“Put another nickel in, in the nickelodeon,
All I want is loving you, and music, music, music!”
These are the words that popped into my mind when I started thinking about writing an article about music! This song, written by Stephen Weiss and Bernie Baum in 1949, was very popular when I was growing up. Teresa Brewer put out the biggest version of it in 1950. At that time, whenever one singer got a big hit, every other singer followed it up with their own special version. The minute I would hear it on the radio I would start singing right along with it. Teresa was at the top of the charts for many years with her bouncy style of music. She was a very small girl, but filled with energy and people loved her.
In my teens there was hardly ever a time when I didn’t have the radio or my phonograph turned on. The first thing I bought with my library job was a 3 speed record player and it cost $60. Since I was making 60 cents an hour you can see that I really felt it was worth it for me to have my own music. As the years went by I acquired quite a few long playing 33 speed albums.
Singing in our church choir for many years, taking piano lessons for seven years, listening to the radio constantly, my life has always been filled with music. Now my laptop and my Ipad are filled with it. As I type here I am listening to Elton John singing “My Song”.
My Aunt Donnie played the piano beautifully and I wanted to be as accomplished as she was. For a long time I just played the piano by using my fingers and pretending on our kitchen table. My dad found a way to buy an old upright piano for $25, and then my mother figured out a way to pay for lessons for me at $1.00 a week. She gave up things that she needed so that I could have the lessons for a long time. Alas, tho I loved playing and practiced diligently, I never acquired the skill that my aunt had all of her life. My cousin, Carolyn played by ear, beautifully, which means she didn’t even need to see the notes, and I really envied that.
It is amazing how the words, music, music, bring back all of the memories of my life and how much of a part they played in it. Music, books, writing, the Internet, all have formed me into becoming the person that I am today. In our house my mother played mostly show tunes from Broadway, so I became a great fan of people like George Gershwin, and Rodgers and Hammerstein. Classical music also filled the air, mostly because my piano teacher gave me assignments of symphonies. And in later years I became an avid rock fan, and still to this day I play all of the greats of the 80s and 90s.
So I guess that I am a product of all of the years spent listening to radio and tv in all of its forms, and it has been a great pleasure for me. Many of the major events in my life can be brought back just by listening to a particular song, like “Rainy Days and Mondays” by the Carpenters.
We all seem to feel a special closeness to the singers who sang the songs that we have loved for a long time. When we hear of the untimely death of one of them, it is like a big chunk has been taken out of our lives. We smile thru the tears as we remember what it was like when we listened to them at a special time in our life. And we thank all of the songwriters who expressed our feelings so well as we listened to their music.
Thanks to the friend who suggested using Music as a subject to write about in our group. The words just came bubbling up like Teresa Brewer, Music, Music, Music. We owe a debt of gratitude to the ones who make us sing, or cry or smile as we remember. Music, one of the greatest pleasures in life.
childhood
01/01/17
Standard01/01/17! What a weird date that looks like! Doesn’t sound like a date at all. More like something made up by an author looking for a new book title.
Maybe that’s me, looking for something flashy to catch the eye of a Facebook reader on the first day of the first month of the year, 2017!
I woke up this morning after a good nights sleep, no staying up late to see the New Year in at our house. No one calling at midnight because everyone knew it would only wake us up. The truth be known, most of our children were probably sleeping also. It’s a whole new world anyway. The relationships between parents and their children have made a distinct swing.
As a child I can remember the saying “Children should be seen and not heard.” No one explained what was going on in the world to their children on a daily basis. We were expected to do what our parents told us to, and immediately. There was no back talk. If we were brave enough to ask “why?” we were told “Because I said so.” There were rules and we knew exactly what they were. And for the most part we followed them because there were consequences to be had if we didn’t.
This sounds like we lived in a world where our parents, teachers, and ministers ruled over us with a big stick, but for most of us that wasn’t such a bad thing. We lived in a world where there were rules, and the people in charge were the same parents, teachers and ministers. It was their job to teach us responsibility because that was the way they had been brought up themselves.
As we became teenagers we started to rebel, but there were always adults ready to show us the way things were supposed to be.
By the time my children came along and got into their teenage years life had taken another turn. The 60’s and the 70’s were very different than the rule abiding 50’s. Parents and children had to face an ever changing world, and that has continued to evolve ever since.
Now many parents have become the teachers, the explainers, of how the world works in a new and different way. They are much more apt to be “friends” with their children, showing them how and why life is the way it is.
As the children mature they are brought into the decisions of the family as important members. No more “should be seen and not heard”. Because of the internet young people are more aware of all the activity going on around the world, and they have definite opinions.
Parents have always been very important in their childs life, but the relationships between them is no longer one of “My way or the highway.” It has been an evolving process for all of us.
So when you see a person of mature age being slightly upset over something they see young people doing, just stop and think about how they were brought up in a very different atmosphere. It takes time for all of us to accept a new way of looking at how things progress.
Life goes on, and we become closer and closer to our children. We remember how the world has changed from when we were the young people being told what to do and how to do it. We can see the advantages of knowing how great it is to know our own place in the family and our world. And we can rejoice that we can turn the reins over to a new generation, knowing they will do their very best.
THINKING ABOUT MY YESTERDAYS
StandardHot summer days lying on the beach,
Running and diving into the waves of an ever cool Lake Michigan,
Getting pulled off of our feet by the strong undertow of the water,
Riding our bikes without an adult on the five mile trip to the beach,
Curled up in the crotch of our biggest oak tree, reading my favorite book,
Playing hop scotch on the sidewalk on our city streets,
Walking to school so that we could do tricks on the Jungle Gym,
Cleaning Venetian blinds for my mother with a mitten on my hand,
Working in our vegetable garden, pulling tomato worms off of the vines,
Picnics at a roadside park when we went for a Sunday afternoon drive,
Remembering the heat in church and all of the ladies fanning themselves,
Roasting hot dogs and marsh mellows at a bonfire at the State Park.
Watching the double features at the movie theaters downtown,
Eating a hot fudge sundae at the old Occidental Hotel ice cream shop after the show,
Listening to my serial radio shows like “Superman” every weekday afternoon,
Cleaning my room under protest, every Saturday morning,
Watching the Muskegon Lassies play softball, as part of the “Knothole Gang”‘
As I sit here on another summer mo
rning I remember anew
my parents, brothers and sisters, cousins, my family and friends,
All of whom gave me a wonderful childhood to look back at and to be grateful for.
Those were the days, my friends, those were the days!
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