Summer sounds 1959
by Bryce Martin
It was a bloody sixteenth summer in 1959. Mildly gory, I should say. Each time I raised myself from the sides of the pool at Schifferdecker Park, the rough concrete scraped off enough chest and stomach skin to produce bleeding. There was no getting around it, no other way to get out. I tried time after time to pull off a kind of pull-up and while in midair flip myself out of the pool to ground level. It was pointless. For one thing, my wet trunks weighted me down too much for that and for another it would have to be a move of perfection. That was why I kept giving it an occasional try anyway.
“Sugaree” played over and over on the pool turntable and its thump-thump bass lines drifted tinnily from some large speakers hung on tall poles. Light summer winds caused the sounds to fade in and out like waves at the shore. The speakers were painted a military green, were squarish and had uvula-like stems protruding from the centers.
Sugaree, sugaree
...I miss you in the daytime
But I miss you more at night
It wasn’t a dirty song as sung by Rusty York, but it sounded like it was.
...
Sunday, September 12, 2004
Inspiration hard earned
by Bryce Martin
My grandfather composed a tribute to his and my grandmother’s son, my father, who died in the service of his country.
A beautiful sympathy card from Mrs. J. P. Gilbert, Route 1, Box 98, Galena, Kans., was sent to my grandparents November 14, 1944.
Some of the words in the message inspired my grandfather to write a poem, which he later turned into a song he would sometimes sing. The lines that triggered the composition were: “Do not think that you have lost him/For that could never be….” (Italics mine).
Overseas
By Noah Martin
Oh, my darling, come put your arms around me,
For they say you are going away,
Going away they say, far across the sea.
Little did I think when a baby in my arms,
You would be taken from me and sent across the sea.
Darling, when you are far away,
Just pray and think of me,
A broken hearted mother far back across the sea.
Just a kind word, I pass it on to you,
I am a broken hearted father,
His son he longs to see, but that can never be,
For he was sent far across the sea.
Be not hasty in what you say to your darling boy,
For he too may be sent across the deep blue sea.
They say as time passes on, memory grows dim,
But with me that will never be,
For he was sent across the deep blue sea.
by Bryce Martin
My grandfather composed a tribute to his and my grandmother’s son, my father, who died in the service of his country.
A beautiful sympathy card from Mrs. J. P. Gilbert, Route 1, Box 98, Galena, Kans., was sent to my grandparents November 14, 1944.
Some of the words in the message inspired my grandfather to write a poem, which he later turned into a song he would sometimes sing. The lines that triggered the composition were: “Do not think that you have lost him/For that could never be….” (Italics mine).
Overseas
By Noah Martin
Oh, my darling, come put your arms around me,
For they say you are going away,
Going away they say, far across the sea.
Little did I think when a baby in my arms,
You would be taken from me and sent across the sea.
Darling, when you are far away,
Just pray and think of me,
A broken hearted mother far back across the sea.
Just a kind word, I pass it on to you,
I am a broken hearted father,
His son he longs to see, but that can never be,
For he was sent far across the sea.
Be not hasty in what you say to your darling boy,
For he too may be sent across the deep blue sea.
They say as time passes on, memory grows dim,
But with me that will never be,
For he was sent across the deep blue sea.
Friday, September 03, 2004
The glory of old newspapers
by Bryce Martin
Three columns wide and four inches deep, our team picture was at the bottom of the fold on the front page of the September 9, 1955, issue of the weekly Galena Record newspaper. The headline above the photo: “Elks Dodgers, Galena Little League City Champions”
A short piece accompanying the picture is without a byline. The writer, though, is likely the man who would know the story better than most anyone else, the manager of the Elks Dodgers, and the publisher of the Galena Record, Frank Bruce.
I know because I am one of those in the photograph.
This issue marks the thirteenth week for the Galena Record, a tabloid-sized, five-column width newspaper. It is in competition with the longstanding and more traditional format Galena Sentinel-Times, also a weekly.
I'm informed in a nice preview regarding the upcoming season that Coach J.W. Brewington has 51 out for football at the high school. They’ve already had one practice under the lights. The schedule for the Bulldogs, a member of the Neosho Valley League, kicks off with a non-league tilt at Mineral on Sept. 23.
Inside the newspaper, the full weekly television schedule starting Friday for KSWM (Joplin) and KOAM (Pittsburg) is printed and advertising outdoes copy about 80 percent to 20 percent after getting beyond the front page. Since revenue comes from advertising, the newspaper appears healthy in that respect.
As it so often happens with start-up publications, local politics and issues affecting community living are the reasons cited for new publishers in bringing in another “voice.”
In the favored left-hand column at the top of the page, Bruce gives his views in his personal opinion column titled “Frankly Speaking.” Much of the entire front page is devoted to pictures and stories of the progress with the work on the new community baseball diamond and the financial situation with the just-concluded Little League baseball season.
In Bruce’s editorial, he tells how he’d like to see Democrats and Republicans stop throwing dirt on each other and instead toss it as a source of pride as a top cover for the ball field under construction adjacent to Liberty school.
“So we maintain that when the main source of irritation in Galena is removed, harmony will be everywhere, and we can all work together for a better Galena and for the good of all concerned.”
He concludes that “if by now you don’t know this ‘source of irritation’ then you haven’t been reading the Galena Record regularly.”
In reading it I find that the new diamond will require 300 truckloads from the Shoal Creek bottoms for the dirt-topping. Each load amounts to about three yards of dirt. The area just south of the park bridge is where the dirt is coming from. The field will be ready by next spring when the high school team is first to put it to use. The junior league players from ages 13 through 15 will began summer play after that, along with the town team.
As noted by the Record, the city has a fine Little League facility on East Eighth Street.
In a separate story regarding the financial status of the Galena Little League, it “has $300.02 with which to start league operations next season.”
Data such as that will keep oiled the “Frankly Speaking” machinery of opinion.
…
by Bryce Martin
Three columns wide and four inches deep, our team picture was at the bottom of the fold on the front page of the September 9, 1955, issue of the weekly Galena Record newspaper. The headline above the photo: “Elks Dodgers, Galena Little League City Champions”
A short piece accompanying the picture is without a byline. The writer, though, is likely the man who would know the story better than most anyone else, the manager of the Elks Dodgers, and the publisher of the Galena Record, Frank Bruce.
I know because I am one of those in the photograph.
This issue marks the thirteenth week for the Galena Record, a tabloid-sized, five-column width newspaper. It is in competition with the longstanding and more traditional format Galena Sentinel-Times, also a weekly.
I'm informed in a nice preview regarding the upcoming season that Coach J.W. Brewington has 51 out for football at the high school. They’ve already had one practice under the lights. The schedule for the Bulldogs, a member of the Neosho Valley League, kicks off with a non-league tilt at Mineral on Sept. 23.
Inside the newspaper, the full weekly television schedule starting Friday for KSWM (Joplin) and KOAM (Pittsburg) is printed and advertising outdoes copy about 80 percent to 20 percent after getting beyond the front page. Since revenue comes from advertising, the newspaper appears healthy in that respect.
As it so often happens with start-up publications, local politics and issues affecting community living are the reasons cited for new publishers in bringing in another “voice.”
In the favored left-hand column at the top of the page, Bruce gives his views in his personal opinion column titled “Frankly Speaking.” Much of the entire front page is devoted to pictures and stories of the progress with the work on the new community baseball diamond and the financial situation with the just-concluded Little League baseball season.
In Bruce’s editorial, he tells how he’d like to see Democrats and Republicans stop throwing dirt on each other and instead toss it as a source of pride as a top cover for the ball field under construction adjacent to Liberty school.
“So we maintain that when the main source of irritation in Galena is removed, harmony will be everywhere, and we can all work together for a better Galena and for the good of all concerned.”
He concludes that “if by now you don’t know this ‘source of irritation’ then you haven’t been reading the Galena Record regularly.”
In reading it I find that the new diamond will require 300 truckloads from the Shoal Creek bottoms for the dirt-topping. Each load amounts to about three yards of dirt. The area just south of the park bridge is where the dirt is coming from. The field will be ready by next spring when the high school team is first to put it to use. The junior league players from ages 13 through 15 will began summer play after that, along with the town team.
As noted by the Record, the city has a fine Little League facility on East Eighth Street.
In a separate story regarding the financial status of the Galena Little League, it “has $300.02 with which to start league operations next season.”
Data such as that will keep oiled the “Frankly Speaking” machinery of opinion.
…
Friday, August 27, 2004
by Bryce Martin
Other than having two baby cousins in California playing uncredited roles in an old Spencer Tracy movie, the closest I came to having a celebrity in the family growing up was a bowtie-wearing relative-in-law who was a popular entertainer in cow country.
Hellwoh Wascals…
Henry Harvey was Freddy Fudd, Elmer Fudd’s nephew, after three o’clock as he and Deputy Dusty and Major Astro took turns entertaining the youngsters on live television in Wichita.
Henry as Santa Claus was probably more popular in Wichita with the kids during Christmas than with his Fudd creation.
Henry co-starred in an obscure 1965 film called “The Beast from the Beginning of Time.”
I met Henry just once, as a youngster when he visited us at our home in the Spring Grove region of Galena, Kans. I sent out an inquiry to see if anyone remembered Henry, and a kind Bill Shaffer responded with his recollections:
"I grew up in Hutchinson, Kansas, in the 1950s and saw Henry Harvey playing Freddy Fudd while I was growing up. He normally worked out of a tree house at KAKE-TV/Channel 10 in Wichita. He ran cartoons of the Looney Tunes, Merry Melodies, Warner Brothers variety and kept most of us kids in stitches with his own antics.
