I'll be taking a break on this blog for a while as I deal with a family situation. Please watch for my return here in the next few weeks.
Saturday, November 29, 2014
Saturday, November 22, 2014
Obituary for My Mother Lois Jackson
Lois
Jackson, 85, died Friday morning November 21, 2014 after an extended illness.
She was
preceded in death by her husband Robert Lee Jackson who passed in 1990 and her
companion of 15 years George Lechelt who passed in 2012.
Lois
leaves five children: Robert Lee and his
wife Betty with their children Dan, Ada (spouse Tom Zdanowicz), Diana (Jeff
Bowen), Emilee, and Angelina; Joy and husband Jim Melchionda; Joni (whose late
husand was Jack Katon) and daughter Jamie (Barry Habel) ; Jay and his wife
Hallie with their daughter Cynthia (Sean Baxter); and Jeff.
Six great-grandchildren include Marley, Hallie Jane, Lillee, Grace,
Celeste, and Madisynn.
Born and
raised in Morgantown, WV, Lois was the daughter of Paul and Lessie
Trevillian. She attended West Virginia
University where she met Bob Jackson, her husband of 40 years. They moved to Maryville in 1966.
Lois was a
dancer whose specialty was acrobatic and tap.
After having met Bob who was a popular basketball player at WVU and a
juggler, the two married and put
together an acclaimed juggling act that eventually included their five
children. They performed throughout the
United States for four decades.
Ever the
congenial hostess, Lois welcomed visitors into her home and was much beloved by
her many friends as well as friends of her children.
Funeral
arrangements are with McCammon-Ammons-Click.
Friends are welcome to join the family at a graveside service at
Grandview Cemetery on Tuesday November 25, 2014.
Saturday, November 15, 2014
Watertown: Sinatra's Forgotten Album
My middle school years were spent at Merrillville Junior High in the northwest corner of Indiana. We moved there in October of 1963 right before John F. Kennedy was assassinated and the Beatles hit the American shores to make modern music history. I was a socially awkward kid in the transition between my much beloved childhood years and the intimidation of growing into my teen years. Music was one of the many refuges I had to escape the insecurities brought by growing older.
Since my earliest childhood I enjoyed listening to the music from my parents' record collection. They had eclectic tastes that ran from pop, easy listening, classical, early rock, and odd selections such as compilations of bullfight and circus music. The variety of styles they listened to shaped my own musical tastes so that I had a broad appreciation of all styles of music.
Having spent her late childhood and early adolescent years during the Bobby Soxer Era of the 1940's when Frank Sinatra was the idol of many young girls, my mother was a Sinatra fan. There were always some of his records in my parents' collection. I too became a Sinatra fan and he became one of my favorite artists.
During my junior high years I don't know how many of the other guys were listening to Sinatra, but I frequently listened to his music on the portable stereo in our family room. My feelings would turn to romance as I'd listen to his songs about love. I'd listen carefully to the lyrics of great songs like "Moonlight in Vermont", "I Can't Get Started", or "If I Had You" and occasionally try my hand at writing similar types of lyrics. For a while I dreamed up a running James Bond type spy story in my head that was inspired by Sinatra songs. The music of Sinatra fueled my imagination.
Eventually the rock music of the 1960's won me over and that became my passion. Sinatra songs like "It Was a Very Good Year", "Summer Wind", and "Something Stupid" would continue to show up on the hit charts and I was happy to hear them played on the radio. My mother continued to buy new Sinatra albums that I would listen to and enjoy. Then, after I had started college, my mother received an 8-Track of the latest Sinatra album offered by the record club to which she belonged. The album was Watertown.
As soon as I began listening to the album I was hooked. Sinatra's familiar style and phrasing was all there, but there was something striking about the songs. For one thing the series of songs told a story, not in the way that a musical would, but it was more like reading a book or watching a movie. They were excellent songs and I liked every one of them. Watertown became a favorite tape that I listened to often.
