Have you ever read any of William Faulkner's novels? They are among my favorites.
One is Light in August. I read it over a very hot, very muggy August when I was in college, in the summer of 1962.
Chicago was always hot and humid in July and August, a little less so in early September. The coolest place in our house on summer afternoons was our enclosed front porch. It was a small area but large enough for a wicker sofa and easy chair my mother bought used and painted. She later found two wicker end tables and painted them the same color, a light shade of gray, because she found a half-full gallon can in the basement. Then she added to table lamps she found at a second-hand store.
In the evenings, the front porch was cool, a great place for reading. When neighbors walked by, they always said "Hi." That was time when we knew every neighbor on our block by their first name. That was a time when neighbors were friendly and kind to one another. That was a time long ago, a time long passed.
About 20 years ago, a man in his early 30s with whom I worked was telling me about his neighborhood in one of Chicago's northwest suburbs. He and his wife moved there about five years earlier. "It must be fun having neighbors to do things with," I said. "I miss that."
"We don't talk with any of our neighbors," he said. We only know a few by name, but we don't socialize with any of them. Come to think of it," he added," I don't think any of them socialize with one another."
Is that a sign of the times, or just life in a new community?
I moved to Los Angeles in 1990. I lived in quiet neighborhood not far from Sony-TriStar-Sony Pictures, once the home of M-G-M. The studio has been there since 1924. Many of the movies shown on Turner Classic Movies were made by M-G-M. Ted Turner bought M-G-M, not because he wanted a movie studio, which he sold, but because he wanted to own the M-G-M movie library. That was a very smart move, and I am very glad he did it.
I've been watching Turner Classic Movies for more than a decade now. It remains my favorite movie channel. I've met residents of Culver City, where the studio is located. Many work at the studio and other nearby movies studios, such as Culver Studios, once known as David O. Selznick Studios. Their headquarters is in a building whose facade resembles Tara in Gone With the Wind. That's because Tara in the movie was situated in that exact location.
Culver City, and the people who live there, remind me a lot of the people in Berwyn. I've even met a few who are from Berwyn originally. They are hard-working people who take a great pride in their homes, nice modest homes like those in Berwyn. Neighbors know one another and talk with each other, just like in Berwyn in the 1940s and 1950s.
It's now early August. It doesn't get hot and humid around here. Temps are usually in the 70s and low 80s. Humidity rarely gets high. Being only a couple of miles from the ocean keeps this area 10-20 degrees cooler than in the Valley, East L.A., and many other parts of Southern California.
And it is light in August, quite days, quiet times. Think I'll walk down the block to the new library and take out a couple of Faulkner novels. Can't think of anything better to do at this time of year -- or any time of year, for that matter.
George Spink
Los Angeles
Amaury Pavão is a friend of mine who lives in Rio de Janeiro. From time to time, he sends me highly imaginative PowerPoint presentations. Over the weekend, Amaury sent me "Estrelas Do Passado," or "Stars of the Past," a striking presentation of black-and-white photos of female movie stars of the 1930s and 1940s, plus a few from the 1920s and 1950s.
I converted this PowerPoint presentation into a PhotoParade slide show because I wanted to add some Duke Ellington songs that dovetail with the theme and the era. I think you will enjoy it. And, I changed the name. Here is the link:
Before you click that link, be sure to download and install the FREE PhotoParade Player so you can view this slide show on your PC or MAC.
Let me know how you like it!
I have uploaded the photos in this slide show to this blog. They are in a Collection called "Women of Our Time."
Cordially,
George Spink - Los Angeles
I was visiting a friend's web site today, where I read how she spent Halloween with her three-year-old daughter. Her comments reminded me of how I spent Halloween when I was growing up in the 1940s and 1950s.
My parents and I lived in Berwyn, just west of Chicago.
I usually wore a homemade costume my mother made for me for Halloween, often as a ghost in a modified old white sheet. My favorite costume: Superman. My mother used red Rit dye to color a pair of my Jockey briefs and a sheet, then trimmed the sheet into a cape, and made a removable "S" for my navy blue sweatshirt. I threw on my outfit, grabbed a shopping bag, shouted "Up, up and away!" and began my rounds.
I started by leaping off our front porch, just to see if I could fly. I hit the ground hard, but I wasn't hurt, just a little sore.