"At Christmas time, he became Santa Claus for a series of visits to the North Pole, also done at the station. I have footage from the KAKE-TV 10th Anniversary show as well as some clips of Henry as Santa Claus. He was so well known and loved as Santa Claus that he often did the 'live'
routine at area stores in Wichita.
"A friend of mine who worked at KAKE told me that Henry had set up a special signal arrangement whereby a child visiting Santa would give an helper elf his name and other details and that would be relayed to Santa (Henry), who would then automatically know all about the child before he sat on Santa's lap. This was of course amazing to all the children who came to see him.
"Henry also had a small part in a TV movie produced and directed by a children's show rival of his, Tom Leahy (Major Astro) and that film was called "The Beast from the Beginning of Time." I talked with Tom about this, and he told me that he and Henry were old friends and he wanted him to have the part of the stuffy old professor in the film. It was a very quick TV movie that barely got shown on KARD-TV in Wichita, which financed the movie. It's considered today to be pretty awful, but it's sort of campy in its own way.
"Henry continued his Freddy Fudd character and showing cartoons into the mid-1970s, I believe. He switched TV stations and the cartoons changed and it was never quite the same again. He still played Santa Claus up until he died, I think. I did get the chance to see him perform on stage at the Hutchinson Fox Theatre (my father was the manager there) and I
got to meet him afterwards and he was just a great guy. "
...
Saturday, August 14, 2004
The pull of the woods
by Bryce Martin
Behind the house at Cave Springs and beyond it was all woods, except for the old man who lived in the really small shack with the dirt floor, the one who boiled fragrant sumac as a tea. My grandfather pronounced it shoe-make. In the autumn the erect clusters of the sumac produced small, fuzzy, brilliant scarlet berries. The clusters have an earthy, unforgettable and not unpleasant aroma. Another common woodsy plant was buckbrush. Brambles took over whole areas. Wild blackberries and strawberries were plentiful. I routinely ran through the bushes, branches and briars as fast as I could go, in unfamiliar territory taking my chances and challenging the woods and all it held. There were thorns, too. I often lost my jousts with the woods. Thorns would catch and hold me running at full speed and I would fly backward or at some odd angle and fall into a head-high thicket or bounce off a hickory tree. My clothes might be ripped and torn nearly off. Once, some large thorns as hard as metal went up my nose, broke off and lodged inside, nearly protruding through the skin. I ran home quickly and Grandma removed them as delicately as possible. She had me lie down and hold a handkerchief over my nose to stem the bleeding. In a few minutes, I had slammed the screen door on my way out and was headed back into the woods. The woods had a combined fragrance of all the things it held, and its wanton perfume lured me back time and time again.
...
by Bryce Martin
Behind the house at Cave Springs and beyond it was all woods, except for the old man who lived in the really small shack with the dirt floor, the one who boiled fragrant sumac as a tea. My grandfather pronounced it shoe-make. In the autumn the erect clusters of the sumac produced small, fuzzy, brilliant scarlet berries. The clusters have an earthy, unforgettable and not unpleasant aroma. Another common woodsy plant was buckbrush. Brambles took over whole areas. Wild blackberries and strawberries were plentiful. I routinely ran through the bushes, branches and briars as fast as I could go, in unfamiliar territory taking my chances and challenging the woods and all it held. There were thorns, too. I often lost my jousts with the woods. Thorns would catch and hold me running at full speed and I would fly backward or at some odd angle and fall into a head-high thicket or bounce off a hickory tree. My clothes might be ripped and torn nearly off. Once, some large thorns as hard as metal went up my nose, broke off and lodged inside, nearly protruding through the skin. I ran home quickly and Grandma removed them as delicately as possible. She had me lie down and hold a handkerchief over my nose to stem the bleeding. In a few minutes, I had slammed the screen door on my way out and was headed back into the woods. The woods had a combined fragrance of all the things it held, and its wanton perfume lured me back time and time again.
...
Tuesday, August 03, 2004
The Tryout
by Bryce Martin
The Los Angeles Angels began spring training camp in Palm Springs in late February. Bill Rigney is their manager. I can visualize him in the pose he made for the Bowman Gum Co., on a 1953 black and white baseball card I still have. It is stored along with all the others in an old trunk. I will be seeing him for real today.
It is a small and casual crowd as I take a seat at Angels Stadium in the elevated seating just to the right and behind home plate. The fan section all around is uncovered. I give the place a once-over and settle in on watching the Angels’ big right-hander, Ken McBride, warming up along the side of the field. He throws with an easy motion. It is a bright, sunshiny day, the type of day you would expect this time of year. A radio report I heard coming in mentioned a high of 91, only slightly above normal for April.
I size up my surroundings. It is an old ballpark. The seats, long, grooved aluminum beams, are already hot. Gravel from the soles of shoes is stuck in the grooves here and there and need to be wiped away before sitting. The field, including dugouts, outfield fence, backstop and seating, is not up to par in comparison to the ballparks I had played in often in Joplin, El Dorado, and some others. In Columbus, it was 330 down both lines and 400 in dead center. I had hit line drive home runs down the lines there and reached the centerfield fence right in the middle where it juts out into a vee. This outfield fence does not run that deep. I could do it here, I tell myself, I could do a bit of hitting, maybe today.
The Angels are an American League expansion team formed in 1961. Former singing cowboy Gene Autry owns the club. In 1962, they wasted no time in making a run for the AL pennant. As a winter member of the Cactus League, the Angels are the only major league team training in California. The rest of the Cactus League teams have homes in Arizona. All other major league teams train in Florida in the Grapefruit League. Teams from the two leagues never play each other.
The Boston Red Sox are the visitors. I look for Carl Yastrzemski and find him among the BoSox outfielders casually shagging some short-hit fly balls. He looks small, nothing like you might anticipate if you had never seen but only heard about the young phenom who led the American League in batting last year with a .321 average. That is how I would look out there, I tell myself. It is true, too. Yaz and me are the same size, 5-foot-11 and 180 pounds – the same size again as Mickey Mantle when he took the outfield for the first time with the New York Yankees. I feel silly comparing myself to Yaz, and especially to Mantle, my hero. Not very silly, however. I can hit, hit for power, run with speed, catch, and throw with the best of them. A matter of degrees is the difference. Why torture myself with such comparisons? I remind myself that all I want is a rung to grasp onto, a grip to hold. I will worry about climbing any ladders after that.
The contest does little to hold my interest. I am nervous, I reason, feeling that this is all too big for me. I am going to go through with it no matter what, and I do not lack for confidence. I can perform when I have to. All I can do is ask Rigney for a tryout and go from there.
Dick Stuart, the Boston first baseman, catches my attention. I knew he had hit 66 home runs at Lincoln in some bandbox of a home field one year, second in total to the record 72 homers Joe Bauman hit one season at Roswell. Here was little old I eyeing the man who had hit the second most home runs in professional baseball history. More interesting was that Stuart was a barely capable fielder, it was largely known. I witnessed proof of that. Stuart mishandled a short, easy popup. The gleaming white baseball somehow bounced right out of his glove webbing. He nonchalantly tossed the ball back to his pitcher. The square-shouldered Stuart then shrugged with his ample upper body and gave it a “Well, what did you expect?” palms-up gesture. He had a point. It was spring training, where you were supposed to work on improving for the upcoming season – but, you were more likely to feel, as I had, that Stuart was already in mid-season form.
I endured it for a long spell, but it was getting very warm sitting here in one spot for so long. I leave my seat and walk under the grandstand looking for some shade. There is none, of course. There never is when you look for it.
I roam my eyes some more. I do not see Bo “Bright Lights” Belinsky anywhere, the wilder-than-a-March-hare, cocky, slick combed-hair, pool-shark, and boozing, after-hours playboy pitcher. No, sir, there are not enough decadent adjectives to describe Belinsky. I had enjoyed immensely reading about his manifold escapades during and since his rookie year two years ago, when, just by coincidence, he pitched a no-hitter on my birthday.
I do not see Belinsky but he makes me feel edgy just the same. I speculate that it has to do with the survival instinct we all have buried deep within our being. Any thing, situation, or the behavior of an individual or individuals that threatens this particular sense puts the body’s survival monitor on high alert. Belinsky’s notorious lifestyle triggers that monitor with me. How he can live so aimlessly under the circumstances frightens me. If he can do both, live that badly and perform so well athletically, what chance do I have? I am positive I would have to make a choice between the two. I am either a full-blown wastrel or I am not.
Palm Springs proper
At Trader Vic’s I order a rum and Coke. Walls burst with exotic yellows, greens and reds, colors splashed on bottles, signs and posters. There are parrots, ships and islands. It is nearly deserted. Rightly so, I figure, since it is not even early evening yet. I like the place okay but I get the impression it is too gimmicky, that it is trying too hard with this entire Polynesian motif.
I only plan to drink this one, and I take my time. It is not easy since I am a fast drinker. I stick to my promise and take off once more. Driving around, I pass by the Racquet Club for the umpteenth time. It is one of those magic names that fascinate me. Margie, played by Gale Storm on television’s My Little Margie, has a father played by actor Charles Farrell. The same Charles Farrell later had his own show where he owns and runs the Racquet Club in Palm Springs. This Racquet Club.
