could look up to and almost always were of the highest character and I love them all dearly and would not take $1 billion for the time that I spent with the coaches and players of the teams that I was on. Yes, winning means a lot but being able to look at yourself in the mirror and saying to yourself I tried to be the best I could be, for me is more important than any amount on any scoreboard could ever give you.
It seems that nowadays that the little white lies are accepted no matter what the reason. It seems that making choices between the lesser of two evils is acceptable. I, for one, stand with you and
promise you that I will never accept cheating, lying, stealing or any other less than ethical behavior in my life. I am no saint and do not expect you to follow me. If you look you'll see I do not have
nail scars in my hands, but I try each and every day to be like the Man that did.

Rough Road in Italy

I have taken many an adventure with my wonderful wife Ursula, but the last one was to Rome and Vatican City. It was magical, the sights and attending mass at St Peter’s was a highlight of my life and while we were there the Pope spoke to the crowd and said a blessing for us all.

We walked all over Rome and took the train and cabs to all our destinations. I must say that we never felt unsafe at all. The price of the trains were very reasonable compared to other places where we have been.

We went to all the sights we had time for. The Coliseum built in AD 72 to AD 80, the Forum and the ruins at the Palatine Hill, the Castle St. Angelo and the Trevi Fountain. Yes, we threw a coin in the fountain so we will return to Rome.

The thing that made it magical had more to do with a chance encounter with a road that had a sign in Italian that said rough road, as we went to a restaurant that Ursula’s father had a picture taken at the end of the Second World War. The road that I am speaking of, as I said had a sign in Italian that I could not read and it was only blocking half the road, so like any good American tourist I went around it and, as Shirley Temple used to say, “oh my goodness”! It was, first of all, in the middle of nowhere and I must say if there is a middle of nowhere it was that road in Italy.

Back to the road now, the conditions of the road were really rough at first and, like any thing that I do, it was destined to get even rougher. The sides of the road had collapsed in places and the bridges also looked as if chunks had fallen out of them. I kept moving forward as my poor wife Ursula melted into a nervous pool of Jell-O. We finally got up to the very top of this mountain road and it didn’t look any more pleasing to the eye than the rest of the road had before. There were at least 1000 foot drops or more on the right side of the car which made Ursula’s nerves of Jell-O at this point even more shaky. I, however, had all the confidence in the world that we were going to be safe “after they pulled our mangled bodies from the Fiat we had rented”. At least then you wouldn’t have to be listening to this story. Yes, I was starting to get a little bit worried, “yeah like I was already sweating bullets”, the road actually seemed just a little bit better, “but you had to drive around the big huge holes in the road for it to be better by the way”. We finally got to the end of our rough road and came to what we would’ve called an expressway that also seemed to be closed. Luckily, we saw a couple workers on a part of the expressway that was closest to us, so we asked them in our very best interpretation of an American tourist trying to make someone understand what they are asking that doesn’t understand English. Somehow he understood us and pointed to go back down the road and take the right but before the closed sign. We were to turn across the medium and turn left and it would take us to our destination. Luckily for us it did and no mishaps or rough roads on the rest of our trip to the town of Bornio in Rovigo and the restaurant called Trattoria al Ponte.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                              We also went to Sienna, Lake Como and Milan.

Music of My Time

I am feeling very nostalgic for the music that I grew up with. I don’t think rap is musically singing. I don’t particularly like the direction music is headed. Everyone sounds like they’re back in the 1950’s with the old mics that caused the sound to echo. This echo however is no accident, they use the echo to hide the fact that most of today’s artists can’t hold their notes properly. That’s not to say that I personally could sing any better even with an echo correction.

I long for the days that everyone had their own unique sound. I also long for the time when all genres of music were played on most radio stations. I remember that WHBQ radio station would play pop, blues, rock, Soul, Country and yes even some of the old standards from back before our day. I have called myself and others of my generation the Ed Sullivan generation and I must slightly expand on that statement. The Ed Sullivan show introduced us to all kinds of music not just rock, country or Motown but his show introduced us to Opera and even Broadway musicals with the cast of those musicals performing it. As a matter of fact a young teenage Monkee was in one of those Broadway casts, yes, Davy Jones from the Monkees was in one of the Broadway musicals that was on the Ed Sullivan show before he had ever even thought about joining a band called the Monkees. Now that I have established the fact that the band is called the Monkees,Renata Tibaldi, Joan Sutherland, Richard Tucker and Franco Corelli, just some of the great Opera stars that appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show.

I can still hear Davy Jones singing the song “I’d do anything”.

When there was something special at the Metropolitan Opera, Ed Sullivan would have the likes of,

Renata Tibaldi, Joan Sutherland, Richard Tucker and Franco Corelli, just some of the great Opera stars that appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show.

I guess it’s not really the bands themselves that I am nostalgic for but rather the happiness and the joy and, yes, even the adventure that music brought me. The rock stars that appeared on the Ed Sullivan show are just as unbelievable, Bill Haley and the Comets, Bo Diddley, Buddy Holly, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Dave Clark Five, Elvis Presley, Jerry and the Pacemakers, Janis Joplin,

Jefferson Airplane, the Mamas and the Papas, and of course many more artists than I can list that definitely deserve mentioning but I must at least name one group that made musical history by being on the Ed Sullivan show, none other than the Beatles. What more can I say about a group that changed our way of life.

