These Aren’t My Memories

The heavy rain from this morning begins to yield

Green traffic lights reflect on  the windshield

We’ve had winter winds in the past few days

Life has been something of a haze

Thoughts turn to home and dark-plank floors

My woolen sock feet a pillow to my Labrador

A glass of warm brandy by a flickering fire

The babies fast asleep at their usual hour

She's finished tidying up the kitchen

Nothing escapes her attention

There’s shorter days now in store

Bedtime comes earlier than before

I grip the steering for the turn just ahead

It’s then I realize for real and shake my head

These aren’t my memories

This is not you and me

This is not the way I hoped it would be

These aren’t my memories

These aren't my memories

They only live inside my head

These aren't my memories

©Godot Boys Music 2022

Words and music by Bryce Martin

 "For The Good Times" --

motto on the marquee at the Holiday House in Bakersfield when the house band was Al Garcia and the Rhythm Kings

 Queen of the 16th of September Parade

Just 16, a glowing beauty standing in place

A Latina queen and a credit to her race

On the platform of a float cavalcade

Queen of the 16th of September Parade

A celebration known as Mexican Independence Day 

Freedom is worth most any price you have to pay

Father Hildalgo rallied the townspeople to rise up

That Spanish crown fell to rest there in the dust

That’s the day Mexico’s independence began

From Spanish rule way back in eighteen-ten

Called Dia de la Independencia in native tongue

Fireworks, songs, wild cheering make up the fun

Just 16, a glowing beauty standing in place

A Latina queen and a credit to her race

On the platform of a float cavalcade

Queen of the 16th of September Parade

Queen of the 16th of September Parade

© Godot Boys Music (BMI)

Words and music by Bryce Martin 2023

 

 Saturday Night in Kern County

Kern River is a wondrous stream / of gentle flowing waters

Made for skinny dipping / maybe joined by your daughter

From Bakersfield to Ridgecrest / and all across the hollows

Saturday night boys meet girls / and the stories that follow

Saturday night in Kern County

Women do you know where / your workin’ man is tonight

Is he out chasing women / or drunk and looking for a fight

When that evening sun sets / and gone are the shadows

Cowboys leave the cattle / and put away their saddles

Saturday night in Kern County

Farmhands out in the fields / are getting together with rallies

Seeking some better wages / all up and down the valley

When their hours and labor / are added up in a weekly sum

Paychecks are cashed in / and campfire songs are sung

Saturday night in Kern County

There’s beer joints galore / with much to offer and explore

Girls abound by the dozen / some dancing with their cousin

It’s time for some honky tonk / and maybe even romancing

Sunday is the time to rest / from all the Saturday night action

Saturday night in Kern County

© Godot Boys Music (BMI) 2023

Words and music by Bryce Martin

 

       He had 4,191 hits, and maybe that many from his favorite smokes.

BORN ON CHRISTMAS DAY 1948

 

TIME MARCHES ON

Clips from The Billboard, September 22, 1956, Page 72

 

 

Skulls, Snakes and Skyrockets

Frights, lighted-up sights, and crawly creatures

We lived life like it was a movie triple feature

Skulls, snakes and skyrockets

All a part of our childhood docket

Skyrockets we launched from soda pop bottles

On the Fourth of July it was fun full throttle

Snakes crossed the lawn going to the forest

Skulls made of paper mache were the goriest

Blue jeans worn with the cuffs rolled up

Ice cream in a store-bought Dixie cup

Comic books for a dime adventures galore

Movies you paid a quarter and nothing more

Skyrockets we launched from soda pop bottles

On the Fourth of July it was fun full throttle

Snakes crossed the lawn going to the forest

Skulls made of paper mache were the goriest

A bag of marbles kept in a pocket

A bicycle at the ready for to hop on it

All day fun from morning to dawn

Except for Saturday mowing the lawn

Skyrockets we launched from soda pop bottles

On the Fourth of July it was fun full throttle

Snakes crossed the lawn going to the forest

Skulls made of paper mache were the goriest

© Godot Boys Music (BMI)

Words and music by Bryce Martin 2023

 “Get it done on your own. Don’t depend on others for help. They won’t always be there.”

— Noah Martin

 Grandma Blackburn. Martin Home, Cave Springs

Guesstimate: 1927. Children seated far right, L-R: Noah, 19; Audrey, 9; Bryce, 6; Walter, 12.