On his show, he was old with gray hair. However, he was also athletic, tanned, usually wearing white tennis shorts and carrying a tennis racquet. He smiled often, was sophisticated, had a lot of energy and was happy and full of life. He was remarkable to me because he was none of the things that old men were in my hometown of Galena. There, they too had gray hair, to go along with false teeth in some cases and toothless, sunken jaws in others. No shorts of any kind, maybe some red around the neck but far from a full tan. Urbane, sophisticated, no. Quaint, dull, and droll, yes. There is not a tennis court in town.
Palm Canyon Drive, Twin Palms Drive, Indian Avenue, Tomahawk Avenue. After a time, I pay no attention to the names of the streets. I eventually circle, steer around and cruise on into the evening completely guided by landmarks.
Big, ritzy, lush, sparkling new hotels right downtown; a rainbow of varied colored lights juice up the night, at the entrances muted, bright, low and bouncy, high and darkened in shadows at the building tops; swimming pool splashes, cries and squeals from the hotel grounds; and later, quiet, as the night hours fade into silence, draining life from all things.
I stop to eat at Sambos. Pancakes are flying all over the place. I order the bacon and eggs, nix the six Sambo cakes with syrup and tiger butter that come with it and talk the waitress into letting me trade the fruit juice for a coffee. Why does it have to be so complicated? I notice that the little boy, Sambo, drawn on the menu must be Little Black Sambo, the main character from the old book. It is an odd name for a restaurant, but not all that odd. It is confusing, though, since the boy looks whiter than black and according to his dress he appears to be from the Middle East, maybe India or Persia. I will leave this place confused about something, which is for sure. It is that kind of place.
...
by Bryce Martin
The Los Angeles Angels began spring training camp in Palm Springs in late February. Bill Rigney is their manager. I can visualize him in the pose he made for the Bowman Gum Co., on a 1953 black and white baseball card I still have. It is stored along with all the others in an old trunk. I will be seeing him for real today.
It is a small and casual crowd as I take a seat at Angels Stadium in the elevated seating just to the right and behind home plate. The fan section all around is uncovered. I give the place a once-over and settle in on watching the Angels’ big right-hander, Ken McBride, warming up along the side of the field. He throws with an easy motion. It is a bright, sunshiny day, the type of day you would expect this time of year. A radio report I heard coming in mentioned a high of 91, only slightly above normal for April.
I size up my surroundings. It is an old ballpark. The seats, long, grooved aluminum beams, are already hot. Gravel from the soles of shoes is stuck in the grooves here and there and need to be wiped away before sitting. The field, including dugouts, outfield fence, backstop and seating, is not up to par in comparison to the ballparks I had played in often in Joplin, El Dorado, and some others. In Columbus, it was 330 down both lines and 400 in dead center. I had hit line drive home runs down the lines there and reached the centerfield fence right in the middle where it juts out into a vee. This outfield fence does not run that deep. I could do it here, I tell myself, I could do a bit of hitting, maybe today.
The Angels are an American League expansion team formed in 1961. Former singing cowboy Gene Autry owns the club. In 1962, they wasted no time in making a run for the AL pennant. As a winter member of the Cactus League, the Angels are the only major league team training in California. The rest of the Cactus League teams have homes in Arizona. All other major league teams train in Florida in the Grapefruit League. Teams from the two leagues never play each other.
The Boston Red Sox are the visitors. I look for Carl Yastrzemski and find him among the BoSox outfielders casually shagging some short-hit fly balls. He looks small, nothing like you might anticipate if you had never seen but only heard about the young phenom who led the American League in batting last year with a .321 average. That is how I would look out there, I tell myself. It is true, too. Yaz and me are the same size, 5-foot-11 and 180 pounds – the same size again as Mickey Mantle when he took the outfield for the first time with the New York Yankees. I feel silly comparing myself to Yaz, and especially to Mantle, my hero. Not very silly, however. I can hit, hit for power, run with speed, catch, and throw with the best of them. A matter of degrees is the difference. Why torture myself with such comparisons? I remind myself that all I want is a rung to grasp onto, a grip to hold. I will worry about climbing any ladders after that.
The contest does little to hold my interest. I am nervous, I reason, feeling that this is all too big for me. I am going to go through with it no matter what, and I do not lack for confidence. I can perform when I have to. All I can do is ask Rigney for a tryout and go from there.
Dick Stuart, the Boston first baseman, catches my attention. I knew he had hit 66 home runs at Lincoln in some bandbox of a home field one year, second in total to the record 72 homers Joe Bauman hit one season at Roswell. Here was little old I eyeing the man who had hit the second most home runs in professional baseball history. More interesting was that Stuart was a barely capable fielder, it was largely known. I witnessed proof of that. Stuart mishandled a short, easy popup. The gleaming white baseball somehow bounced right out of his glove webbing. He nonchalantly tossed the ball back to his pitcher. The square-shouldered Stuart then shrugged with his ample upper body and gave it a “Well, what did you expect?” palms-up gesture. He had a point. It was spring training, where you were supposed to work on improving for the upcoming season – but, you were more likely to feel, as I had, that Stuart was already in mid-season form.
I endured it for a long spell, but it was getting very warm sitting here in one spot for so long. I leave my seat and walk under the grandstand looking for some shade. There is none, of course. There never is when you look for it.
I roam my eyes some more. I do not see Bo “Bright Lights” Belinsky anywhere, the wilder-than-a-March-hare, cocky, slick combed-hair, pool-shark, and boozing, after-hours playboy pitcher. No, sir, there are not enough decadent adjectives to describe Belinsky. I had enjoyed immensely reading about his manifold escapades during and since his rookie year two years ago, when, just by coincidence, he pitched a no-hitter on my birthday.
I do not see Belinsky but he makes me feel edgy just the same. I speculate that it has to do with the survival instinct we all have buried deep within our being. Any thing, situation, or the behavior of an individual or individuals that threatens this particular sense puts the body’s survival monitor on high alert. Belinsky’s notorious lifestyle triggers that monitor with me. How he can live so aimlessly under the circumstances frightens me. If he can do both, live that badly and perform so well athletically, what chance do I have? I am positive I would have to make a choice between the two. I am either a full-blown wastrel or I am not.
Palm Springs proper
At Trader Vic’s I order a rum and Coke. Walls burst with exotic yellows, greens and reds, colors splashed on bottles, signs and posters. There are parrots, ships and islands. It is nearly deserted. Rightly so, I figure, since it is not even early evening yet. I like the place okay but I get the impression it is too gimmicky, that it is trying too hard with this entire Polynesian motif.
I only plan to drink this one, and I take my time. It is not easy since I am a fast drinker. I stick to my promise and take off once more. Driving around, I pass by the Racquet Club for the umpteenth time. It is one of those magic names that fascinate me. Margie, played by Gale Storm on television’s My Little Margie, has a father played by actor Charles Farrell. The same Charles Farrell later had his own show where he owns and runs the Racquet Club in Palm Springs. This Racquet Club.
On his show, he was old with gray hair. However, he was also athletic, tanned, usually wearing white tennis shorts and carrying a tennis racquet. He smiled often, was sophisticated, had a lot of energy and was happy and full of life. He was remarkable to me because he was none of the things that old men were in my hometown of Galena. There, they too had gray hair, to go along with false teeth in some cases and toothless, sunken jaws in others. No shorts of any kind, maybe some red around the neck but far from a full tan. Urbane, sophisticated, no. Quaint, dull, and droll, yes. There is not a tennis court in town.
Palm Canyon Drive, Twin Palms Drive, Indian Avenue, Tomahawk Avenue. After a time, I pay no attention to the names of the streets. I eventually circle, steer around and cruise on into the evening completely guided by landmarks.
Big, ritzy, lush, sparkling new hotels right downtown; a rainbow of varied colored lights juice up the night, at the entrances muted, bright, low and bouncy, high and darkened in shadows at the building tops; swimming pool splashes, cries and squeals from the hotel grounds; and later, quiet, as the night hours fade into silence, draining life from all things.
I stop to eat at Sambos. Pancakes are flying all over the place. I order the bacon and eggs, nix the six Sambo cakes with syrup and tiger butter that come with it and talk the waitress into letting me trade the fruit juice for a coffee. Why does it have to be so complicated? I notice that the little boy, Sambo, drawn on the menu must be Little Black Sambo, the main character from the old book. It is an odd name for a restaurant, but not all that odd. It is confusing, though, since the boy looks whiter than black and according to his dress he appears to be from the Middle East, maybe India or Persia. I will leave this place confused about something, which is for sure. It is that kind of place.
...
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
Auctions and Frozen Brick Chili
by Bryce Martin
Uncle Noah loved an auction, especially when it involved livestock. He enjoyed judging the quality of a good animal, knowing its worth and usefulness on the farm, and what price it should bring on the local market. It was a form of “horse trading” from bygone days, where you tried to steal a bargain if you could.
I tagged along at one auction and found it exciting; the farm animals paraded to the forefront under bright lights and scrubbed-up farmers in their cleanest duds and – best of all – the auctioneer.
I had seen movies where someone not familiar with auction protocol had rubbed their ear or made some innocent gesture and the auctioneer took it as a bid. I didn’t want that to happen to me, so, not knowing the rules, I sat on my hands and avoided any sudden eye or head movements.
Noah confided he had developed a certain strategy over the years.
“Bid strong from the go. You’ll have everyone afraid of you after that when something comes up you really want.”
Noah worked most of his later years as a laborer for Freeto Construction, a general construction outfit that built roads, bridges and buildings in the four-state region.
