[Grovenet] memories

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

Looking back from this vantage point (I graduated High School in 1956) the
assassination of JFK was the slamming closed of a door upon that era. I
didn't know it then, but I can tell you exactly where I was, I can describe
the walls, the desk where I was sitting, even the smells of the office when
the news came to us that JFK had been shot. We didn't know he was dead for a
little while. 

With all respect, JFK's assassination was a far bigger shock to me than
9/11. I suspect that was more a matter of my age than the event. 

To this day, certain music that I loved as a young teen and hear again today
will bring back vivid memories of activities and places I experienced back
then. For example, Doris Day singing "Everybody loves a lover..." puts me
right back in Army fatigue uniform scrubbing the grime off of the barracks
window at Fort Ord as we began Army Basic Training in July, 1958. Someone
turned on a portable radio and that was the song being played. "Smoke gets
in your eyes.." puts me back in my MGA roadster driving through the
vineyards on the way from my job at Lockheed to home in the middle of the
night (I worked swing), down a lonely, almost deserted road as favorite
station played it as they started their nightly "Music 'til Dawn" program.
Hearing Gershwin's "American in Paris" or just about anything by Bach or
Beethoven takes me back to one of my "first loves". Her name was Rik Coules
and we shared a love of classical music in High School and, sadly, little
else. And hearing Moussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain or Wagner's "Ride of
the Valkeries" takes me back to being a teen in high school, at home laying
on my back on the living room floor listening to them play on our family
phonograph, feeling very depressed on those days when everything went wrong.

I've often wondered if that's true of every generation. Is there a period in
the development of each person where the music they hear is integrated into
who they are so that it evokes those feelings throughout their lives?

Ron D'Eau Claire

 

-----Original Message-----
From: grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com [mailto:grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com] On
Behalf Of JBlair2154 at aol.com
Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2006 7:55 PM
To: grovenet at rdrop.com
Subject: Re: [Grovenet] memories


I had a mild crush on Ricky Nelson, not because of his singing  (which I 
thought was rather flat and monotone) but simply because he was  "cute,"
and I 
was still in my teens.  I liken his "Garden Party"  recording to "Bye, bye,
Miss 
American Pie," -- not sure that's the title, but  you know the one I mean --

because both were observing the end of a musical era:  the Fabulous Fifties,

when kids we knew were on "Dance Party" and we  judged recordings by "the
beat" 
or by their ability to tug at tender young heart  strings assailed by 
unrequited romantic love, and lyrics were easily  intelligible to any
healthy human 
ear. None were printed on record sleeves.  No need.
 
I grew up in Memphis, went to high school with Johnny Cash's  brother Tommy 
and his nephew Roy, and lived next door to his lead guitarist  (Luther
Perkins) 
when the band first got together. My best friend's dad walked  by a 
barbershop on Main Street, saw Elvis getting a haircut and went in to get
his 
autograph. Two pretty majorettes in our band drove to the Presley's home
(the first 
he bought) one weekend and were invited inside to have their  photos taken
with 
Elvis. A childhood sweetheart and family friend of my husband  who grew to 
become Miss Memphis dated Elvis just before Priscilla moved in with  him.
Jack 
and I began dating on the same month that Buddy Holly's plane went  down
("the 
day the music died") and "our song," heard on our first date, was  Holly's
"I 
Guess It Doesn't Matter Anymore." I had just started my second  semester of 
college.
 
I tell you all this to illustrate how closely the music of the  times was 
interwoven with the lives of so many of us. That's one reason why one  of my

favorite book titles is the one by Lewis Grizzard, "Elvis Is Dead and  I
Don't 
Feel Too Good Myself."
 
In some inexplicable way, the assassination of JFK made our world  swerve 
even more out-of-kilter. 
 
Memphis was under a tornado watch that morning, as I left home and  climbed 
into my Dodge to drive to work. Daddy's hounds were howling mournfully  from

their kennel in the back yard, and I wondered if they sensed the  coming
storms. 
I switched on the tiny portable radio that dangled from the visor  and heard

that Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. Soon after I reached the office,  my 
boss and I went down to the coffee shop, where a grim-faced waitress told us

that the President had died. No one accomplished much that day. We were a
nation  
almost frozen by shock.
 
It's been said that on 9-11, "everything changed forever."   True. But it
was 
not the first time, and it will not be the last. Change is the  only thing 
upon which we can depend.
 
Joy




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