Let's pray it never happens again.
Remember Martin Luther King Jr., today and forever. He is dearly missed.
Joe
High Flying Doug Nord
by veryfitt
|
Vintage footage of big smiling, high flying, ski jumping protege, Duggy Nord in Iron Mountain Michigan, narrated by fabled voice, Mel Allen
|
by SharonTG
|
Karen's sweet voice singing the sweetest Christmas song.
Richard Carpenter composed the music for this song in 1966 when he was 19 years old. Frank Pooler wrote the lyrics twenty years earlier, in 1946, when he also was only 19 years old. The song Pooler had written was to be a Christmas gift for his girlriend, whom he was missing while being away from her during a visit with his parents at Christmas time. However, their relationship ended before he could present it to her. Twenty years later, Pooler was the choir director at California State University in Long Beach, when both Karen and Richard Carpenter were members of the choir. Richard and Karen were performing locally and had tired of playing the usual Christmas fare. Richard asked Pooler, their favorite professor, if he had any ideas for different Christmas songs. Pooler remembered the Christmas song he had written many years before and mentioned it to Richard, adding that he didn't think much of the melody anymore. Richard said he would try his hand at writing new music for the lyrics. Within about 15 minutes he was finished creating a song, written by two teenagers who were a generation apart, that was destined to become a Christmas classic. The song was first released as a single (yes, a 45) on November 20,1970, and earned gold record status. This song sparked the idea of a Christmas album by The Carpenters, and on October 13, 1978, "Christmas Portrait" was released with this newly recorded version of the song. Karen re-recorded her vocals for the album version as she felt that she could give the vocals a more mature treatment. This newly recorded version was presented on their TV Christmas special in 1978, as seen here, and became a hit all over again. |
Lost Words from our childhoodThe other day a not so elderly (65) lady said something to her son about driving a Jalopy and he looked at her quizzically and said, "What is a Jalopy?"
So they went to the computer and pulled up a picture from the movie "TheGrapes of Wrath." Now that was a Jalopy!
I hope you are Hunky dory after you read this and chuckle...
*WORDS AND PHRASES REMIND US OF THE WAY WE WORD*by Richard Lederer
About a month ago, I illuminated some old expressions that have becomeobsolete because of the inexorable march of technology. These phrasesincluded "Don't touch that dial," "Carbon copy," "You sound like a brokenrecord" and "Hung out to dry." A bevy of readers have asked me to shinelight on more faded words and expressions, and I am happy to oblige:Back in the olden days we had a lot of moxie. We'd put on our best bib andtucker and straighten up and fly right. Hubba-hubba! We'd cut a rug in somejuke joint and then go necking and petting and smooching and spooning andbilling and cooing and pitching woo in hot rods and jalopies in somepassion pit or lovers lane. Heavens to Betsy! Gee whillikers! JumpingJehoshaphat! Holy moley! We were in like Flynn and living the life ofRiley, and even a regular guy couldn't accuse us of being a knucklehead, anincompoop or a pill. Not for all the tea in China!Back in the olden days, life used to be swell, but when's the last timeanything was swell? Swell has gone the way of beehives, pageboys and theD.A.; of spats, knickers, fedoras, poodle skirts, saddle shoes and pedalpushers. Oh, my aching back. Kilroy was here, but he isn't anymore.Like Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle and Kurt Vonnegut's Billy Pilgrim,we have become unstuck in time. We wake up from what surely has been just ashort nap, and before we can say, I'll be a monkey's uncle! or This is afine kettle of fish! we discover that the words we grew up with, the wordsthat seemed omnipresent as oxygen, have vanished with scarcely a noticefrom our tongues and our pens and our keyboards.Poof, poof, poof go the words of our youth, the words we've left behind. Weblink, and they're gone, evanesced from the landscape and wordscape of ourperception, like Mickey Mouse wristwatches, hula hoops, skate keys, candycigarettes, little wax bottles of colored sugar water and an organ grinder'smonkey.