During a stretch when he was doing some road work at Range Line in Joplin, he stopped in regularly at Fred and Red’s Café on South Main.
“Those regulars come in and all you hear is, ‘Gimme a bowl of red.’ All they got to do is say the word ‘red’ and the waitress has a bowl of chili in front of them in nothin’ flat.”
The place specialized in incredibly great chili. A treat was to take home a frozen brick of the stuff to heat up and serve on just the right chilly evening.
...
by Bryce Martin
Uncle Noah loved an auction, especially when it involved livestock. He enjoyed judging the quality of a good animal, knowing its worth and usefulness on the farm, and what price it should bring on the local market. It was a form of “horse trading” from bygone days, where you tried to steal a bargain if you could.
I tagged along at one auction and found it exciting; the farm animals paraded to the forefront under bright lights and scrubbed-up farmers in their cleanest duds and – best of all – the auctioneer.
I had seen movies where someone not familiar with auction protocol had rubbed their ear or made some innocent gesture and the auctioneer took it as a bid. I didn’t want that to happen to me, so, not knowing the rules, I sat on my hands and avoided any sudden eye or head movements.
Noah confided he had developed a certain strategy over the years.
“Bid strong from the go. You’ll have everyone afraid of you after that when something comes up you really want.”
Noah worked most of his later years as a laborer for Freeto Construction, a general construction outfit that built roads, bridges and buildings in the four-state region.
During a stretch when he was doing some road work at Range Line in Joplin, he stopped in regularly at Fred and Red’s Café on South Main.
“Those regulars come in and all you hear is, ‘Gimme a bowl of red.’ All they got to do is say the word ‘red’ and the waitress has a bowl of chili in front of them in nothin’ flat.”
The place specialized in incredibly great chili. A treat was to take home a frozen brick of the stuff to heat up and serve on just the right chilly evening.
...
Tuesday, July 13, 2004
BELLE STARR, A HOMEGROWN OUTLAW
by Bryce Martin
My great-grandmother on my father’s mother’s side, Marsha Blackburn, was born in 1849 and died the year I was born in 1943. Marsha often regaled her wide-eyed young daughter Edna May with fact-based accounts of the methods “wild Indians” employed to torture captured white people and how she earned extra money by taking in laundry, including that of Belle Starr, known as “the Bandit Queen” in myth and legend.
My grandmother, Edna May, told me many of the stories her mother told her. Some I have checked on myself for more details, such as the life of Belle Starr.
She was born Myra Maybelle (or Maebelle) Shirley on February 5, 1848, near Carthage, in Jasper County, Mo., to John Shirley and Elizabeth “Eliza” Hatfield Pennington. Eliza was John’s third wife.
Carthage has a rich history and is a beautiful, small town. It predates Joplin, the other major Jasper County city, by 30 years. Where Route 66 and 71 meet at Carthage is known worldwide as “the Crossroads of American.” That distinction may not hold much longer since bypasses around towns and cities in the path of 66 are going in left and right.
John Shirley prospered and owned several businesses in Carthage. One was the Carthage Hotel, still standing during visits there with my grandfather in the mid-1950s. It stood on the north side of the courthouse square.
Myra Belle grew up lacking little to nothing. She attended the Carthage Female Academy, learning manners and the three “R’s” and taking music lessons as well.
The arrival of the Civil War, and wholesale outlawry in the name of Kansas-Missouri border wars changed things.
People chose sides and no side was safe. The Shirley family aided and abetted the vicious bushwhacking gang led by William Clarke Quantrill and Bloody Bill Anderson, as did such natives and Frank and Jesse James and Cole Younger, a childhood friend of Belle’s.
When the going got too rough, the Shirleys fled to Texas.
Belle married Jim Reed in Texas, a no-count she knew from Missouri. The pair had trouble with the law and traveled to California before coming back to Texas. She lived too in “the Nations,” Indian country near Fort Smith, Ark., and often returned to the southwest Missouri region, usually to the Reed home place. When Reed was killed, she married Sam Starr. Rumors that she married Cole Younger in Galena, Kansas, were denied in later years by Younger himself. Some said she married Cole’s uncle, Bruce Younger, in Chetopa, Kansas.
Sam Starr was killed in a gunfight at a friend’s Christmas party in 1886.
In early February, 1889, Belle was ambushed and murdered by double blasts from a shotgun as she rode alone near her cabin outside Fort Smith. No one was ever charged with the crime.
…
by Bryce Martin
My great-grandmother on my father’s mother’s side, Marsha Blackburn, was born in 1849 and died the year I was born in 1943. Marsha often regaled her wide-eyed young daughter Edna May with fact-based accounts of the methods “wild Indians” employed to torture captured white people and how she earned extra money by taking in laundry, including that of Belle Starr, known as “the Bandit Queen” in myth and legend.
My grandmother, Edna May, told me many of the stories her mother told her. Some I have checked on myself for more details, such as the life of Belle Starr.
She was born Myra Maybelle (or Maebelle) Shirley on February 5, 1848, near Carthage, in Jasper County, Mo., to John Shirley and Elizabeth “Eliza” Hatfield Pennington. Eliza was John’s third wife.
Carthage has a rich history and is a beautiful, small town. It predates Joplin, the other major Jasper County city, by 30 years. Where Route 66 and 71 meet at Carthage is known worldwide as “the Crossroads of American.” That distinction may not hold much longer since bypasses around towns and cities in the path of 66 are going in left and right.
John Shirley prospered and owned several businesses in Carthage. One was the Carthage Hotel, still standing during visits there with my grandfather in the mid-1950s. It stood on the north side of the courthouse square.
Myra Belle grew up lacking little to nothing. She attended the Carthage Female Academy, learning manners and the three “R’s” and taking music lessons as well.
The arrival of the Civil War, and wholesale outlawry in the name of Kansas-Missouri border wars changed things.
People chose sides and no side was safe. The Shirley family aided and abetted the vicious bushwhacking gang led by William Clarke Quantrill and Bloody Bill Anderson, as did such natives and Frank and Jesse James and Cole Younger, a childhood friend of Belle’s.
When the going got too rough, the Shirleys fled to Texas.
Belle married Jim Reed in Texas, a no-count she knew from Missouri. The pair had trouble with the law and traveled to California before coming back to Texas. She lived too in “the Nations,” Indian country near Fort Smith, Ark., and often returned to the southwest Missouri region, usually to the Reed home place. When Reed was killed, she married Sam Starr. Rumors that she married Cole Younger in Galena, Kansas, were denied in later years by Younger himself. Some said she married Cole’s uncle, Bruce Younger, in Chetopa, Kansas.
Sam Starr was killed in a gunfight at a friend’s Christmas party in 1886.
In early February, 1889, Belle was ambushed and murdered by double blasts from a shotgun as she rode alone near her cabin outside Fort Smith. No one was ever charged with the crime.
…
Tuesday, June 01, 2004
IT IS IN THE CARDS
by Bryce Martin
In southeast Kansas, during snowy, cold winters, baseball cards were a multi-sourced form of entertainment.
Take a particular year and arrange them in numerical order. Or, sort the players by teams, by their last names in alphabetical order, by position -- and at whim as your imagination roamed.
I looked carefully at my duplicates (I called them "doubles" even though I might have a jillion of one player, and was not aware of any card collecting terminology until much later in life) and kept for myself the cards with the clearest reproduction, the ones nearest to perfect. The stack of rejects I ended up with were my trading cards.
A wealth of information was on the backsides of the cards. Some sets had full names of the players ("Theodore Bernard Kluszewski"), some had cartoons with little known information about the player. Others had full minor league and major league stats for each year. Others had major league information, and no minor league details.
With thousands of cards, I always looked at "place of birth," mainly to see if anyone was local. A pitcher named Morrie Martin drew my interest. I was from Galena, Kans., just across the line from Joplin, Mo. He was born in Dixon, Mo. A relative? A quick check indicated he was not. To this day, I know the birth places of star players and the obscure alike.
I noticed everything about the cards. Once, when I was nine-years-old, I opened a pack of 1952 Topps at recess and showed one of the cards to a classmate. He looked at the card of Frank Smith, finally saying, "So?" "He has the same initials as yours," I said. "Oh," my friend said, smiling. His name was Frank Sturgis.
Okay, maybe I noticed too much.
I liked odd names, foreign names, long and impossible names, any names. Since the region was mostly made up of Cardinals fans, Al "Red" Schoendienst was popular. I doubt if I will ever forget that he was born in Germantown, Ill., no matter that it serves no purpose to know. We remember much in life that seems to have little if any use. If I ever drive through or near Payette, Idaho, I will know that is the birth spot of Harmon Killebrew.
I wasn't scared off or perplexed by the names since I was a good speller. Before my tenth birthday, I was familiar with Betelguese and with Chamaltenango. Betelgeuse my teacher pronounced "Batel-gooze," and said it was our brightest star. Chamaltenango was "Che-mal-tenango" and other than it being in Guatemala, I don't know if we discussed its significance.
The Joplin Miners ceased being in 1954 as a St. Louis Cardinals minor league team, ending pro baseball in Joplin forever. The year before they had been associated with the New York Yankees. At one game, I worked my way to the bleachers and the end of the home dugout. I talked to one of the players, a long-armed pitcher away from the mound today. He told me his name, and I found it in the scorebook, Bob Muesenfechter. Of course, I have never forgotten it. Nor the rhythmic name of another Miner, John Zeleznock.
