He No Longer Iz a Show Biz Whiz

The Old Man keeps a pretty low profile these days. No spotlights, no blasts of attention, no screaming fans....oh wait....there never were any screaming fans. I had a couple of close calls with semi-fame, however. As most of you regular readers know, I spent a few years in a past life as a Top-40 DJ in Roanoke. Last weekend, we had our annual reunion. Twenty-five or so former "personalities" who had been on the air at that station gathered for an evening of reminiscing and recalling........well.....just recalling. Every decade since the '50's was represented, so the stories covered almost 60 years of radio history. While ageing is a reality, and we were all markedly changed, the spark, energy, and quickness of quip remained.


This weekend we will attend a High School reunion for the last five classes to graduate from our school before it was closed and the consolidated school took its place. It's been 49 years since I flipped the tassel, yet when I again see these folks, it will be as if no time has passed.


The point here, is that these back-to-back activities have floated me lazily down the nostalgia river, so it was back to the box of pictures to generate some blog post ideas.


Back before the radio "career" there were The Sportsters.




It was in the late '50s and we were the quintessential rock-n-roll band. White shoes and dinner jackets and one who was known around school as "Elvis" meant we were on our way. After all, it worked for Ricky Nelson. "Elvis" had a pretty decent singing voice and could also ham it up with some Elvis moves. Johnny was a good guitar player who would try about anything. I had carved a set of drumsticks out of scrap from Dad's workshop and learned to keep a beat by listening to Bill Haley and The Comets records. I moved on to real drumsticks and drums, but I still have those hand carved ones somewhere out in my shop.

We played around Bedford and occasionally ventured on the road to Roanoke and Lynchburg. We even made a record and the only thing that kept it from going gold was that we didn't sell 999,500 more copies. The Sportsters (named after a Harley-Davidson because we thought it sounded tough) drifted apart and faded away. No problems, just as the old Statler Brothers song says, "Life gets complicated when you get past 18".


So, The Old Man now, as our "Elvis" sang from the song One Night, "always lived a very quiet life". No show business, no drumsticks, no microphones. But like last weekend, I'll be around people who remember.....and that's cool.

Which One Was Hootchie and Which One Was Cootchie?

The Old Man could never tell the difference. Every so often in Bedford the carnival would rattle and clang it's way into town. Then would begin one of the grandest weeks in a kid's life. There were several monumental events in the Battalion's existence: Christmas, the last day of school, the day The Lake opened, and carnival week.

We'd watch the ragged collection of jalopy trucks chug and grunt their way through town and over to the fairgrounds, trailing blue smoke the whole way. An occasional backfire would liven things up even further. We'd marvel at the years' accumulation of grime and rust on the vehicles and wonder how the brightly painted loads they carried could hold such magic. Sometimes, we'd ride our bikes over to watch them set up......never getting too close because stories were always told by our parents of how somewhere some kids got too close and when the carnival left town.......well you get the idea. Parental head games.

There was always one day that was designated "School Day". Schools would close at lunch time and kids could ride for half price. This was huge; second only to the last day of school. All the rides were running full bore, but most of the side show tents were quiet. "Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy" must have been resting. Those two girls, Hootchie and her friend Cootchie must have been enjoying nap time as well.

On our recent trip to the beach, the young folks among us went to the amusement park. They had a "blast", but somehow, I fear it just wouldn't seem the same to me. For example, the rides. Now they all have names; "Tilt-A-Whirl" (sounds like it should be said by Julia Childs) or even "Arctic Express"(I guess because it's painted white). Back in the day it was simply called, "The Whip". Well named because it was designed to rearrange several of your vertebrae and turn even the strongest into Bobble Heads. How about the "Eggbeater"? This was a fiendish device that looked like a shaft with a giant watermelon on each end. When you crawled into this thing, you gave your heart to Jesus because it had the rest of you. The shaft spun (like the hands on a cosmic clock) and while it was spinning, the 'watermelons' , with you inside, were spinning in opposite directions. Then the whole thing would reverse and your stomach went into full rebellion. The "Swings" were cool. Swing seats attached to long chains gave a pleasant and peaceful opportunity to regain composure after the Eggbeater. With the bravado of youth, it never occurred to us that should a chain break, they would probably find us in Tulsa.

When we went at night, the side-shows were going full speed. We made it in to see Jo Jo (stuffed) and we watched the "Wild Man of Borneo" eat a live chicken, followed up by a light bulb for desert. I remember wondering, "how bad was his last job?". The barker's preview that fascinated us the most was the one we least understood. These two girls in Arabian Nights costumes would come out on a stage. Then the barker would shout, "Step right up...she wiggles, she jiggles, she crawls on her belly like a reptile!" I remember thinking, "Why would I want to see that?" A few years later, I figured it out.

Some things, though, are still the same.....that wonderful carnival food; big red candied apples, spinning cotton candy, and the best of the best, the hot dog grill. That's one trick of the carnival trade that truly works. Always grill onions. The aroma of grilling onions will cause rapid onset hot-dog-fever even if I've just left Ruth's Chris.

