Showing posts with label Dean Martin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dean Martin. Show all posts
Saturday, August 2, 2014
Houston
Whenever I hear the city name "Houston" I usually think of that old song hit done by Dean Martin back in 1965. It was a catchy tune that got extensive play on the radio. I was a fan of Dino's TV show and his movies and tended to like just about anything he came out with on record.
Another thing that comes to mind about Houston is NASA and the space program. Like most Americans I was transfixed by the space launches. The reports came from the Houston Space Center. Who hasn't heard the line from the film Apollo 13 "Houston we have a problem"?
But then in 1976 I actually went to Houston. I hated it. It was hot and humid and I was miserable during my visit. Each subsequent visit was much the same. I never saw much in the way of the sights as I was working or just passing through, but that icky, sticky climate stuck with me. If you'd have mentioned Houston back then the heat and humidity is all I would have thought about. Houston was never a place I looked forward to visiting.
However that's where I am now as I write this. One of my daughters lives here with her husband and their new baby. Houston is one of my destination spots now. That doesn't change the miserable weather in the summer, but it's a place where we now have to go.
We often hear the cliche about dry heat and I do think it's true. I'm no fan of the 100+ temperatures in places like Phoenix and if I'm in a heat zone like that I tend to keep indoors as much as I can with the air conditioning on high. Add humidity though and that's about as much misery as I can stand. I'll take a dry heat any day.
In a few days we head back to Los Angeles and what is typically outstanding weather. After over 6 weeks away from home I'm ready to go back. It's been a wonderful vacation with some of the best July weather I've ever experienced. I can't complain about this vacation much at all except now we're in Houston.
I'm going to stay inside most of the time I guess. I hope my daughter and her family move closer to the rest of our girls. It wouldn't bother me at all if I didn't have to come to Houston anymore.
What do you think of Houston? Does hot weather with high humidity bother you? Where is your favorite weather? Least favorite?
Friday, April 25, 2014
Volare #atozchallenge
Dean Martin "Volare" (1958)
Volare
Music always filled my family's home when I was growing up. I recall as a very young child listening on a portable record player to 78's that belonged to my mother and ones that she'd bought for me. I loved them all whether it was "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" in my collection or "I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm" in my mother's collection. For me all music was good.
In 1958 when we moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, my parents bought brand new furniture for every room of the duplex they moved into. The furniture they bought for this move was the first they ever owned in their marriage. Prior to that we'd lived in furnished rental houses. It was like being born into a world where everything was new and for us I guess it was.
One of the highlights of the new furniture was a hi-fi record player that they put in the dining room. The hi-fi design matched the rest of the furniture. It was a Danish modern-looking affair light in color that stood on four dowel-like legs. You could put a stack of LP records on the spindle and they'd play a couple hours.
My mother would put a stack of records on and do her housecleaning while I swirled around the house acting like a kid. I don't know where she got those first record albums but she had an assortment of compilations of the hits of the day along with albums by the popular artists like Frank Sinatra, Perez Prado, and Louis Prima with Keely Smith. I enjoyed my mother's music and listening to it seemed to brighten her days.
Then there was the radio. When the hi-fi wasn't playing, the radio was often on. The AM stations mainly played music. I don't know if there was much in the way of talk stations then. If there was, that's not what my mother listened to in the daytime while my father was at work. She listened to the music.
And I listened to the music. The boppy tunes and happy ditties. Or sometimes it was those haunting tunes that were kind of happy and kind of sad. Songs like "Volare" where Dean Martin sang about happy hearts and flying away and words in a mysterious language that made no sense to me. It was a song that mystified me yet made me feel happy.
The music of my mother and father is now my music along with so many other kinds of music. There are times I'd be content to fly off to the clouds on that old music. In my mind, I'm still dancing in circles in the living room of that Pittsburgh duplex as my happy heart sings "Volare".
What songs do you associate most with your childhood? Did you have a stay-at-home mom and did she listen to music in the daytime? How old were you when you first began to appreciate music?
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