In the mid-80s, I had a book listing everyone who had ever played in the major leagues, even for one pitch as a pitcher or one at-bat as a position player. I lived in Bakersfield, Calif., so I looked through the entire book, small print and all, and found and old man who was born there by the name of W.H. "Buckshot" May. The book was a little old and it did not list a date of death for May. I found him in the phone book and interviewed him the next day for an article I had published. I searched the book in its entirety for anyone from Galena, Kans. I found George Grantham, whom I was familiar with, and Bill Windle, whom I was not. Few people would go to that much effort. Old habits die hard.
...
by Bryce Martin
In southeast Kansas, during snowy, cold winters, baseball cards were a multi-sourced form of entertainment.
Take a particular year and arrange them in numerical order. Or, sort the players by teams, by their last names in alphabetical order, by position -- and at whim as your imagination roamed.
I looked carefully at my duplicates (I called them "doubles" even though I might have a jillion of one player, and was not aware of any card collecting terminology until much later in life) and kept for myself the cards with the clearest reproduction, the ones nearest to perfect. The stack of rejects I ended up with were my trading cards.
A wealth of information was on the backsides of the cards. Some sets had full names of the players ("Theodore Bernard Kluszewski"), some had cartoons with little known information about the player. Others had full minor league and major league stats for each year. Others had major league information, and no minor league details.
With thousands of cards, I always looked at "place of birth," mainly to see if anyone was local. A pitcher named Morrie Martin drew my interest. I was from Galena, Kans., just across the line from Joplin, Mo. He was born in Dixon, Mo. A relative? A quick check indicated he was not. To this day, I know the birth places of star players and the obscure alike.
I noticed everything about the cards. Once, when I was nine-years-old, I opened a pack of 1952 Topps at recess and showed one of the cards to a classmate. He looked at the card of Frank Smith, finally saying, "So?" "He has the same initials as yours," I said. "Oh," my friend said, smiling. His name was Frank Sturgis.
Okay, maybe I noticed too much.
I liked odd names, foreign names, long and impossible names, any names. Since the region was mostly made up of Cardinals fans, Al "Red" Schoendienst was popular. I doubt if I will ever forget that he was born in Germantown, Ill., no matter that it serves no purpose to know. We remember much in life that seems to have little if any use. If I ever drive through or near Payette, Idaho, I will know that is the birth spot of Harmon Killebrew.
I wasn't scared off or perplexed by the names since I was a good speller. Before my tenth birthday, I was familiar with Betelguese and with Chamaltenango. Betelgeuse my teacher pronounced "Batel-gooze," and said it was our brightest star. Chamaltenango was "Che-mal-tenango" and other than it being in Guatemala, I don't know if we discussed its significance.
The Joplin Miners ceased being in 1954 as a St. Louis Cardinals minor league team, ending pro baseball in Joplin forever. The year before they had been associated with the New York Yankees. At one game, I worked my way to the bleachers and the end of the home dugout. I talked to one of the players, a long-armed pitcher away from the mound today. He told me his name, and I found it in the scorebook, Bob Muesenfechter. Of course, I have never forgotten it. Nor the rhythmic name of another Miner, John Zeleznock.
In the mid-80s, I had a book listing everyone who had ever played in the major leagues, even for one pitch as a pitcher or one at-bat as a position player. I lived in Bakersfield, Calif., so I looked through the entire book, small print and all, and found and old man who was born there by the name of W.H. "Buckshot" May. The book was a little old and it did not list a date of death for May. I found him in the phone book and interviewed him the next day for an article I had published. I searched the book in its entirety for anyone from Galena, Kans. I found George Grantham, whom I was familiar with, and Bill Windle, whom I was not. Few people would go to that much effort. Old habits die hard.
...
Saturday, May 29, 2004
A-ROOTIE TOOT TOOT
by Bryce Martin
As slang for the affirmative “all right,” I wasn’t inclined to say something along the lines of “aw right,” “ah right,” and definitely not “all righty.” A certain show did persuade me to use a silly alternative, “ahrootie.” I still say it today. Then there was “gosharootie.”
Rootie Kazootie was a great marionette show on television. I didn’t get to see many of the episodes before it went off the air, sometime in 1954. The comic books were good too. Rootie was freckle-faced and wore a baseball cap back on his head. Polka Dottie was his girlfriend and a sidekick was a mouse named El Squeako. The villain was Poison Zoomack. I thought that clever but a bit of a stretch. I knew what poison sumac was but what about the kids who didn’t, who lived in the city or places it didn’t grow. Anyway, the bad guy with his tacky mustache and top hat and tails was always trying to steal Rootie’s magic Kazootie, a kazoo. I obtained a kazoo for myself and after several attempts finally got a sound out of it. By then the show had disappeared and soon did my kazoo.
Chuck Berry, the brilliant songwriter and performer, may have been familiar with the show. A good thing maybe since it is a rare word that resonates well with “tutti frutti.”
Tutti frutti, awrootie/I gotta gal named Sue/She knows just what to do…
...
by Bryce Martin
As slang for the affirmative “all right,” I wasn’t inclined to say something along the lines of “aw right,” “ah right,” and definitely not “all righty.” A certain show did persuade me to use a silly alternative, “ahrootie.” I still say it today. Then there was “gosharootie.”
Rootie Kazootie was a great marionette show on television. I didn’t get to see many of the episodes before it went off the air, sometime in 1954. The comic books were good too. Rootie was freckle-faced and wore a baseball cap back on his head. Polka Dottie was his girlfriend and a sidekick was a mouse named El Squeako. The villain was Poison Zoomack. I thought that clever but a bit of a stretch. I knew what poison sumac was but what about the kids who didn’t, who lived in the city or places it didn’t grow. Anyway, the bad guy with his tacky mustache and top hat and tails was always trying to steal Rootie’s magic Kazootie, a kazoo. I obtained a kazoo for myself and after several attempts finally got a sound out of it. By then the show had disappeared and soon did my kazoo.
Chuck Berry, the brilliant songwriter and performer, may have been familiar with the show. A good thing maybe since it is a rare word that resonates well with “tutti frutti.”
Tutti frutti, awrootie/I gotta gal named Sue/She knows just what to do…
...
Sunday, May 23, 2004
THEY DON'T WRITE THE SONGS
by Bryce Martin
The artwork for Rick Beziat's "Encore" article in the current issue of the Nashville Scene is great (May 20). Beziat writes a fun piece about the more memorable concerts held in Nashville during the 1960s and 1970s. I especially liked seeing the old ticket stubs and posters, many of them rare.
I was disappointed though right off the bat when the first song title was written as "Down in the Boon Docks." This is "Music City," and as such I would expect an editor (I reckon the Scene has them) to correct it to "Down in the Boondocks." That is the title of the song, you know.
Then comes "I Can't Stop Lovin' You." Sure, country people tend to drop every "g" they meet head on. But, give Don Gibson credit on this classy song; he didn't do it in title or in his vocal rendition.
Rufus Thomas did let his "g's" thud to the dance floor on his classic song, but the title is dictionary correct. It's "Walking the Dog" and not "Walkin' the Dog." The title of a Rolling Stones smash is "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction." Just citing it as "Satisfaction" is okay the second time around, but not the first. Bobby "Boris" Pickett did his best Boris Karloff impression to pull off "Monster Mash." It is not "The Monster Mash."
In fairness, The Tennessean is not any better. Just recently columnist Gail Kerr became the 4,192nd writer at her daily newspaper to refer to Porter Wagoner as Porter Waggoner.
Maybe it is like my old friend Leon always says when I bring up such things, "Nobody cares anymore." Sounds like a song title to me.
...
by Bryce Martin
The artwork for Rick Beziat's "Encore" article in the current issue of the Nashville Scene is great (May 20). Beziat writes a fun piece about the more memorable concerts held in Nashville during the 1960s and 1970s. I especially liked seeing the old ticket stubs and posters, many of them rare.
I was disappointed though right off the bat when the first song title was written as "Down in the Boon Docks." This is "Music City," and as such I would expect an editor (I reckon the Scene has them) to correct it to "Down in the Boondocks." That is the title of the song, you know.
Then comes "I Can't Stop Lovin' You." Sure, country people tend to drop every "g" they meet head on. But, give Don Gibson credit on this classy song; he didn't do it in title or in his vocal rendition.
Rufus Thomas did let his "g's" thud to the dance floor on his classic song, but the title is dictionary correct. It's "Walking the Dog" and not "Walkin' the Dog." The title of a Rolling Stones smash is "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction." Just citing it as "Satisfaction" is okay the second time around, but not the first. Bobby "Boris" Pickett did his best Boris Karloff impression to pull off "Monster Mash." It is not "The Monster Mash."
In fairness, The Tennessean is not any better. Just recently columnist Gail Kerr became the 4,192nd writer at her daily newspaper to refer to Porter Wagoner as Porter Waggoner.
Maybe it is like my old friend Leon always says when I bring up such things, "Nobody cares anymore." Sounds like a song title to me.
...
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
When Headaches Are Not A Laughing Matter
by Bryce Martin
I have never had a headache in my life, except from my own doing, and from a rare head cold.
From my own doing would include the time I cracked helmets with an opposing football player in a high school game. That one did not last long. The two of us repeated the exercise on the next play and my headache went away.
I do not know why I have never had a headache. Since I do not have them, I do not think about them much, not until someone else brings up the subject. Moreover, someone does quite often; often enough that the misfortune of having your head ache seems quite common, except for those like me.
