What’s Been Going On

This past weekend was a busy one. Once again Ella had soccer. Watching these gals play is so fun. I’m not sure why they all want to be the goalie.

At one point over half the team was in front of the goal. Ella had her back to the other team because she was chatting up the goalie on the field behind them.

Later that evening, my niece was cheerleading for one of the youth football teams. The kids were like 5-7 years old and they were playing tackle football. That was really cool to watch.

The game was at the high school in our district, but my niece was cheering for the visiting team (who won). After watching her cousin, Ella wants to cheer, too.

On Sunday, we finally got out and “Falled up” the yard. Sam had me run up to get hay bales. I took her car and hay was everywhere. Needless to say, I went to the car wash to vacuum it out.

Sam put out the mums that she ordered, had me drag out the pumpkin inflatable, and moved her goose to the front porch. At some point we need to get some corn stalks, but it looks nice.

Our older cat, Maizey, has been scratching a lot. She’s also been licking herself. It’s been so bad that she’s missing hair on her back and the upper part of her tail. She’s also got scabs from where she was scratching.

Monday I took her to the vet. They were running behind because of a new computer system. She waited patiently for the doc.

They think it’s an allergy. They gave her steroids, an antibiotic and her rabies shot. Hopefully, it will get better in a day or two.

Andrew’s teachers are very good about posting pictures on their classroom page. Every now and then one will crack me up. Like this one…

I’m really not sure what he’s doing!

Yesterday, I was on my way to work and bumped into my old morning show partner, Steph. We chatted for about 45 minutes catching up and laughing. That was so nice. I hope it isn’t roo long before we see each other next. It’s always good to laugh!

Book Recommendation – The Woman in the Window

I am really behind the times with the book I just finished. I found out that it came out in 2018, and actually had already been made into a Netflix movie.

The Woman in the Window was recommended to me by the owner of a used book store I frequent. We were talking about our recent reads and she asked if I had read it.

The Author AJ Finn wrote End of Story, which I really enjoyed. The Woman in the Window was his debut novel. Before I offer my thoughts, here is the Goodreads synopsis:

Anna Fox lives alone, a recluse in her New York City home, unable to venture outside. She spends her day drinking wine (maybe too much), watching old movies, recalling happier times . . . and spying on her neighbors.

Then the Russells move into the house across the way: a father, a mother and their teenage son. The perfect family. But when Anna, gazing out her window one night, sees something she shouldn’t, her world begins to crumble and its shocking secrets are laid bare.

What is real? What is imagined? Who is in danger? Who is in control? In this diabolically gripping thriller, no one—and nothing—is what it seems.

As I read this book, I kept thinking about Hitchcock’s Rear Window. I suppose that is what the author hoped for in that the main character loved old movies. She references them often throughout the book.

There were quite a few surprises along the way. I really found myself on the edge of my seat a couple times. The end was certainly not what I expected, but in a good way.

Finn does a fantastic job describing the fears of agoraphobia in the main character, Anna. Her character made me think of the main character in Sorry, Wrong Number. At times she is calm, at times she is frantic, and other times she is lost in despair. She is a very complex character and along the way, you find out why.

At one point I remember reading what seemed to be the “wrap up,” but I knew it could be because of how many pages were left. Where the story went from here really had me turning pages.

The Netflix movie stars Amy Adams, Gary Oldman, and Juliette Moore. I’ve heard good and bad about it, so I may or may not decide to see it. As far as the book, it is worth the read.

4 out of 5 stars.

Tune Tuesday

It was on this day in 1967 that the Box Tops started a four week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘The Letter’, a No.5 hit in the UK. The record went on to sell over four million copies and receive two Grammy nominations. It was also a Top Ten hit for Joe Cocker in 1970.

Nashville songwriter Wayne Carson Thompson wrote the song after his father gave him the line, “Give me a ticket for an aeroplane.” Thompson gave the song to The Box Tops on the recommendation of his friend, Chips Moman, who ran ARS Studios. Moman liked the sound of an unnamed band headed by Alex Chilton (who was 16 at the time) who auditioned for him in 1967.

Thompson played guitar on the recording. He didn’t like the singing, believing the lead vocal was too husky, and wasn’t fond of the production either. The addition of the jet sound “didn’t make sense” to him. When producer Dan Penn added the airplane sound to the recording, Wayne Carson Thompson clearly thought that Penn had lost his mind. He hadn’t – several weeks later it became one of the biggest records of the ’60s.

