Good Morning All & Happy Tuesday!
A great big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my friend Phil in Spokane! Phil is one of those people who is very intentional about maintaining friendships and relationships with others…one of the finest qualities a person could have in my book. Here’s to you, Phil, on your special day of celebration! Speaking of birthdays…here’s to my childhood friend and a great Little League second baseman (if memory serves me), Dave, who I think is celebrating his big 65th birthday (here comes Medicare!). Here’s to you, Dave, wherever you are today! Have fun on your special day of celebration!!
Happy Birthday wishes also go to one of my favorite authors, Bill Bryson of “A Walk In The Woods,” “In A Sunburned Country,” The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid,” and “One Summer: America, 1927” book fame, who turns 69 today; actress Teri Hatcher, who is 56 today; former Marine Corps Commandant Joseph Dunford, who turns 65 today; to actress Kim Basinger, who is 67 today; and to flutist extraordinaire James Galway, who turns 81 today. Here’s to all of you!
We’re going through old music CDs to decide which ones to keep and which ones to toss. It’s easy when the CDs are scratchy and/or don’t play well anymore, but’s it’s darn tough to part with CDs of all of the great artists we’ve enjoyed over the years. Listening to a Richard Elliot CD this morning brings back lots of great memories listening to great jazz saxophonists…the great tenor saxophonist Stanley Turentine (I got to hear him play at a concert at Whitman College (my alma mater) in 1977); the incomparable alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges of the Duke Ellington Orchestra fame and of course, Richard Elliot himself. Check out his 1990 “What’s Inside” album sometime…especially his rendition of “Imagine” from John Lennon. Sometimes instrumental versions of hit songs are even better than the original recording and I’d have to say that that’s the case with Elliot’s version of “Imagine.” By the way, I found out an interesting thing about Richard Elliot this morning I never knew…he used to play saxophone for “Tower Of Power”…one of my favorite music groups from my high school and college years. How about that?? Who is your favorite jazz musician if you have one???
Speaking of jazz musicians…two of my VERY favorite people in the world, my beautiful and beloved wife Judy and my unforgettable and beloved father Don, both played the saxophone…Judy on the tenor saxophone and Dad on the alto saxophone. Our Creator certainly did a great thing making it possible for jazz music to come to be and to give this world of ours a couple of terrific jazz musicians (and outstanding human beings) like Judy and Dad. Here’s to all the jazz musicians over the years!
Speaking of CDs, isn’t it something that technology is moving so fast that CDs are out of date now…you can just get on your phone and stream any music you want to play. I used to think that VHS movie tapes would be something that would be around forever…now even DVDs (the next generation of VHS) are obsolete…you can just get on your phone and stream movies from Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc.. The pace of change seems to get faster and faster as I get older and older. I’ve sure seen lots of changes in my 65 years on the “third rock from the sun!” I wonder what things will look like 10 years from now, 20 years from now….wow! It’s mind boggling to think about…almost too much for this feeble little mind of mine!
I had the pleasure of watching a Zoom public forum program put on by the Abraham Lincoln Library & Museum in Springfield, Illinois last night, presented by historian Jason Emerson (www.jasonemerson.com) about the life of Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of Abraham Lincoln. It was fantastic and I learned so much more about the Lincolns through his talk. Mr. Emerson has written a book about Robert Todd Lincoln, the Lincoln’s eldest son who lived to maturity and, judging from what he said about Robert’s life, it will be a “must read” for someone who is an “all things Lincoln” and “Civil War” fan. One of the silver linings of this coronavirus pandemic scourge is that we’re able to access some fabulous programs that are being lived streamed on the internet due to the inability to hold live, in-person events. Now more people can actually attend these events from the comfort of their homes (although I must say I miss going to live events, concerts, etc.). Check out the historian Jason Emerson…you’ll be glad you did!
It was fun to have our grandson Izaak (Ike) over yesterday for his weekly visit. His mother teaches art to elementary school students every Monday, so it’s a great opportunity to spend some quality time with Izaak. You should have seen the wonder in his eyes as he saw our decorated Christmas tree and our collection of Hallmark singing snowmen for the first time this year…it was really something to behold! What a great time of the year for grandkids and grandparents! Ike really wore out the buttons on the singing snowmen! He loved them and we loved watching him love them! Thank you, Hallmark, for coming up with a great Christmas tradition! What’s a favorite Christmas memory of yours???
I came across another one of my 1960s (1965 to be exact) collectible cards on James Bond the other day that I thought was worthy of sharing with you…it features Dr. No’s underground laboratory and has a black & white picture of a laboratory worker wearing one of those dorky white lab outfits that was featured in the movie. Here’s an excerpt from the card: “As a member of the international crime organization SPECTRE, Dr. No’s assignment was to send American test missiles launched form Cape Kennedy off their calculated course. When James Bond was captured on Crab Key by Dr. No’s well-equipped soldiers, he found the ingenious scientist had developed a complete atomic power plant in his secret underground laboratory…Bond, operating alone in his customary fashion, was faced with almost overwhelming odds…” What was your favorite Bond (007) movie??? I always loved the way Bond “got the girl” and “beat the bad guys” with such style and panache!
Here’s the word definition for the day:
“Ratoon”: A mid-17th century Spanish word meaning “A new shoot or sprout springing from the base of a crop plant, especially sugar cane, after cropping.” One of the special gift experiences in life is to get a “ratoon” from a friend’s favorite plant to add to your flower bed/garden, don’t you think?
Here’s the trivia fact for the day:
A butterfly has 12,000 eyes (not to mention, in my humble opinion, being one of the most spectacularly beautiful creatures in all of Creation, don’t you think?).
Here’s the thought for the day:
“We forget just how painfully dim the world was before electricity. A candle, a good candle, provides barely a hundredth of the illumination of a single 100 watt light bulb.”
“If you drive to, say, Shenandoah National Park, or the Great Smoky Mountains, you’ll get some appreciation for the scale and beauty of the outdoors. When you walk into it, then you see it in a completely different way. You discover it in a much slower, more majestic sort of way.”
—Bill Bryson, author & humorist of “A Walk In The Woods” book fame, among many other great reads
Here’s to a great Tuesday and lots of love and good wishes always!
Press on,
Papa ‘a (Dad, Uncle Mark, Mark, etc.)