My cousin Jimmy and I share a common bond. We are the same age. That carries more weight than one might think. It means we experienced the same songs, the same movies, the same fads and flops. We can talk about things and share interests and understanding that someone just a year younger or older might be out of step with. There are, of course, some my age who are mostly clueless. You tend to gravitate to your own kind.
Jimmy is up on some music I scarcely know, and vice versa. That is because radio stations might play some songs heavily in certain areas and little or not at all in others. You could love it in Trona and never hear it in Galena. By the same token, he had never heard “China Town” by Max Brown, “Darlin’, Darlin’, Darlin’” by Jimmy Thurman, or “Ain’t Love Grand’ by Ron and Joe and the Crew. That is because they were regional hits by locals in my area and never reached the West Coast.
Jimmy raved over“Buzz, Buzz, Buzz” by the Hollywood Flames. It is an older song that I heard maybe two or three times. He also likes “Oh, Julie” by the Crescendos. I barely remember. I had never heard either one played enough to gain a familiarity.
We mostly played records in his room in 1958 when I visited. We both liked Jan and Arnie’s “Jennie Lee,” the Monotones’ “Book of Love,” and all by Little Richard.
I suspect Little Richard you would not want to listen to if you had just a smidgen of a headache.
Here we were years later digging out the old vinyl. I was working fulltime and Jimmy was working the summer while attending college in Sacramento.
I do not know about Jimmy but by now, I had been drunk on several occasions. I often felt bad physically and emotionally the next day from the drinking -- still, though, no headache.
He produced and album and said, “You’ve got to listen to this.”
It was Inside Shelley Berman. The selection was the one where he is talking aloud, the morning after with a hangover. The part Jimmy repeated, after he raised the recording arm and placed it on its stand, was where Berman drops an Alka-Seltzer in a glass of water and says, “Oh, my God – don’t fizz.”
I recalled the skit, even remembered seeing Berman perform it on television, but I never thought it was funny. I guess you had to have experienced a headache to appreciate the humor in it.
by Bryce Martin
I have never had a headache in my life, except from my own doing, and from a rare head cold.
From my own doing would include the time I cracked helmets with an opposing football player in a high school game. That one did not last long. The two of us repeated the exercise on the next play and my headache went away.
I do not know why I have never had a headache. Since I do not have them, I do not think about them much, not until someone else brings up the subject. Moreover, someone does quite often; often enough that the misfortune of having your head ache seems quite common, except for those like me.
My cousin Jimmy and I share a common bond. We are the same age. That carries more weight than one might think. It means we experienced the same songs, the same movies, the same fads and flops. We can talk about things and share interests and understanding that someone just a year younger or older might be out of step with. There are, of course, some my age who are mostly clueless. You tend to gravitate to your own kind.
Jimmy is up on some music I scarcely know, and vice versa. That is because radio stations might play some songs heavily in certain areas and little or not at all in others. You could love it in Trona and never hear it in Galena. By the same token, he had never heard “China Town” by Max Brown, “Darlin’, Darlin’, Darlin’” by Jimmy Thurman, or “Ain’t Love Grand’ by Ron and Joe and the Crew. That is because they were regional hits by locals in my area and never reached the West Coast.
Jimmy raved over“Buzz, Buzz, Buzz” by the Hollywood Flames. It is an older song that I heard maybe two or three times. He also likes “Oh, Julie” by the Crescendos. I barely remember. I had never heard either one played enough to gain a familiarity.
We mostly played records in his room in 1958 when I visited. We both liked Jan and Arnie’s “Jennie Lee,” the Monotones’ “Book of Love,” and all by Little Richard.
I suspect Little Richard you would not want to listen to if you had just a smidgen of a headache.
Here we were years later digging out the old vinyl. I was working fulltime and Jimmy was working the summer while attending college in Sacramento.
I do not know about Jimmy but by now, I had been drunk on several occasions. I often felt bad physically and emotionally the next day from the drinking -- still, though, no headache.
He produced and album and said, “You’ve got to listen to this.”
It was Inside Shelley Berman. The selection was the one where he is talking aloud, the morning after with a hangover. The part Jimmy repeated, after he raised the recording arm and placed it on its stand, was where Berman drops an Alka-Seltzer in a glass of water and says, “Oh, my God – don’t fizz.”
I recalled the skit, even remembered seeing Berman perform it on television, but I never thought it was funny. I guess you had to have experienced a headache to appreciate the humor in it.
Saturday, April 03, 2004
Wanda Jackson, Kansas 1963
by Bryce Martin
I drove in the direction of the small town of Arma, nine miles north of Pittsburg, to see the greatest singer on the planet perform. You paid at the door. Wanda Jackson, I had trouble believing, was on stage at the Blue Moon ballroom. She wore a strapless cocktail dress and looked stunning. Her voice was impossible to describe, accented with trills and lilts, smooth and clear when need be, growly, mean, impudent, and nimbly naughty at intervals. She was wild and raw, her lyrics often wonderfully bizarre and delivered in a frenetic rhapsody of rock and roll the equal of any man. Then she would deliver a soothing country ballad, in as soft and artful a voice as you would imagine from an angel.
There was a closed-off wraparound balcony that some of the boys had sneaked up the stairs to find. They wanted to peer down and get a better view of Wanda’s cleavage.
I walked outside when the show bid finale and stood in the gravel driveway. Wanda, with dark hair and eyes, came out and entered a waiting Cadillac. A man assisted her entry and closed her door for her. Someone whispered that it was her husband. She smiled politely, and rather sadly, I thought, acknowledging those nearest her who waved and shouted with a delicate raised hand as a goodbye gesture.
The Cadillac soon disappeared in the dark and the distance and produced a final crunch of gravel before smoothing out on the asphalt. Wanda Jackson. Here. In this place. In my universe. Tonight.
Wow. She was 25-years-old, too, a grown-up prom queen.
Before the summer ended, I came this way again. Another ballroom, the Trianon, sat off the highway in Croweburg, two miles east of Arma. A local band played some decent rock ‘n’ roll. I went once and once was plenty. I don’t pay a cover charge for just anything.
…
by Bryce Martin
I drove in the direction of the small town of Arma, nine miles north of Pittsburg, to see the greatest singer on the planet perform. You paid at the door. Wanda Jackson, I had trouble believing, was on stage at the Blue Moon ballroom. She wore a strapless cocktail dress and looked stunning. Her voice was impossible to describe, accented with trills and lilts, smooth and clear when need be, growly, mean, impudent, and nimbly naughty at intervals. She was wild and raw, her lyrics often wonderfully bizarre and delivered in a frenetic rhapsody of rock and roll the equal of any man. Then she would deliver a soothing country ballad, in as soft and artful a voice as you would imagine from an angel.
There was a closed-off wraparound balcony that some of the boys had sneaked up the stairs to find. They wanted to peer down and get a better view of Wanda’s cleavage.
I walked outside when the show bid finale and stood in the gravel driveway. Wanda, with dark hair and eyes, came out and entered a waiting Cadillac. A man assisted her entry and closed her door for her. Someone whispered that it was her husband. She smiled politely, and rather sadly, I thought, acknowledging those nearest her who waved and shouted with a delicate raised hand as a goodbye gesture.
The Cadillac soon disappeared in the dark and the distance and produced a final crunch of gravel before smoothing out on the asphalt. Wanda Jackson. Here. In this place. In my universe. Tonight.
Wow. She was 25-years-old, too, a grown-up prom queen.
Before the summer ended, I came this way again. Another ballroom, the Trianon, sat off the highway in Croweburg, two miles east of Arma. A local band played some decent rock ‘n’ roll. I went once and once was plenty. I don’t pay a cover charge for just anything.
…
Tuesday, March 02, 2004
Wrestling 1959
by Bryce Martin
With only two television channels to chose from, I sometimes dug in on the couch to view the lesser of two evils. Wrestling was not my idea of entertainment. Late in the year in 1959, a regular wrestling show from Chicago was a weekly filmed feature. Individual matches were the norm, and contests included tag team, women, and midget wrestling. I had read in the Globe that KMAC-TV out of Kansas City, Mo., telecast live wrestling, attesting to its surge of popularity. The wrestlers from the Chicago Amphitheatre were the same ones who occasionally came to Joplin to perform. I did like the theatrics involved, their non de plumes, and their chief gimmicks. The Great Bolo wore a full head mask. That helped draw attention away from his soft-body and minimal physique. He head-butted regularly. His opponent would hold his forehead in pain and excitedly demand that the referee remove his mask to see what kind of foreign object hidden there was doing the damage. Fat chance. Haystack Calhoun was a mammoth hick in overalls. Danny Hodge was a clean-cut college wrestling champion from Oklahoma. Wild Red Berry was a veteran from Pittsburg in nearby Crawford County who looked too old. Lou Thesz was old. He somehow exuded class in this classless excuse for a sport. Antonio Rocca had thighs like beer barrels. If he got his man in a leg scissors it was all over. Others were Mighty Atlas, Sandor Szabo, Oni Wiki Wiki, and Gorgeous George. The latter was on the Johnny Holmes sports segment in Joplin promoting a match for that night. "I've noticed the women since I've been here," he told Holmes. "They all look like they came out of a book... a bad book." He likely received the intended response that night, a crowd of irate women yelling for his hide.