Where have all those phrases gone? Long time passing. Where have all thosephrases gone? Long time ago: Pshaw. The milkman did it. Think about thestarving Armenians. Bigger than a bread box. Banned in Boston. The veryidea! It's your nickel. Don't forget to pull the chain. Knee high to agrasshopper. Turn-of-the-century. Iron curtain. Domino theory. Fail safe.Civil defense. Fiddlesticks! You look like the wreck of the Hesperus.Cooties. Going like sixty. I'll see you in the funny papers. Don't take anywooden nickels. Heavens to Murgatroyd! And awa-a-ay we go!
Oh, my stars and garters!
It turns out there are more of these lost words and expressions.We of a certain age have been blessed to live in changeful times. For achild each new word is like a shiny toy, a toy that has no age. We at theother end of the chronological arc have the advantage of remembering thereare words that once did not exist and there were words that once struttedtheir hour upon the earthly stage and now are heard no more, except in ourcollective memory. It's one of the greatest advantages of aging.
See ya later, alligator!
![]() |
| Left to Right: Joe Cooper, Jaynie Dillon, Roger B. Nelson c. 1986 at KOMO Radio |
Just a little insight to tell you what it was like at the Seattle-Green Bay Snow Bowl football game on Monday night.
When the new Seahawks outdoor stadium was built a few years ago, I had promised myself if there ever was a snow game, I would go.
Around 3 o'clock I was hesitating a bit, not wanting to get stuck in traffic from all the slipping and sliding even if it was only a couple of inches, it can quickly turn to ice and make things treacherous. Many folks from the mid-west or back east, think it it kind of joke that folks in this area get so alarmed when any amount of snow hits. Try driving on it with all our steep hills and you will quickly change your mind.
A 4 x 4 won't make much difference and it is a lot of times the folks that grew up in snow country who cause the most accidents.
Anyway I made it to town..no problem in 25 minutes.
Finding free parking was another story. I refuse to pay $35 or $40 dollars for it. I ended up finding a free spot about a miles away, and arrived at the stadium an hour before game time, after the long walk, all with out having a ticket to the game. I do this whenever I feel the urge at any game no mater how big or important, there all always people that can't make it for some reason. I picked up a ticket from a guy that had three extra and wanted to get rid of them and get in the football stadium. He wanted $75 for one but in the end sold one to me for $25. Seat was on the 40 yard line, 8 rows back, right behind the Seahawks bench.
About ten minutes before game time it started to snow pretty hard. I was sitting around many Greenbay Packer fans, some with the famous cheese head hats and a few Seahawk fans. I told them that I grew up in Iron Mountain, Michigan, about a hundred miles from Greenbay, Wisconsin and had gone to a few Packer games in the days of Bart Star, Paul Horning, Willie Wood and many others. They had top teams back then. I never made the Ice Bowl between Dallas and Greenbay, for more or less the first super bowl, but attended one game in a blizzard and 9 degrees when they played Johnny Unitas's Baltimore Colts. That Ice Bowl had temperatures around 6 below zero. I believe because of that the Supper Bowl is usually played in a warm climate or a covered dome more for the fans sake.
Getting back to the fans...It was really a lot of fun. Two guys around me drove all the way from White Fish, Montana just to see the game. They were Packer fans and always were, before the Seahawks even existed.
Man and women had moved here from Manatawoc a few years ago and I told them I have a first cousin, Doug that lives in Polaski...They knew where it was. We all cheered when the snow came down harder and starred at Mike Holgrem not wearing a hat. We all wondered why? Bret Favre was amazing when he would throw the ball 50 some yards on a dead run. Very exciting games and either team could have won, the way that ball was bouncing around in the snow. I secretly wished I was watching it on TV and could hear what the sports announcers were saying about it.
As you know I predicted the Seahawks to win 24-21 and for a while it looked like it might happen. Ended up being 34-24 and one of the most thrilling games I have ever seen. I almost cheered for the Packers and one time I did when I spaced, and thought I was in Green Bay again. Seahawks fans wondered about me for a second. Game ended. I walked back to the car and drove home.