I tried to get some of my friends interested in the music, but none of them were Sinatra fans and the music didn't strike them as much as it did me. It didn't matter though. I continued to listen often to the tape until eventually it must have stopped working like 8-Tracks were notorious for doing or maybe it just disappeared. The music was now etched in my mind and I often replayed the songs as I remembered them in my head.
Years later I tried to find the album on cassette tape, but it was nowhere to be found. Watertown never did go over much with the public so it was not in general release. What was to me one of Sinatra's best albums was among his least popular and faded into obscurity. It had attained critical acclaim when it was released, but it didn't get many sales so apparently the record company saw little reason to re-release it on newer recording formats.
While researching my Battle of the Bands post at Tossing It Out I ran across some additional reasons that I liked the Watertown album so much. This album was Sinatra's experimental foray into a more modern rock influenced sound. Indeed, he had already recorded some albums that dabbled in rock sounds and popular hits like the Cycles album of 1968. Besides Watertown being a concept album in the song cycle tradition, the songs were produced and co-written by Bob Gaudio who was one of the main creative forces behind one of my favorite groups in my junior high years--The Four Seasons. Also on board with song lyric credits was Jake Holmes who wrote the song "Dazed and Confused" which was popularized by Led Zeppelin.
Though the Watertown album has the fine backing of an orchestra, there is also a greater emphasis on a more rock-sounding ensemble of drums, bass, and guitar, giving the songs a bit more punch than preceding Sinatra albums had. Later covers of songs from Watertown as recorded by groups like Cake and Bomb Dawg show how adaptable to rock the songs are. Though not truly rock, Watertown put Sinatra on the cusp of an edgier sound while keeping him in the comfort zone of what he did best.
Please be sure to visit Tossing It Out to vote for your favorite version of the song "What's Now Is Now" from the great Watertown album.
What is your favorite Frank Sinatra album? Do you think Sinatra's music will continue to be appreciated by many in the future? What were some of your musical faves when you were a kid or teen that most of your peers would have been unlikely to listen to?
Saturday, November 8, 2014
Curiosity Kid (Part 4) -- Sexcapades
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| Girl in shower (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
What child doesn't become somewhat preoccupied with the topic of sex? For that matter does that preoccupation ever go far from our minds in adulthood? We look at the sexual content of much popular entertainment as well as the sexual fixation of the advertising industry. Sex is and has always been on the human mind from the earliest years until the day we die.
Sexual curiosity came to my childhood as far back as my earliest memory. I suppose much of it is built into our genetic make-up and is fueled by what we see and hear all around us. I remember puzzling allusions by adults to mysteries I could not comprehend, but I knew it all had to do with physical relationships and attributes of the human body. Bit by bit I began to grasp some of the esoteric jokes and conversations that I would overhear from the adults and that even some of my peers would occasionally bring up.
Always hoping for a glimpse of the hidden parts of especially the opposite sex I kept my eyes open just in case something might be revealed to me. I would be titillated by the spinning ice skater, not realizing that I was not seeing the woman's undergarments but only a part of her costume. When my mother would take me into the ladies room rather than send me alone into the men's bathroom, I would hope that just maybe I would see into one of the occupied stalls. One of the heights of my kindergarten year was when Ruth Springer was removing her snow suit (anyone remember snow suits?) in the cloak room and she accidently pulled down her painties exposing her little bare bottom. I'd never thought too much about Ruth before that day and from then on had a newfound respect for her.
I went through the "You show me yours and I'll show you mine" phase through which many little kids pass. A friend and I might hide in the living room curtains stripping down to our underwear until my mother wanted to know what we were doing and we'd hurriedly pull up our pants, emerging to announce innocently, "Nothing". The curtains gave a false sense of security to us mischievous children, but my mother was not fooled by any of it.