The Box Tops went on to score with a few other Thompson compositions, including their follow-up release, “Neon Rainbow” (#24, 1967), “Soul Deep” (a #18 hit in 1969) and “You Keep Tightening Up On Me” (their last chart hit, which peaked at #74 in 1970). A few years later, Thompson won a Grammy for co-writing the hit “Always On My Mind.”

When the group recorded this they still did not have a name. One band member suggested, “Let’s have a contest and everybody can send in 50 cents and a box top.” Producer Dan Penn then dubbed them The Box Tops.

Fun Fact: At 1:58, the Box Tops’ version of this was the last #1 hit to be shorter than two minutes in length.

Fun Fact #2: The title is never sung in this song: his baby writes him “a letter.”

I always got a kick out of one particular parody of The Letter. “Vanna Pick Me a Letter” is the title of a 1987 single by the artist Dr. Dave (who reminded me of Cheech from Cheech and Chong). It, of course, references Vanna White, Pat Sajak and the game Wheel of Fortune. The phrase itself became an iconic catchphrase associated with the show and White’s role as a letter-turner.

The Monday Blues

I thought we’d head to the swamp today.

“I’m a King Bee” is what they call a “swamp blues” song. It was written and first recorded by Slim Harpo in 1957. It has been performed and recorded by numerous blues and other artists since, but Slim’s version is paramount.

Harpo’s legal name was James Moore. He played guitar and was a master of the blues harmonica, known in blues circles as a “harp”. Influenced in style by Jimmy Reed, he began performing in Baton Rouge bars using the name “Harmonica Slim”

He started his recording career in March 1957, working with the A&R man and record producer J. D. “Jay” Miller in Crowley, Louisiana. To differentiate himself from another performer called Harmonica Slim he took his wife’s suggestion and adopted the name Slim Harpo.

His most successful and influential recordings included today’s song “I’m a King Bee” (1957), “Rainin’ in My Heart” (1961), and “Baby Scratch My Back” (1966), which reached number one on Billboard’s R&B chart and number 16 on its broader Hot 100 singles chart.

The recording features an arrangement and instrumentation that was typical of J.D. Miller’s production approach. Accompanying Slim Harpo were Gabriel “Guitar Gable” Perrodin on guitar, John “Fats” Perrodin on bass, and Clarence “Jockey” Etienne on drums.

The song has an interesting feel to it in that it has an irregular number of bars (as opposed to the standard 12 bars.) According to the well known blues historian Gerard Herzhaft, it is derived from songs by Memphis Minnie, Bo Carter and the great Muddy Waters. Herhaft states that the song uses the rhythm figure from “Rockin’ and Rollin” by Lil’ Son Jackson.

Baton Rouge, Louisiana-based Excello Records originally released it in 1957 as the B-Side to his debut solo single, “I Got Love if You Want It”

Music critic Cub Koda wrote of Slim’s appeal:

Harpo was more adaptable than [Jimmy] Reed or most other bluesmen. His material not only made the national charts, but also proved to be quite adaptable for white artists on both sides of the Atlantic … A people-pleasing club entertainer, he certainly wasn’t above working rock & roll rhythms into his music, along with hard-stressed, country & western vocal inflections … By the time his first single became a Southern jukebox favorite, his songs were being adapted and played by white musicians left and right. Here was good-time Saturday-night blues that could be sung by elements of the Caucasian persuasion with a straight face.

In 2008, “I’m a King Bee” received a Grammy Hall Of Fame Award which “honors recordings of lasting qualitative or historical significance”

Let’s buzz around the hive…..

Objection Sustained

September 21, 1957 – 68 years ago today Perry Mason premiered on CBS.

Based on the character from the books of Erle Stanley Gardner, Raymond Burr starred in the title role. The show was the first weekly hour-long drama series.

Lasting nine seasons, the original show was nominated nine times for an Emmy and won five including Best Actor in a Leading Role (Burr, 1959 and 1960) and Best Supporting Actress (Barbara Hale, 1959).

A few years ago, I took part in a TV Show draft. Like fantasy football, each round we got to pick our show. I chose Perry Mason in the third round. You can read that blog here.

TV Show Draft – Round 3 – Perry Mason – Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian https://share.google/Y0FtIrGcGxccOqy53

The show has been shown in syndication ever since it went off the air on May 22, 1966!

