Friday Flashback - "Music, Music, Music!"

Yes, I know. "WOW, a blog entry!" I said it too.

My father was a drummer. While he was in the Air Force during the Korean War, he was the entertainment, or so the story goes. He willed his drum set to the Salvation Army Band. His love for music transferred directly to me, probably in utero. Big Band was his favorite, only logical, I suppose. I still have many of his old 33-1/3 records, very brittle and very heavy. I bought one of those retro radio/phonograph/cassette players and play them once in awhile. I can smell my father's Old Spice when I sit and listen.

A few crusty music memories of my own exist, of about age 6. Spending time in my bedroom listening to my little record player. Similar to the one pictured above, I had a speed selector that would play each type, 16, 33-1/3, 45, 78 (was there a 16, that looks weird!). At 6 years tho, my choice of records was limited to children's records.

My 2 favorite records were vinyl, one was yellow, the other red. I also had one other very special record. It was a storybook record whereas each side had 2 stories. If you played the story and the needle went into one groove track, you'd get one story, the other grove track had a second story. You never would know which one you'd hear. One of the stories was "The Lion and the Bumbershoot," the other title is lost in the abyss.

My sister, 10 years my senior, would sit for hours and play her 45's over and over to pen the lyrics. I know most of the words to those songs too, brainwashed at an impressionable age. "Kathy's Clown" comes to mind.

I went on to learn to play the flute, soprano sax, piano, flirted with trumpet, and my favorite, the piccolo. Learning to play the piccolo part for "The Stars and Stripes" march to play in Detroit's Hudson's Thanksgiving Parade was my biggest challenge. Marching Band and Orchestra were the highlights of my high school years. My biggest accomplishment was of being selected to play in the Children's Orchestra, I guess around the age of 12 or so.

Music is still everpresent. I "plug-in" at work when I'm stressed and need to get major work done. It's my soother, my background, my constant.

I'm always singing a tune in my head, tho the music phrases seem to be shorter these days...and dh questions my selection of words sometimes. Who cares! Sounds good to me!

I last played my flute in 1976 when I solo'd for a wedding, but I think I could still "finger" the piccolo march part. Some things, like riding a bike too, you just don't forget. The flute is long gone, gifted to a budding musician.

Make a cuppa, and lay with me on the floor. Listen to "Moonlight Serenade" or choose something like, "You are My Sunshine". Pick out an early Ella or Frank or Clooney. Maybe a Dorsey or Goodman is your favorite? They're all there.

Psst...It's good to me back. Won't you post your Friday Flashback too?

Friday Flashback - My first 2 homes

First, you have to go check this blog, it's my dd#2. She posted THE FUNNIEST photo of my 3 girls you have ever seen. Her Friday Flashbacks just crack me up. Note the clevage and the location of the training bra.

Secondly, you may not think "My first 2 homes" is terribly significant. BUT...it's 2 of 24 (I think, I haven't counted again recently). I'm the product of an "entrepreneur" sales type father, we moved wherever the job was/would be/might be. I attribute my easy-to-make-friends-with attitude to my father. It was a blessing in disguise.

I'm noting these photos mainly because if I don't...these images will be gone, I don't have one single decent picture, so this will do. That stuff happens when you've moved as much as I have. Things once were "packed up" and never retrieved.

I've gotten the hang of Microsoft Virtual Earth. Wowie! You do not have to download anything, answer "no" if it prompts you to download 3D, it just isn't necessary. What I did is capture the screen and clip the picture, and made sure it's a jpg. If you want to know how, just drop me an email. Goodness, if I can do it...anyone can!

This is my first house, guess I would have lived there 1957-1962 +/- , it's in Pleasant Lake, MI. It was a lovely shade of Williamsburg blue, had a HUGE red barn (where that side bldg. is), but hey, I still see the chicken coop on the left! Must have been rebuilt, it just couldn't be a safe structure after so many years, lol. Outhouse is gone tho. It had a cinder drive, still can feel how it felt when I fell down, ouch. We rode to school in the school bus, I attended kindergarten there. Once the bus had to come all the way back to my house after delivering all the children, I had fallen asleep, missed my stop and they didn't know I was still on the bus! (My zzzZZZ's have gotten me in trouble more than once!)

From there, my father went on to be a cabinet salesman at a lumber company. That took us to the first house in Flint, MI. Now there's a charming town..um, not.

My house was the white one to the left of the red trimmed building. Our basement and the gray concrete building on the lower level housed a plumbing company that accessed from the front portion of the building. Our house was a duplex, we occupied the 2 story section, a nice young couple had the smaller single floor side. The red building was then the laundrymat, it's a bar now I believe. We used to be able to schedule events by the sounds of the distant automobile factory horns. If you heard it when leaving the house, you'd be on time for school, we walked the one block to our elementary. Flint is now just a shell, most of the factories are since closed and the economy is very depressed. The downtown structures are still nice and you can still get a Halo Burger with green olives, all isn't lost.

Thanks for bearing with me down Memory Lane.

Friday Flashback - 1965

First walk in Space, Ed White 1965

My daughter Erika (my resident html expert) does a Friday Flashback. Thought I might join the fun.

My historical family was Mormon and settled in Toole, UT. I went to a family reunion in 1990 and met many terrific relatives I had corresponded with throughout my teenage years. We shared a family letter writing practice whereas each person would write a paged journal entry and add it to the stack of letters. They would take their old letter off the bottom of the stack, and send it to the next person. Probably the only legal chain letter in existance. Mind you, this was before the internet and having extended family across the nation made updating difficult at best. Now of course, we have blogs, but don't you still LOVE a handwritten note that the mailman brings?

OK, still with me?

Over the last few years I've tried to encourage my sisters to begin this practice of letter writing again, but I've had no takers. They are not computer crazy like me and are not interested in blogging. I would love, love, love to have their memories on paper as our parents are gone and memories are easily forgotten.

So here is my Friday Flashback, I'll take care of remembering my own!!

Port Huron is on the south eastern side of the "mitten shape" thumb of the state of Michigan. Lake Huron is the warmest of the Great Lakes, and by far my favorite.

The beaches are beautiful and summer weather is very moderate. Swimming is wonderful and in many places you can just pull off the road and get in.

During the summer of 1965 my parents, my younger sister and I went with my older sister and family (dh and baby son) to such a drive-in park to have an all day picnic. My father would barbeque, my mother would watch the babies (she preferred the shade), and the younger ones could pretty much have the day. We have pictures of my baby sister and my nephew (born with 2 months of each other) "swimming" in their baby pool (pink plastic baby tub) at the beach. "Baby sister" and nephew now 42.

My favorite memory tho, is my older sister and I sitting on opposite ends of a inflatable float, way out in the water...singing Girl Scout songs and such, at the top of our lungs. "Sippin' ci-der through a straw."

Very innocent fun, very important memory.