One of the milestones of my sexual awakening in childhood came when I was about five. My mother used to bathe me and my sister, who was a year younger than I, together from the time we were babies. I never gave this any of that much thought because she was my sister and I had no prurient interests in her--she was like my buddy and co-conspirator. Taking a bath together was just a part of sibling life. Then came a turning point in this activity.
We were visiting my grandparents in West Virginia and my eight year old female cousin was also visiting at the same time. My cousin held a certain intrigue for me, she being an "older women" so to speak and a girl who I found kind of cute. We rarely saw each other since we lived some distance apart, but when she was around I wanted to be in her company as much as I could.
When the time for baths came my cousin and sister headed toward the bathroom and I was right behind them only to be stopped at the door by my grandmother. Peering around the door into the long bathroom where water was running into the big claw-footed bathtub, I could see my cousin and sister giggling and preparing to take off their clothes. My grandmother stepped between me and the view and shut the door behind her. It was made clear to me on that day that boys and girls did not take baths together. No communal baths ever took place for me after that day. I'm sure my mother and her mother had a discussion about it. On that day one of the great mysteries and desires of my childhood would remain a mystery.
Did you ever play "doctor" or other games related to sexual curiosity? Did you take baths with siblings? Do you think sexual curiosity is learned, innate, or a bit of both?
Saturday, November 1, 2014
Encounters with Death
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| Calvary Cemetery, Queens, New York. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Since today is known as Day of the Dead in some cultures and we're in the scary Halloween season, I've been running a series of sort on my blog Tossing It Out about the topic of death. It's not a topic that many of us like to contemplate, but it is a part of life for all of us. After you've finished this essay at Wrote By Rote I hope you will continue on to my post at Tossing It Out to vote on my Battle of the Bands offering for the first of this month. Yes, it's a song about death.
During my childhood I did not have many direct encounters with death. When I was very young--about 4 or 5--my aunt died. Since I never was around her the loss didn't register much for me though I was concerned about my mother's distraught state after it happened. The thing about that death that I remember the most was that my aunt and uncle lived in a nice house and had a color television set--a rarity in the mid-1950's.
Sometime around those same years I found my mother crying one afternoon and asked her what was the matter. She said our family doctor had died. He didn't seem all that close to me and my family so I didn't understand her sadness. He was just a guy that I went to see when I was sick or getting checked up and sometimes he'd give me a shot, which I did not like at all.
Years of childhood went by during which I'd get wind that someone my parents knew had died or maybe some relative whom I had no recollection of ever having met. If my parents had gone to any funerals during those years it was an event that eluded me. I'd seen graveyards and funeral homes, but never went to any of those kinds of places.
The first time I ever saw a dead body was when I was still in high school. It was in a car accident. I was riding in the back seat with my parents and we passed a car that appeared to have been in a minor fender bender at an intersection. There did not appear to be much damage to the car, but in the back seat nearest to the side that I was sitting on was a man with his head leaning against the window. He appeared to be merely resting or perhaps unconscious, but there was a great deal of blood splattered on the window. I was puzzled about the amount of blood as the man appeared to be generally uninjured. In fact, I didn't even realize he was dead until I read about it in the paper the next day. The accident must have just happened shortly before we came upon it because the other occupants of the car, including some children seated near the man, were just sitting in the car with dazed confused looks. None of them appeared to be hurt, but just uncertain about what to do. And the man was dead. I didn't even realize he was dead and maybe the people with him didn't know it yet either.
Since that first direct encounter with death I have experienced the deaths of friends, neighbors, co-workers, and family members. I've been to many funerals and sent off many cards and messages of condolences to survivors. As I grow older death has settled in as a frequent visitor to remind me of my own mortality. Death will eventually come for me one day, but I'm certainly in no hurry. Take your time, o death, I'm not ready to go anywhere with you. Not quite yet.
Have you had many encounters with the death of loved ones in your lifetime? When was the first time you actually saw a dead person? Do you think about your own death or is this a topic that you try to avoid?
Hope you'll stop by to vote on my Battle of the Bands post at Tossing It Out. Thanks!
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