Usually, I left home about 6:30, right after dinner, and made two or three trips around my neighborhood, dropping off a shopping bag at home after each trip. The bags were filled with all kinds of candy and treats--homemade popcorn balls, fudge, small brownies, cookies, or small bags of potato chips or pretzels.
Around 8:30, my parents and I walked along the alley by our house for two short blocks to 31st and East, where there was an open football/baseball field. Volunteers stacked wood high and, at nine o'clock, they set it ablaze. The kids in their costumers and their parents gave a big cheer.
We watched the bonfire for awhile, then walked back home. I sifted through my bags and sorted my candy, enough to take with my school lunches for the next month or so, with plenty left over for late afternoon snacks.
We never worried about a sicko putting razor blades in fudge or brownies or some pervert hurting us. In those days, I knew everyone on our block and most of the people on the neighboring blocks. My parents knew most of them, too.
There were two cranky old ladies, whom we called "crabs," living across the street from one another at the end of our block. They never gave us any treats. Our parents told us to leave them alone, but some nasty kids always threw rolls of toilet paper over their houses. I wonder who they were?
Today, I live in a two-story apartment building in Los Angeles along a busy boulevard. When I moved in eleven years ago, I bought several bags of candy for Halloween, because so many chilren live in my neighborhood. But no one ever knocked on my door. And no one ever has on Halloween.
Why? I learned after that Halloween that the kids in the neighborhood dress up in their costumes and go to Halloween parties at their schools or churches or someone's home. Their parents do not allow them to go "trick or treating" around their neighborhood. It is simply too dangerous in these times.
That is very, very sad....
My father was listening to the Chicago Bears football game in the living room of our home in Berwyn, Illinois. Sid Luckman was the Bears' quarterback. I believe the Bears were playing the Green Bay Packers. It was about 1:30 p.m. Central Standard Time when the announcer interrupted the game....
Watch the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
I received an email today from VOX outlining some new features, include cross-posting with LiveJournal. That's a cool idea. I launched my first blog using LiveJournal about four years ago, calling it Tuxedo Junction. But I only post to it every three or four months. Now I can do it more easily and more often.
Cool!
Daylight Savings Time has been adopted by many countries in recent decades, but I remember the early 1950s when Daylight Savings Time, like fluoridated water, was considered by some as anti-American.
Living in Illinois, I looked forward to Daylight Savings Time because it meant being able to play softball until eight o'clock and sometimes later. Who could complain about this?
The folks in Wisconsin, that's who! Senator Joe McCarthy's home state. Wisconsin dairy farmers did not want Daylight Savings Time because it would remain darker longer in the mornings.
Great thinking in America's Dairyland, as Wisconsin called itself in those days. The dairy farmers were victorious in keeping standard time all year.
In those days, I began work at 6 a.m. at the hospital near my home. I began as a tray boy in 1952, when I was 12, and was promoted to a dishwasher in 1954. I didn't mind going to work when it was dark out. I liked the chance to make money. But Wisconsin's dairy farmers complained Daylight Savings TIme shortened their day.
Of course, the days were longer throughout the summer months, whether you had Daylight Savings Time or not. The days were as long in Wisonsin as they were in Illinois. But this little fact didn't bother those who supported or opposed Daylight Savings time.
I attended Nothwestern University, graduating in 1963. I majored in political science, but I also took a lot of courses in history and audited quite a few in English. I read Only Yesterday by Frederick Lewis Allen for one of my English classes.
Allen wrote a fascinating history of American life in the 1920s. I've often thought about his book. Tomorrow, when I visit my neighborhood public library, I'll try to take it out, along with Since Yesterday, which he wrote about the 1930s.
My parents often talked about the 1930s. My father was born in 1910, my mother in 1916. I remember my father telling me about his high school years (1924-1928). He lived in Riverside, Illinois and attended Riverside-Brookfield High School. My mother lived in Berwyn, just east of Riverside. They married in 1935. I was born in 1940 and raised in Berwyn.
Riverside is still one of Chicago's most beautiful suburbs. Frederick Law Olmsted, the famous landscape architect, designed it in the late 1880s. If you've never been to Riverside, that's unfortunate. You might not have heard of Olmsted, but I'm sure you have heard, and probably have visited, two or more of his most famous designs: Central Park in New York City and Lincoln Park in Chicago.