Some people took hours to get home depending on the ice. I-5 was totally blocked at Northgate after becoming an ice skating rink. I took I-90 and made it home in forty minutes but had to be careful of iced over passes and bridges. A few cars were in the ditch.
It is Thursday, Temps are still in the 20's and a few more inches are expected tonight. No school in most areas. In the small town of Concrete, 80 miles north of here they got two feet. Power is out and the fun is wearing off for them. No problems here at Redmond Ridge except for the ice on the road.
If you ever get a chance, no mater where you live and there is a football game, any football game in a snow storm...don't miss it.
Can you believe some guys were watching the Seagal cheerleaders more than the game...waiting for them to slip and fall. They did. Nine times.
Make a snow man for me!
Joe
New movie out tomorrow about the late Bobby Kennedy.
Makes me think back and remember where I was when I heard he had been shot. Where were you?
Kathy and me were married on April 27, 1968, had rented a house next to the Catholic church in St.
Ignace, Michigan and were still more or less on our honeymoon.
Kathy worked at the bank, I worked at the radio station WIDG. The clock radio woke us up to the words that Robert Kennedy had been shot. I remember saying out loud...God, damn it..not another fine man gone down by an assassin's bullet!! What kind of world are we going to bring our kids into if we have any?
When we went to bed the night before we were both full of optimism. Bobby would more than likely be elected president and stop the senseless war in Vietnam. It wasn't to be.
Nixon was elected president and the war went on for many more years with useless deaths of our American boys.
My brother is still permanently disabled after being shot by the Viet Cong and left for dead.
Had Robert Kennedy lived who knows what the world would be like today, but I'm sure much better. We wouldn't of had the protests in the streets. The Chicago police riot at the Democratic National Convention, with Mayor Daley might not have taken place. And of course Kent State and the young people gunned down by the national guard would not have happened either.
One thing that sticks in my mind about Bobby is the fact that he had enough courage as a white man to stand up to black folk and tell them how sorry he was that Martin Luther King,Jr. was assassinated.
I remember an African American spokesperson saying: That when Martin was killed most black people expected white people to come out of their homes and say how sorry they were that he was murdered. Very few did. Robert Kennedy was one that did.
Makes me want to hear the song Abraham, Martin and John by Dion Dimucci.
See the movie.
Take Care,
Joe
I was going to say things like....George Dubya is sending Cheney crow hunting this morning (alone) so they all can have a huge eat crow dinner together tonight. Even Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and the entire Fox News network would be invited. What a blast they would have and they could all throw up together after they ate, but I just would never say that. I know. You are saying...why not say it?
Look at all the nasty, disgracefully and out right lies the republicans have been using on the Dems. Even pounding John Kerry into the ground over a botched joke.
Someone like Nancy Pelosi took the high road, after last nights blood bath and welcomed George and boys with open arms and asking that they all work together for the good of the country, the way it is supposed to be.
Here is where I changed my thinking. I watched President Bush at the news conference this morning and saw the hurt he was feeling. I felt sorry him (even if maybe I shouldn't have) and then again thought. "He is the President of the United States of America and should be shown more respect just like it used to be.”
My father was a staunch democrat but liked Ike. Most folks did and trusted every thing he did like it or not. I'm not going to get into all the things George W. Bush should or shouldn't have done.
This might sound corny but I took this from a country song. "Fathers don't just love their country every now and then....it's a love with out end...Amen.
Joe
These guys, most of whom never even tried to kill a "Commie for Christ" or fought in Vietnam, were born with a silver spoon in their mouths, will probably dance all over Kerry's grave some day when he is gone.
If God is a republican they will have some explaining to do some day.
Let's be honest. If the draft is ever brought back, the Iraqi war will end immediately. Back in the sixties, if you didn't have enough money to go to college or your grades were not good enough to get in, you were drafted. John Kerry could have easily not gone. In the last election it was a disgrace to all whom served in Vietnam when the Republican party paid the "Swift Boat Creeps" to lie about Kerry. Hope they are still proud of themselves and are happy about all the American soldiers that have died in a senseless, idiotic Iraqi war!! In 1972 at least John Kerry had enough guts, even if he was ridiculed at the time, for telling the truth about the Vietnam war. It took over 50,000 thousand American solders deaths, and countless maimed before that debacle was over.