 “A person’s life can change drastically in a short amount of time, and most will never experience the half of it.”

— Bryce Martin

Do It To It, Like Sonny Pruitt

Merle Haggard sang the theme song

Sonny and Will kept on rolling along

Yeah, they kept that big rig movin' on

A TV show lasting three years long

Sonny always brought the load in on time

He was a hero on that road's white lines

If you wanted it done, better get to it

Do it to it, like Sonny Puitt

Yeah, do it to it, like Sonny Pruitt I say

It became the latest phrase of the day

CBers mostly it was their warring cry

Others were willing to give it a try

If you wanted it done, better get to it

Do it to it, like Sonny Pruitt

© Godot Boys Music (BMI) 2023

Words and music by Bryce Martin

 It's Real

 Be careful with what you fall for

 TOWNES

 1980s Bakersfield Steak House near Mesa Marin Raceway

 

 

 

The Why and Wherefore

I won't go into how it was better back then. Well, maybe I'll touch on it a little. Journalism ethics and morality have been corrupted in recent times due to the decline in newspaper readership. For newspapers to survive at all, and to bring in the necessary money to do so, good journalism in many quarters is no longer that important. Whatever sells is.

I was good at "mining" the territory, finding interesting things and people to write about. 

Personally, I liked to use a lot of quotes. I tried to make the complex simple by explaining it in simple terms. I stressed keeping me ("I") out of the story completely. My byline was enough.

If I am "old school" I am not apologizing for it. We all get old, hopefully, and school is still a place to learn.

I didn't write to be famous, nor to scoop anyone. I liked the process of writing. I wrote to beat a deadline, to draw a check, to have as much fun as the work would allow.

 

-- Bryce Martin

 

Names Big and Small, Heroes All           Versions of the Alba Aces or the Purcell Pirates teams from Missouri came to town for contests against our Galena (Kansas) Merchants baseball team in the 1950s and into the early 1960s, during the Major League baseball offseason. Galena often played at home against a mishmash of players, including Roy and Ray Mantle, Mickey's twin brothers; Alton Clay, formerly with the Black Yankees in the Negro Leagues; and Baxter Springs' Barney Barnett Jr., a big-bodied giant in cut-off sleeves.      Treece and Baxter Springs, in Kansas; Miami, in Oklahoma, and nearly every town in the region fielded a baseball team. The Joplin Globe newspaper printed news releases of upcoming games at Miners Park, and those in the Alba/Purcell area for area fans to keep track of.        Some good, young players resided in the region, but deference was given to older, local players when it came to playing against the big boys. A veteran Galena pitcher, Jim "Scoop" Albright, employed a double windmill wind-up, a memorable motor movement passe even then.      Attendance for these exhibitions was moderate and the setting was informal.      In a game in 1956, a hefty Bub Woods from Galena, wearing his Sunday-best overalls and having no professional baseball experience and who hadn't played much anymore because of age and some added girth, was seated in the front row of the grandstands watching the diamond pursuits. Called in to pinch hit, with gripped ham-sized fists he belted a drive up the right alley that should have been a double, but Bub barely made it to first. He gave way to a pinch runner and returned to his grandstand seat.       Volunteers passed around straw hats to the small but attentive crowds for donations to pay the umps.      In another game, a rather routine ground ball slapped to third slipped past usually sure-handed Ken Boyer. We all found out the following season when the Cardinals switched him to leftfield that, at third, he had acquired the dreadful "yips."      An image of the cleanest uniform I had ever seen is still vivid in my mind. Mickey Owen Jr. wore a bleached-white home uniform of the Reds. He showed little prowess. His dad, remembered for a World Series slip-up, always stood behind the screen and watched his son's every move. I felt a little sorry for the elder.     The towns, the games, the names were many and memorable.   --- Bryce Martin, author of Kern County Sports Chronicles (History Press)

 

    Graphics by Bryce 2022

Gene Moles and Nokie Edwards, two amazing guitarists, both from Oklahoma, and with credentials connected to biggest selling rock 'n' roll instrumental group of all time, The Ventures, and to the Mosrite guitar.

   Eugene Moles Facebook

Son Eugene holds up a 1962 vinyl album Twist With The Ventures, a disk containing some songs composed by his dad.