I'm not much on today's Super Parks. They tend to be overpriced, overdone, and lack that aura of forbidden mystery. I love the old-fashioned, "pitch-til-you-win", "a prize every time", "come on mister, show that young lady you care" carnival. I want to be caught up in the smell of grilling onions and peppers, and have sticky, gooey red 'stuff' running down my chin from the apple. So raise a glass to Hootchie and to Cootchie. Here's hoping they don't get splinters.

Freedom Came At A Dear Price

The Old Man wishes all a happy and safe 4th! Enjoy your day and all of it's festivities.....America has much to celebrate. I do hope, however, that you will find a moment to reflect on the cost of what we enjoy today. I enclose this that I got from a friend who is spending this Independence Day in a hostile environment.

The Purchase Price

"Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?

• Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died.
• Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.
• Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured.
• Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.

They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

What kind of men were they?

Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated, but they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.

• Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.
• Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.
• Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.
• At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.
• Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.
• John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished.
  

So, take a few minutes while enjoying your 4th of July holiday and silently thank these patriots. It's not much to ask for the price they paid. Remember: freedom is never free!

I hope you will show your support by sending this to as many people as you can, please. It's time we get the word out that patriotism is NOT a sin, and the Fourth of July has more to it than beer, picnics, and baseball games."

Kum-ba-ya Yourself

The Old Man went to camp once. It was called "The Cedars" and it was a church sponsored camp deep in the Virginia mountains. My grandson, Jackson, recently got back from camp. I saw the pictures.....it wasn't always like that.

The Cedars was located in dense woods somewhere around the middle of inner earth, or so it seemed. I recall Mom & Dad driving me up a gravel/dirt road for what seemed like 1000 miles. Later in life, I would see movies about nutballs in hockey masks who frequented such a place. I got that uneasy feeling a kid can get when faced with the unknown. You know the one; like 100 butterflies carrying feathers have been let loose in your innards. I was fully equipped. I had my Bible, my perfectly washed, ironed, and packed clothes, my official Camp Cedars hat, and Mom had even pre-addressed post cards to home so I would be encouraged to write often. It was like I was going off to war. "Geeez Mom, it's just a week."

The appointed time arrived and parents left....all parents. It was just us modern-day Nimrods milling about waiting to see what would happen next.

Enter The Colonel. I suppose he had some military background because he knew how to blow a whistle. We never knew his name....only The Colonel. He would blow his whistle to signal any event; morning muster, swim time, lunch, Bible study time, rest time, supper, and evening vespers. After a couple of days, we were trying to figure out how we could physically arrange for his whistle to blow when he farted. The Colonel would blow his whistle and then stand and gaze up into a tree until we had all gathered. Always the tree. We began to speculate that he was on the lookout for some of his relatives.

In the interest of making us all better citizens, we had to learn to make our own bunks in the military style. Inspection each morning was carried out while we were at breakfast. The one whose bunk was judged to be the "winner" for that day had his name posted on the door. The judge was the lone female staffer at the camp. I can't remember her name, but she was the first to confer upon me an honor that would come back to haunt me. My head got bigger when I was called up to the front of an assembly and awarded camper of the week for my consistent bunk-making skills. Of course this became the subject of one of the pre-addressed post cards. When I returned home, I often heard, "Now if you can win the bunk-making award, you can surely make your own bed up at home." Dang that unknown lady.

If you look closely you can see the "Uh-Oh" look on my face. I'd forgotten how severe "Bunk Lady" looked until I ran across this picture. I still wonder if she ever had any fun.

We stayed in cabins. Real cabins. Made of logs and reeking of creosote, mildew, and dirty socks, they provided the true "roughing it" experience. Lights out meant that if you were on the top bunk, you reached out and pulled the chain on the single hanging light bulb between each set of bunks. But it was after "lights out" (Of course...signaled by The Colonel's whistle) that things finally got interesting.

He said his name was "Blackie". He came from a much bigger city than Bedford. Somewhere up near Washington, DC. Blackie quickly perfected the art of being able to sneak out of the cabin late at night. He'd done some exploring and discovered that we were not quite as isolated as it appeared. By climbing down a cliff and heading down the road at the bottom, he could get to a little country store that had late hours. He'd load up on candy, cheeses, Nabs, and all sorts of contraband and just as adroitly, sneak back in. During free time the next day, his enterprise profited. Just the thought of someone roaming around like that in the land of "hockey mask nutballs" gives me cold chills this day and time. Then, we thought nothing of it.

I learned a lot at The Cedars. I learned to swim, to make my bed respectably, and I can still find Isaiah in a nanosecond. I still have the official Cedars hat. It's in my workshop along with my genuine aviator helmet and my official Davy Crockett coonskin cap. And when I look around out there, I think of The Colonel, and "Bunk Lady", and I wonder whatever became of Blackie.