With money from my first job I purchased a tape recorder “a cassette tape recorder”. The first cassette I purchased was Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple.however. My favorite album that I had of all times was Rare Earths Get Ready with the best drum solo ever. I have tried to find a recording of Rare Earth’s Get Ready that had that same drum solo. I don’t think it exists anymore. On some of them that drum solo isn’t the same and on others it has been shortened and doesn’t sound the same. I guess it could also be that an old man’s memory of what he heard back then was much better than it really was. I don’t want you to think that I was only into rock ‘n roll, folk music and Motown and soul, because I wasn’t. I listened to country and what I like to call clean jazz and New Orleans jazz that made reasonable musicality and melodic sense.

I also remember the first LP that I ever got for Christmas. I told my mother that I wanted After the Gold Rush by Neil Young and she came back to me after searching most of the department stores in Memphis at that time and she said she couldn’t find it. I told her there was a little record shop on the strip, “the Highland strip” near Memphis State University. She was very reluctant to go in there so she gave me the money and my father drove me there and I purchased the album, but she didn’t let me open it till Christmas day

I know you’re going to ask what made me so nostalgic for those times and, the truth is, I was watching CBS’s Sunday morning where they showed that the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art has a display now of all of the wonderful instruments that made those beautiful sounds into songs. Just as it took Masters to create the beautiful paintings in that museum it took Masters of those instruments to make those incredible memories come to life. Believe me I’ve picked up a guitar too and it’s not easy to make them sound beautiful and I must admit it’s extremely easy to make them sound horrible.

Everyone knows where they were at the most horrible times of our life and everyone knows where they were when they heard that special song or saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show on February 9, 1964.

It’s the comfort that music brought us at the worst possible moments in our lives that is a testament not only to the music but to those that made the music. There are so many songs that remind us of the days of our lives as we struggled to become who we are. I am not proclaiming that music is spiritual because I don’t have to, the very basis of the Christian religion is the teachings of the Bible and it said in those sanctified pages “make a joyful noise unto the Lord”.

I know because I have listened to the beautiful noise that those artists made to the Lord that it was not only a blessing to Him but to us as well. We are coming to the age now where a lot of those artists are aging to the point that they are no longer making music and as I am getting older too, I understand that our capabilities are not what they once were. But I will bet you dollars to doughnuts that the music played in heaven is like those radio stations that used to play all kinds of music that we loved with endless music that we will hear when we enter our heavenly home. It will be some of the best sounds that angels have ever heard. We will miss those musical geniuses that have gone on before us and I can’t wait to hear the new songs and music they are making.

We grew up listening to the music of our time, we made friends and laughed and played to the music of our time, we fell in love with that special one with the music of our time, and I for one will be laid to rest with the music of our time.

Yesterday was Father's Day and I know I should've been thinking of my father and I was in a way which I will tell you later. But first I want to tell you what my daughter did for me and the memories that it brought back. She drove to Memphis to pick up my granddaughter from her father who she was visiting and then came straight to my work and brought me a hot meal from Cracker Barrel. My grandkids, my daughter and my wife set down with me and we ate our dinner. I ask you what more could a father ask for than for his daughter to think that much of him.

It reminded me of the Father's Day that we had when I was young and we would travel to Hurricane, Mississippi to visit my mother's father. Or were we actually going there for the wonderful home-cooked meals that my grandmother and my aunts prepared which my father seemed to love? There's where I was thinking of my father.

You see in both my mother and father's family, food was the soul that brought the family together and it was my grandmother Whitehead that was the ultimate cook in our families.

My grandparents lived through the first world war, the depression and the second world war where they had to sacrifice, to make the best of what they had. She not only learned how to make things taste magical, she learned how to make them last and how to preserve and do things that are more of a lost art today. I wish I had set down with her and found out more of her secrets rather than having to now try and discover what those secrets are without her. Even my mother didn't know some of my grandmother's secrets even though they cooked so many times side-by-side with my aunts.

I know I have told you about the wonderful buttermilk biscuits that only she could make and the wonderful juicy southern pecan cake she would bake. But everything she made was just unbelievably delicious, it was a paradise for a young boy and teenager to set down to her table, not just because of the magical flavors that one could explore, it was also what went into the preparation, the love and the women all talking furiously while making these dishes and having the greatest times of their lives. It kind of reminds me of the Randy Travis song "Forever and Ever Amen" where old men sit and talk about old women and old women talk about old men. It was so unbelievable you could taste the love that these women put into it with every bite you would take.

It is so true that the love between the generations seems to have changed, we don't prepare things as much as we used to, we just go out and buy them. I guess my point is that just like my daughter making a 6 hour drive back and forth to Memphis and then bringing me the hot food. It wasn't necessarily the food, it was the love that made her do it that just warmed my soul. So it's also the meals that my grandmother prepared to show us how much she loved us. If she knew we were coming, there would be biscuits galore made that day so that I would have some fresh biscuits when I got there because she knew how much I loved them so and she loved to prepare them for me.

I know your family too comes from the same generation that mine did, so when one of the women in your family prepared food on Father's Day it was to show how much they loved all the Fathers in their family past and present. What more could you ask for on a Fathers Day!