The title for the wrestling tapes from Chicago locally was, The Wrestling Show. It was a title that did not go unnoticed by some of my classmates. We often discussed something we had watched recently on television. Odds were, if you watched television at all you witnessed what everyone else did. We discussed how phony the whole thing was. "Did you notice it is called The Wrestling Show?" Someone asked, emphasizing the word Show.
by Bryce Martin
With only two television channels to chose from, I sometimes dug in on the couch to view the lesser of two evils. Wrestling was not my idea of entertainment. Late in the year in 1959, a regular wrestling show from Chicago was a weekly filmed feature. Individual matches were the norm, and contests included tag team, women, and midget wrestling. I had read in the Globe that KMAC-TV out of Kansas City, Mo., telecast live wrestling, attesting to its surge of popularity. The wrestlers from the Chicago Amphitheatre were the same ones who occasionally came to Joplin to perform. I did like the theatrics involved, their non de plumes, and their chief gimmicks. The Great Bolo wore a full head mask. That helped draw attention away from his soft-body and minimal physique. He head-butted regularly. His opponent would hold his forehead in pain and excitedly demand that the referee remove his mask to see what kind of foreign object hidden there was doing the damage. Fat chance. Haystack Calhoun was a mammoth hick in overalls. Danny Hodge was a clean-cut college wrestling champion from Oklahoma. Wild Red Berry was a veteran from Pittsburg in nearby Crawford County who looked too old. Lou Thesz was old. He somehow exuded class in this classless excuse for a sport. Antonio Rocca had thighs like beer barrels. If he got his man in a leg scissors it was all over. Others were Mighty Atlas, Sandor Szabo, Oni Wiki Wiki, and Gorgeous George. The latter was on the Johnny Holmes sports segment in Joplin promoting a match for that night. "I've noticed the women since I've been here," he told Holmes. "They all look like they came out of a book... a bad book." He likely received the intended response that night, a crowd of irate women yelling for his hide.
The title for the wrestling tapes from Chicago locally was, The Wrestling Show. It was a title that did not go unnoticed by some of my classmates. We often discussed something we had watched recently on television. Odds were, if you watched television at all you witnessed what everyone else did. We discussed how phony the whole thing was. "Did you notice it is called The Wrestling Show?" Someone asked, emphasizing the word Show.
Tuesday, February 24, 2004
THE VULGAR MASSES ARE RIPE FOR THE PLUCKING
by Bryce Martin
When I watched a well-known Pentecostal evangelist on television with a woman acquaintance a few years back in the 1980s, I said, “He’s phony. He turns it off and on too easily – the tears, the mock facial expressions.”
She pshawed that. “He wouldn’t be on television if he wasn’t aboveboard,” she said.
I could not really believe I heard that. I knew there were people who believed that if television let you bring your message, then it was on the up and up. I knew there were people who believed that but I never thought I would actually hear someone say it.
I am not about to say I am above being fooled, unless -- as it was that time -- Jimmy Swaggart was the one trying to do the fooling.
There is even a large group of people who think they actually know what they like when it comes to records, movies, and books. None of these people can tell you in an analytical way what makes a good recording, a good movie, a good book.
Press them on it and they will say, “I know what I like,” with the emphasis on the word “I.”
Sure you do.
These people bought the package when it came to John Denver, Mac Davis, Kenny Rogers, Garth Brooks, and others in between of mediocre ability, the latest hand-jobs.
There are two things at work. There is the business of country music, whereby anybody can sing any genre of music, apparently, and call it country music, and then there is actual country music. The business has to do with manipulating the charts, marketing and selling the product, which includes cash and other inducements to radio stations.
Most people cannot distinguish between what is country and what is not country. They have never thought about it. They have never studied what makes a good poem and what makes a bad poem, what the qualities and techniques are for a good or a bad movie, book, or any manner of things. All they know – or what they think they know – is what they like, which has little or nothing to do with any real merit the product might or might not have.
When someone, especially in country music, crosses over to popularity in the general population, appeals to the straights and dopers, the liberal and conservative, you can bet he or she is a popular singer masquerading as a county singer. Not only that, they will amount to a mediocre pop singer at best.
Going back as far as this phenomenon of marketing strategy has existed in my lifetime, I have tried to educate anyone who might be around to listen. It might sound something like this: “Not only is John Denver not country he is not much of a talent.”
More recently, similar words I have reserved for Garth Brooks.
Always, and I do mean always, I get the same vulgar response. And I do mean vulgar. Forty years ago or today, it is the same words.
“I wish I had the money he has made,” or “I wish I had the money she has made.”
See what I mean? It is hopeless. It is pathetic.
They even go so far as to say it in a smug way, as if they have some city street smarts or some country common sense that has just showed me up for the fool I am.
It makes me wonder how we exist as a country, how we survive day to day and why an aggressive foreign propaganda machine has not trampled us under. The culturally and economically exploited remain clueless.
“I know what I like.”
No, you like what someone else wants you to like from the choices given.
by Bryce Martin
When I watched a well-known Pentecostal evangelist on television with a woman acquaintance a few years back in the 1980s, I said, “He’s phony. He turns it off and on too easily – the tears, the mock facial expressions.”
She pshawed that. “He wouldn’t be on television if he wasn’t aboveboard,” she said.
I could not really believe I heard that. I knew there were people who believed that if television let you bring your message, then it was on the up and up. I knew there were people who believed that but I never thought I would actually hear someone say it.
I am not about to say I am above being fooled, unless -- as it was that time -- Jimmy Swaggart was the one trying to do the fooling.
There is even a large group of people who think they actually know what they like when it comes to records, movies, and books. None of these people can tell you in an analytical way what makes a good recording, a good movie, a good book.
Press them on it and they will say, “I know what I like,” with the emphasis on the word “I.”
Sure you do.
These people bought the package when it came to John Denver, Mac Davis, Kenny Rogers, Garth Brooks, and others in between of mediocre ability, the latest hand-jobs.
There are two things at work. There is the business of country music, whereby anybody can sing any genre of music, apparently, and call it country music, and then there is actual country music. The business has to do with manipulating the charts, marketing and selling the product, which includes cash and other inducements to radio stations.
Most people cannot distinguish between what is country and what is not country. They have never thought about it. They have never studied what makes a good poem and what makes a bad poem, what the qualities and techniques are for a good or a bad movie, book, or any manner of things. All they know – or what they think they know – is what they like, which has little or nothing to do with any real merit the product might or might not have.
When someone, especially in country music, crosses over to popularity in the general population, appeals to the straights and dopers, the liberal and conservative, you can bet he or she is a popular singer masquerading as a county singer. Not only that, they will amount to a mediocre pop singer at best.
Going back as far as this phenomenon of marketing strategy has existed in my lifetime, I have tried to educate anyone who might be around to listen. It might sound something like this: “Not only is John Denver not country he is not much of a talent.”
More recently, similar words I have reserved for Garth Brooks.
Always, and I do mean always, I get the same vulgar response. And I do mean vulgar. Forty years ago or today, it is the same words.
“I wish I had the money he has made,” or “I wish I had the money she has made.”
See what I mean? It is hopeless. It is pathetic.
They even go so far as to say it in a smug way, as if they have some city street smarts or some country common sense that has just showed me up for the fool I am.
It makes me wonder how we exist as a country, how we survive day to day and why an aggressive foreign propaganda machine has not trampled us under. The culturally and economically exploited remain clueless.
“I know what I like.”
No, you like what someone else wants you to like from the choices given.
Saturday, January 31, 2004
A GOOD RECORDING BEATS A GREAT SONG ANY DAY
by Bryce Martin
I do not have favorite songs; I have favorite recordings.
A longtime favorite is “Broken Hearted Melody” by Sarah Vaughn. I have to specify “by Sarah Vaughn” because it is her recording of the song I enjoy and not a version by anyone else.
“In the Mood” is a standard performed by countless bands. I like it by the Ernie Fields Orchestra, and by no one else.
The same holds true with “Nola,” done by a multitude of singers and bands and instrumentalists. More often than not, the instrumental version of this song prevails. Billy Williams singing it and accompanying himself on the piano is my preference.
My favorite of all is “Poor People of Paris,” done by Les Baxter in 1956. I still try to whistle it the way it was recorded.
I know, literally, the lyrics and melodies to hundreds of songs. I have written several dozen more. Therefore, when someone asks me what is my favorite song or songs; I really cannot answer the question in that form. My favorite recording or recordings, yes. As mentioned, it is “Poor People of Paris” by Les Baxter. I mentioned some others and I could add several more.
I do not look for messages in songs. I am not caught up in profound lyrics or in “hot licks.” I recognize a well-written song, but how it sounds – the actual recording or performance – is paramount.
“Gentle on My Mind” is an incredibly brilliant song. John Hartford may have outdone himself on that one. Glen Campbell does a credible vocal with it, but it is only a minor favorite with me. Rodney Crowell has penned some extraordinary songs, yet no one has quite done them justice to my way of listening.
It is all about the recording. In the days of vinyl, it was that something “between the grooves.”
One thing will never change, no matter what technology is in place. When people ask me what kind of songs I like, or what kind of music I listen to, I tell them, “There are only two kinds: good and bad. I like good songs.”
Truth is, I like good recordings.
…
by Bryce Martin
I do not have favorite songs; I have favorite recordings.
A longtime favorite is “Broken Hearted Melody” by Sarah Vaughn. I have to specify “by Sarah Vaughn” because it is her recording of the song I enjoy and not a version by anyone else.
“In the Mood” is a standard performed by countless bands. I like it by the Ernie Fields Orchestra, and by no one else.
The same holds true with “Nola,” done by a multitude of singers and bands and instrumentalists. More often than not, the instrumental version of this song prevails. Billy Williams singing it and accompanying himself on the piano is my preference.