Weekend Laugh

An Englishman, a Scotsman, an Irishman, a Welshman, a Latvian, a Turk, a German, an Indian, several Americans (including a southerner, a New Englander, and a Californian) an Argentinean, a Dane, an Australian, a Slovakian, an Egyptian, a Japanese, a Moroccan, a Frenchman, a New Zealander, a Spaniard, a Russian, a Guatemalan, a Colombian, a Pakistani, a Malaysian, a Croatian, a Uzbek, a Cypriot, a Pole, a Lithuanian, a Chinese, a Sri Lankan, a Lebanese, a Cayman Islander, a Ugandan, a Vietnamese, a Korean, a Uruguayan, a Czech, an Icelander, a Mexican, a Finn, a Honduran, a Panamanian, an Andorran, an Israeli, a Venezuelan, a Fijian, a Peruvian, an Estonian, a Brazilian, a Portuguese, a Liechtensteiner, a Mongolian, a Hungarian, a Canadian, a Moldovan, a Haitian, a Norfolk Islander, a Macedonian, a Bolivian, a Cook Islander, a Tajikistani, a Samoan, an Armenian, an Aruban, an Albanian, a Greenlander, a Micronesian, a Virgin Islander, a Georgian, a Bahaman, a Belarusian, a Cuban, a Tongan, a Cambodian, a Qatari, an Azerbaijani, a Romanian, a Chilean, a Kyrgyzstani, a Jamaican, a Filipino, a Ukrainian, a Dutchman, a Ecuadorian, a Costa Rican, a Swede, a Bulgarian, a Serb, a Swiss, a Greek, a Belgian, a Singaporean, an Italian, a Norwegian and 47 Africans walk up to a nightclub.

The doorman scrutinizes the group one by one and stops their entrance saying,

“Sorry, you can’t come in here without a Thai. “

Friday Photo Flashback

Remember the Polaroid One Step camera? Everyone in our family had one. You snapped a picture, the photo would spit out the front and slowly develop before your eyes. At family events, you needed a pen so when everyone took the same picture, they could write their name on the bottom so they knew what picture belonged to them.

At the time, so many people took pictures with that camera. Back in the day, you put them in a photo album where they stayed until the digital age. Then we all started scanning them. When we began to do this, many people realized that those pictures didn’t hold up too good. Take for example my photo today.

That picture is one of my favorites of my grandparents. As you can see, the photo has cracks all throughout it. I’m sure there are people who restore pictures, and at some point I may have to do that to this one and a number of others.

The story of this picture is a simple one. My grandpa’s feet always seemed to bother him. They hurt all the time. So for Christmas that year, we bought him a “Foot Fixer.” If memory serves me right, the year that it came out there was a barrage of commercials for it on TV. There was probably some joking that proceeded him actually getting one.

The thing I love about this picture is the natural smile on my grandpa’s face. He was genuinely happy to have gotten this! Any time someone bought him something, he’d say, “Why did you by me something?” or “No, no, I don’t need anything.” He may have even said it before he opened this, but he sure did love getting it.

A couple things stand out in this picture for me. First, is my grandma’s beehive hairstyle. She wore her hair like this for many, many years. Many of my core memories of her include that hair.

Next, is the orange couch. If you go back through some of my previous Friday Flashbacks, you will probably see the loud/ugly furniture that used to reside in this room. The couch was this awful gold swirly flowery design. I cannot remember why grandma got rid of that furniture because NO ONE every really sat on it. It looked like it was brand new. However, she did get rid of it and solid color prevailed.

There is a crocheted afghan on the back of the couch. I can probably bet that my mom was responsible for making it. She made countless afghans with the pile of yarn she had. I wish I had one of those now.

The thing behind my grandpa is not the grandfather clock I thought it was. I cannot recall if that was even the place that she put the clock. At first glance to me, that is what I thought it was. Upon closer examination, I can see that it is a shelving unit of some kind. It looks solid because you can see the front door behind it. I do not remember this thing or any of the things that are sitting on the shelves.

As I look at this picture, I see my grandparents happy and healthy. They look great here. I am sure that as a kid behind the camera, I am just enjoying having them around. I never really thought about the possibility of them getting sick or getting older. I miss them both a lot, but am happy to have some great photos to remember them.

What’s Up With China?

I got the message from WordPress that my “stats are booming” today. So I went and checked out the information.

I’m not sure what I blog about that is so interesting to China. 2200 views yesterday. 1500 the day before. 1200 the day before that. 1000 the day before that. Prior to that my blog had anywhere from 800-1100 visits a day from China.