 

In The Pink

My granddaddy hated it when I listened to rock ’n’ roll

He felt a young man had better ways to grow

But I somehow survived and I still have my soul

I’m in the pink as I am growing old

My health is good and I still laugh at bad jokes

I try to be tolerant about all kind of folks

Family, good health and friends is wealth

And the God above to rely on for help

I’m in the pink

My soul to keep

I’m in the pink

From his blessings I drink

Everyday is a blessing from up on high

A blessing even the rich cannot buy

I cherish every breath and blink

I’m in the pink

© Godot Boys Music (BMI) 2023

Words and music by Bryce Martin

Big Churches Don’t Preach Hell

Inside that big ol’ church so pure

Hell is not spoken there for sure

The more scrubbed the clientele

The less you’ll hear about Hell

Big churches don’t preach Hell

It’s too much of a hard sell

People wouldn’t show up at all

Hell is preached in churches small

You see small churches all around

Big churches are fewer to be found

There’s a reason for the disparity

It all has to do with your eternity

If the big churches were to cut to the chase

Tell you sinners to repent before it’s too late

Their flock would most assuredly flee

To watch some Sunday football on TV

Big churches don’t preach Hell

It’s too much of a hard sell

People wouldn’t show up at all

Hell is preached in churches small

They get by with watered-down religion

They don’t want to ruin your way of living

Big churches don’t preach Hell

It’s too much of a hard sell

People wouldn’t show up at all

Hell is preached in churches small

© Godot Boys Music (BMI) 2019

Words and music by Bryce Martin

 

Artist T. Scott Sayre was born in Bakersfield, Calif. He was a noted artist. Shown here he is adding touches to the USO building mural in Ridgecrest, Calif. He died Sept. 1, 2018, in Trona, Calif., where he retired.

POSTER BOYS FOR THE 'SOUND'

Bakersfield Sound? How about the Buck Owens Sound? The Capitol Records West Coast Sound?

This is here because I like the graphics.

What I don't like is the picture of Buck as a young man and Merle as an old man.

 

Max, Jimmy, rocked J-Town

The Songwriter

I heard Max Brown on the radio singing 'Chinatown'

He was a local boy from Neosho, a nearby town

The first song I wrote was about sin, sorrow, and death

I covered all the bases, I mean, after that what's left 

I heard Jimmy Thurman on the  radio singing ‘Pretty Baby’

He was a local boy from Joplin, and I thought just maybe

I could write a song or two with my guitar and play me

I could write a song, free my bonds and save me

So I did and in doing so the process really drew me in

Creating worlds and dreams I could live within

Maybe someday the songs will be in store record bins

For sale for all to buy and hear at the local five and ten

I wrote more songs, found it was hard to come up with tunes

But the words were easy, moon and June and all that blooms

I was doing just fine, tweaking and sculpting every line

A notebook full, I could hardly believe they were all mine

Pretty soon I got pretty good and all was going as it should

Then I realized all my songs were nothing but dead wood

Until people heard them and made a judgement as to their merit

Or, I would be singing to an empty room like a lonely parrot

 

Surely, I thought the public can't be that hard to please

I mean Fabian sounds like a wheel you forgot to grease

It's way too late to stop now as it has become a habit

If you hear me and think you can do better, have at it

© Words and music by Bryce Martin 1959,1960

© Godot Boys Music (BMI) 2022

Words and Music by Bryce Martin

NOTE: “Pretty Baby” by Jimmy Thurman is on YouTube. I posted on there several years ago and Jimmy’s daughter, Christina, responded to my post: “Jim Thurman was born in CA and moved to Joplin, Mo., as a child. He recorded in 

Tulsa… Thank you for appreciating his music, I’m sure he is smiling down from heaven!

 A Big Storm Coming

I want you to brace yourself for this

There’s a big storm coming

You can’t stay long here

Hear, hear me now

This, this I vow

It’s time to move

Time to move on

The storm it will capture you

Devour you through and through

Destroy you with a mighty blow

Claim title to your very soul

You must seek a higher ground

That's the only refuge to be found

There is a retreat way up on high

A protector from the storm of life

Hear, hear me now

This, this I vow

It’s time to move

Time to move on

© Godot Boys Music (BMI) 2023

Words and music by Bryce Martin