My favorite of all is “Poor People of Paris,” done by Les Baxter in 1956. I still try to whistle it the way it was recorded.
I know, literally, the lyrics and melodies to hundreds of songs. I have written several dozen more. Therefore, when someone asks me what is my favorite song or songs; I really cannot answer the question in that form. My favorite recording or recordings, yes. As mentioned, it is “Poor People of Paris” by Les Baxter. I mentioned some others and I could add several more.
I do not look for messages in songs. I am not caught up in profound lyrics or in “hot licks.” I recognize a well-written song, but how it sounds – the actual recording or performance – is paramount.
“Gentle on My Mind” is an incredibly brilliant song. John Hartford may have outdone himself on that one. Glen Campbell does a credible vocal with it, but it is only a minor favorite with me. Rodney Crowell has penned some extraordinary songs, yet no one has quite done them justice to my way of listening.
It is all about the recording. In the days of vinyl, it was that something “between the grooves.”
One thing will never change, no matter what technology is in place. When people ask me what kind of songs I like, or what kind of music I listen to, I tell them, “There are only two kinds: good and bad. I like good songs.”
Truth is, I like good recordings.
…
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
HOW TO WRITE A LETTER
by Bryce Martin
After all these years, I now discover the colored center of indelible pencils is toxic and that you should never place the tip of one in your mouth. I have not seen such a pencil in years, but if my grandmother were still living, I would certainly pass along the information.
My grandmother always used an indelible pencil for correspondence. Since she predated the portable ink pen, I can see why. It looks and writes like a pencil but its mark is permanent.
I used it a few times myself. I did not like it because it made a light to faint impression on paper and you needed to lick the tip of the purple core to allow you to make a darker line. Either that or dip the tip in water. Grandmother moistened the tip with her tongue. After first trying the pencil I could understand why.
Grandmother wrote many letters because she received many. She considered it a near sin not to “answer” each letter.
When it came time to put pencil to paper, she would look for that indelible pencil the way someone else might look for car keys. Indelible was indispensable as far as she was concerned.
Grandmother’s letters were written on white linen stationery and mailed in matching envelopes. The letter-size linen writing paper came in a tablet. The first page of the tablet was a blue lined page. It was the only lined page in the tablet and it had a primary use. Handwritten letters tend to look better scribed on blank pages rather than on lined ones. The problem is that few people can keep the lines straight. That is where the lined page works wonders. The linen paper, though thick-looking to the eye, had some transparency. Place a sheet of it over the lined paper and, voila! That is how she kept her lines straight and wrote some beautiful letters.
by Bryce Martin
After all these years, I now discover the colored center of indelible pencils is toxic and that you should never place the tip of one in your mouth. I have not seen such a pencil in years, but if my grandmother were still living, I would certainly pass along the information.
My grandmother always used an indelible pencil for correspondence. Since she predated the portable ink pen, I can see why. It looks and writes like a pencil but its mark is permanent.
I used it a few times myself. I did not like it because it made a light to faint impression on paper and you needed to lick the tip of the purple core to allow you to make a darker line. Either that or dip the tip in water. Grandmother moistened the tip with her tongue. After first trying the pencil I could understand why.
Grandmother wrote many letters because she received many. She considered it a near sin not to “answer” each letter.
When it came time to put pencil to paper, she would look for that indelible pencil the way someone else might look for car keys. Indelible was indispensable as far as she was concerned.
Grandmother’s letters were written on white linen stationery and mailed in matching envelopes. The letter-size linen writing paper came in a tablet. The first page of the tablet was a blue lined page. It was the only lined page in the tablet and it had a primary use. Handwritten letters tend to look better scribed on blank pages rather than on lined ones. The problem is that few people can keep the lines straight. That is where the lined page works wonders. The linen paper, though thick-looking to the eye, had some transparency. Place a sheet of it over the lined paper and, voila! That is how she kept her lines straight and wrote some beautiful letters.
Sunday, January 25, 2004
DUI MIKE DRUNK ON SPEED AND HIMSELF
by Bryce Martin
DUI Mike is to drunk drivers what Johnnie Cochran is to celebrities who murder. He is there for you. If you’ve got the dough, he’s got the know.
Say you are pulled over and not only are you soused to the gills but you smell like a distillery as well. Well, it just so happens that the officer who ended up arresting you for DUI did not have probable cause to pull you over in the first place. Wouldn’t you like to see that rectified in a court of law? The injustice of such a thing. That, DUI Mike, will tell you, is what he is all about. There will be no tampering with justice, rigging balloon tests, or stomping on our rights as long as DUI Mike is around. In legal babble, he is the “is” in what is is.
I happened upon an infomercial Saturday evening on WGFX-FM (104.5) for DUI Mike called The Drunk Zone, excuse me… The Legal Zone. In case you are not aware, DUI Mike is the lawyer who has those framed ads riding at (bloodshot) eye level above Nashville’s urinals. Clever ad placement, huh?
In Tennessee, DUI is an abbreviation for a blanket term meaning driving under the influence, a common cause of death and accidents. Another term associated with it is driving while intoxicated, or DWI as it is specifically called in other states
By the tone of his voice, you knew the host of the show thought it so cool that his guest VIP was actually recently given a ticket by the police and – how cool is this – that the citation was for that macho of all road sports, speeding.
“You have to tell us about it,” the host said, giggling with anticipation.
DUI Mike was just as eager to oblige. “I was going down the highway in my jukebox on wheels and then comes these flashing blue lights. I was given a citation for doing 84 in a 70, and that was after I had decelerated.”
The pair could hardly contain themselves. You could just hear the glee in their voices.
“He was real professional,” DUI Mike said of the officer, while making no apology for his own bad behavior.
DUI Mike must do a lot of speeding. Why else would he have a radar detector in his “jukebox on wheels”? He told how he could not do without his radar detector. He must have had it turned off when he got the speeding ticket, that or the decibels distracted him. Of course, I could be wrong about the radar detector. He probably uses it for research. You know how inaccurate those things can be and how a person can get a ticket for speeding when they were not. Maybe he is just planning to branch out. DUI-VROOM Mike does not have the same ring to it though. It could be, too, that he is just a self-indulgent, me-first, screw-you type of guy who lacks the discipline to allow himself enough time to get where he is going by driving the speed limit. Think?
DUI Mike has made a name for himself over the years by specializing in defending drunk drivers. Those guilty of the offense figure enough money can find them a loophole, or a way out. Who could think otherwise with our judicial system being the joke that it is. Lawyers do not need to rationalize or justify what type of client they represent. They are, after all lawyers. When you make that kind of money, what people might think is of little or no importance. I imagine it is the latter.
…
ALL IN THE FAMILY: I watched some of Rob Reiner’s love affair with Howard Dean on C-Span. He really is Meathead.
by Bryce Martin
DUI Mike is to drunk drivers what Johnnie Cochran is to celebrities who murder. He is there for you. If you’ve got the dough, he’s got the know.
Say you are pulled over and not only are you soused to the gills but you smell like a distillery as well. Well, it just so happens that the officer who ended up arresting you for DUI did not have probable cause to pull you over in the first place. Wouldn’t you like to see that rectified in a court of law? The injustice of such a thing. That, DUI Mike, will tell you, is what he is all about. There will be no tampering with justice, rigging balloon tests, or stomping on our rights as long as DUI Mike is around. In legal babble, he is the “is” in what is is.
I happened upon an infomercial Saturday evening on WGFX-FM (104.5) for DUI Mike called The Drunk Zone, excuse me… The Legal Zone. In case you are not aware, DUI Mike is the lawyer who has those framed ads riding at (bloodshot) eye level above Nashville’s urinals. Clever ad placement, huh?
In Tennessee, DUI is an abbreviation for a blanket term meaning driving under the influence, a common cause of death and accidents. Another term associated with it is driving while intoxicated, or DWI as it is specifically called in other states
By the tone of his voice, you knew the host of the show thought it so cool that his guest VIP was actually recently given a ticket by the police and – how cool is this – that the citation was for that macho of all road sports, speeding.
“You have to tell us about it,” the host said, giggling with anticipation.
DUI Mike was just as eager to oblige. “I was going down the highway in my jukebox on wheels and then comes these flashing blue lights. I was given a citation for doing 84 in a 70, and that was after I had decelerated.”
The pair could hardly contain themselves. You could just hear the glee in their voices.
“He was real professional,” DUI Mike said of the officer, while making no apology for his own bad behavior.
DUI Mike must do a lot of speeding. Why else would he have a radar detector in his “jukebox on wheels”? He told how he could not do without his radar detector. He must have had it turned off when he got the speeding ticket, that or the decibels distracted him. Of course, I could be wrong about the radar detector. He probably uses it for research. You know how inaccurate those things can be and how a person can get a ticket for speeding when they were not. Maybe he is just planning to branch out. DUI-VROOM Mike does not have the same ring to it though. It could be, too, that he is just a self-indulgent, me-first, screw-you type of guy who lacks the discipline to allow himself enough time to get where he is going by driving the speed limit. Think?
DUI Mike has made a name for himself over the years by specializing in defending drunk drivers. Those guilty of the offense figure enough money can find them a loophole, or a way out. Who could think otherwise with our judicial system being the joke that it is. Lawyers do not need to rationalize or justify what type of client they represent. They are, after all lawyers. When you make that kind of money, what people might think is of little or no importance. I imagine it is the latter.
…
ALL IN THE FAMILY: I watched some of Rob Reiner’s love affair with Howard Dean on C-Span. He really is Meathead.