I wondered if I was the only one. After searching WordPress, I did find a couple bloggers who also saw an increase in Chinese traffic. What is that all about?

I changed my password, just in case.

Let me know if you are experiencing the same thing….

Catching Up

I realize that it’s been a bit since I gave a life “update.” I feel like I haven’t had two minutes to even think about the past week or so. Here are some highlights…

The weather warmed up a bit last week and the kids were anxious to get outside. My wife bought them something to play with in the bathtub, but they wanted to play with it one morning outside. They were “mad scientists.”

It came with a beaker, droppers, tubes, a funnel, and a bunch of color tablets. Instead of the bathtub we grabbed a bunch of Tupperware bowls and filled them with water. They dissolved the color tablets in the water and then were able to mix colors to make new ones. I’m glad they chose to do it outside – it was quite messy.

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I had to take Friday off to get something done and wound up having a couple of hours with my wife – alone. This never happens! It was nice. We had a nice dinner together at our favorite steak house, we snuggled and watched TV together like we did when we were dating, and we went on a Goose Hunt.

My wife has been wanting one of those “porch gooses” for a while. She doesn’t want to pay for one of those stone ones because they are so expensive. She saw some ceramic ones on the internet that were available at Hobby Lobby. The closest one of those that had one in stock was 30 minutes north of us. So we took a road trip.

After that she said we needed to go to Walmart so she could by a “fall” outfit for the Goose. I was stumped until she told me that we could get a pet costume for the Goose. So now, this is on our porch…

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Soccer for Ella started this weekend. It is very different than the soccer Andrew played in. His was just a bunch of silliness and “Red Light, Green Light” to learn skills. Ella is actually playing a game.

It is a long day for her though. They have an hour practice before the game. Then the game is about an hour. So she is running a lot. Her team is all kindergartners. When the game began, 4 out of the 6 girls were in front of the goal doing jumping jacks. I’m not sure what the rules are about having 4 goalies.

It was a hoot to watch her really going after the ball. Technically, they lost, but no one was really keeping score. At the end of the day, she loved every minute of it.

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You may remember I recently did a stress test. I passed with flying colors. However, I would venture a guess that if I had been hooked up for an EKG on Sunday they would have found some crazy arrhythmias! My second oldest and I were out driving and parallel parking.

Parallel parking still gives me a headache. I had set up spots in a parking lot that represented the front of one car and the back of another. His job was to park in between those spots. I’m glad that it was only cones he ran over, because if there had been real cars there, I’d be filing an insurance claim!

To be fair, he really got the hang of it after I made him do it over and over again. I remember my dad letting me drive his car around the neighborhood when I was 15 or 16. I was so grateful for that. I’m hoping to go out with him again this coming weekend.

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One more class and one more exam and I will have finished Year #2 in my Bible courses. I’m excited to get started on the third year which will feature classes on Ambassadorship and a deep dive into the book of Ephesians. There is so much to learn and I’m loving every minute of it.

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Those are the exciting highlights of the past week or so. Thanks for reading!

Tune Tuesday

Happy 100th birthday to the King of the Blues – BB King! He was born in the Mississippi Delta and was attracted to music and taught himself to play guitar. The beginning his career was in juke joints and on local radio. It was later that he lived and performed in Memphis and Chicago.

One of my favorite BB King stories is how his guitar got its name. It happened in Twist, Arkansas one night during one of his shows. A brawl broke out between two men and caused a fire. He left the building with the rest of the crowd but ran back in to get his guitar. He said he later learned that the two men were fighting over a woman named Lucille. He named the guitar Lucille as a reminder not to fight over women, or run into any more burning buildings.

The song The Thrill is Gone was written and originally recorded by the blues musician Roy Hawkins in 1951. In the 1950s, BB was a Memphis radio DJ who played the Roy Hawkins original on the air. The song is about moving on from a relationship that has gone bad.

King recorded the song several times but didn’t like any of the results. Producer Bill Szymczyk (most famous for producing the Eagles) called King at 4:00 a.m. and suggested the addition of strings (King later said that he’d agree to just about anything at that time of the night). The addition polished up the recording that gave him his first million-selling record.

The song won him a Grammy in 1970 for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance. In 1980 he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame while in1987 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. President George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2006. Those are just a few of his many accolades.

BB King passed away on May 14, 2015 at age 89. He was one of the most influential blues musicians of all time. Allmusic recognized King as “the single most important electric guitarist of the last half of the 20th century”. I would agree!

Happy Birthday, BB!