The last two days I've been checking the radio dial and 9 out 10 radio talk shows are joyfully and just salivating over John Kerry and his botched joke. Most are down right mean bastards, like Rush Slimball, and have nothing to talk about since the Republicans are doing so bad in the polls. If this is a free country, those folks are ruining it with their one sidedness.Thank God we have 'Air America" with Ed Shultz.(in Seattle AM 1090) Ironic that I used to work at 1090 in the 70's and 80's when they were KING. He is not afraid to tell the true story and he likes to hunt and fish, too.We also have Dave Ross on 710 KIRO who examines situations openly. When Howard Dean did his scream, estimates were it was shown on television and heard on the radio over 2 million times(conservative count)and it ruined his chances for running for president in 2004. He, of course, was against us going into Iraq right from the beginning.
What a country!!Where you can say one sentence and be ruined in politics for life, yet pedophiles like Mark Foley, rounding up teen page boys can go to rehab and be forgiven.Maybe he will run for President when he gets out since he doesn't have a job.
Just think how far the electronic world has come and not for the better in my opinion. What happened?
Remember when the national news on ABC, CBS and NBC started at six at night and it was only 15 minutes?
Very few sound bites and no radio talk shows that babble on and on about nothing. The only way to get an audience is to be cruel as hell and make light of others for their mistakes. Being in radio myself and even before I got in, it was so much fun to hear music that we all loved, together.
We at one time, could reel off the top ten songs in a second. Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" stayed at number one for 22 weeks.
How many of the top ten songs in today's world can you name? I can't name one!!!
I know things will never be like that again with ipods, music on computers and so forth. Too bad. The kids of today probably don't no the difference. To them maybe watching MTV and seeing sexual intercourse dances seems normal?
I think I have said enough and could go all day on this stuff.
Hope the Republicans party hardy till November 7Th and have the worst hangover of their lives on the 8Th.
I know you might be offended if you are a Republican and I'm sorry for that, but the Democrats have got to stop being Mr. Nice Guy (and lady) and "Tell it Like it Is" (thank you Aaron Neville).
Cheers,
Joe
Isn't it great....... that gas prices have been coming down quite a bit!!! Don't be a gas sucker and fall for the the Bush administration minipulation, buddied up with the big oil companies and folks with a bunch of big time money in oil stocks, to get those pump prices down just befroe the November 7th election. I said quite a few years ago that all us American sheep would be happy as clams if gas ever got down to around $2.00. I am not! The price of gas and a barrel of oil will sky rocket after Nov. 7th, espesially after the democrats take over from the Bush debacle.
Isn't it funny, in a way. George Dubya is now saying he will not use the phrase "Stay The Course". I'm sure all our brave service men and women, boys and girls that lost thier lives in this insane war will be happy. Let alone the maimed.
Ted Kennedy, Jim McDermott and others who had enough courage to say this Iraqi crusade was another Vietnam were right. Also everything John Kerry said was right, also. Too bad Ohio was stolen from and the American citizens or things would not be the way they are today.
Just thinking about all the innocent lives, both civilian and military that have been lost because of one gun slinger.
Don't be a sucker for the economy either. The top one percent of the wealthy are doing fabulous. Midlle class and poor folks are being sent down that well known river with out a paddle.
I must give congratullations to most Republicans that have not been on Hillary Clinton's case and have transformed themselves, and are now ganging up on that evil Nancy Pelosi. What a brave bunch they are!!
They don't know what to think of Senator Barrack Obama, a good, not corrupted man with brains. They just shake in their boots when he even breathes that he might seek the presidential nomination in '08.
There is hope and let's get a good start on Nov. 7th and take our country back.
Being lied to for 6 years is more than long enough for me.
Proud to be an American right or wrong.
Joe