There was a movie shot in Riverside in the early 1990s that gives you an idea of just how beautiful it is. It stars Helen Hunt and is usually called In the Company of Darkness and sometimes The Rookie. I've watched it on cable TV several times over the years. Ironically, when I returned to Berwyn in 2004 for the reunion of my class from St. Leonard's to mark the 50th anniversary of our graduation, I learned from my classmate Bill Quan that the cast and crew from the film relaxed at his bar, Quan's Oasis, on the corner of Windsor and Harlem Avenues, right across from Riverside.
My Uncle Bob and I spent a week visiting Berwyn and Riverside in 2003. We drove to the Riverside train station, built around 1900. It's right across the street from the library, the village hall, and the police station. The library is actually where I read Only Yesterday during a Chirstmas vacation. The library overlooks the Des Plaines River and the surrounding forest preserves.
During the early 1950s, my buddies and I often rode our bikes through the forest preserves. Our parents cautioned us not to do this, but we did it anyway. They worried because children had been abducted and a few murdered in the Cook County forest preserves in the 1950s, although not in the forest preserves by Riverside.
When we rode through the forest preserves, we were in a different world. In the summer months, there was a Gypsy camp in the woods on the east side of the river, not far from Fairyland, an amusement park where they worked. Fairlyland was only open in the summer. The Gypsies were nice and smiled at us when we rode by. Some of them recognized us from Fairyland. In September, they headed back to a warmer climate for the winter months.
The forest preserves continued on the west side of the Des Plaines River. Just west of the library were the Seven HIlls. a grassy area where we could ride our bikes down the hills and coast a long way. In the winter months, the Seven Hills were a great place to go sledding.
My father and his family lived on Gage Road, about two blocks south of the VIllage Hall and only a few houses from the forest preserves and the river. My dad and his brother often played there when they were kids.
When my Uncle Bob and I visited in 2003, we both remembered the Seven Hills as being much bigger than they actually are. We also visited the house in Berwyn where he and I both grew up, and we remembered that as being much bigger, too. Funny how our memories work, isn't it? But it was so wonderful to see everything again.
Sadly, most of the people we once knew were no longer there.
Only yesterday....
Los Angeles (Aug. 18, 2006)--Gary Tole has been a visitor to Tuxedo Junction for some time. When he first emailed me a couple of years ago, he was surprised when I told him we met in Chicago in the late 1970s, when he played first trombone with Jimmy Henderson and the Glenn Miller Orchestra. Since then, Gary has played with a number of big bands, including those of Harry James, Tex Beneke, Les Brown and Jimmy Dorsey. Moreover, Gary has worked with Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Mathis, Bernadette Peters, Kenny Rogers, Rita Moreno, Melissa Manchester, James Ingram, and Phil Collins. He has often been seen and heard on television backing more greats such as Diana Ross, Sammy Davis, Bob Hope, Pia Zadora, Sheena Easton, Peabo Bryson, The Pointer Sisters, and others. Gary has also spent numerous hours in the recording studios doing record sessions, TV film, jingles, and major motion picture sound tracks.
In a word, Gary is a musicians' musician.
When Gary formed Legends of Swing a couple of years ago, he selected from the wonderful pool of top studio musicians we are blessed to have here in Los Angeles. I heard them for the first time last night at Plummer Park not far from my home. It was a real pleasure for me to hear this great band--and wonderful to hear big band music played and sung as it should be.
Vocalist Cassie Miller joined the band for the second set last night. Cassie is a wonderful vocalist who sings big band music beautifully because of her love and dedication to it. Her rendition of Boogie Blues would have landed her job with Gene Krupa any day of the week in the early 1940s.
Fortunately, Gary Tole and the Legends of Swing and Cassie Miller perform throughout the United States and elsewhere. Visit their sites to see when they might be in your neck of the woods. And in the meantime, do yourself a big favor and order their CDs from their web sites.
Gary Tole and the Legends of Swing
Click here to listen to samples of the songs on their recent CD, Legends of Swing.
I visited Leo Laporte's new VOX blog the other day and liked the way it looked. I already have several blogs and web sites, but knowing how well Six Apart does things, I wanted to try VOX, so I applied for one. This morning, an email arrived from Six Apart inviting me to do so.
"Swingera" seems like a good name, because most people I've met on the Internet share my love of big band music. This blog will allows us to post entires and comments about this great music.
I'll be working on this blog during the coming week, sprucing it up as I go along.
Do you like the Chicago skyline I'm using with this blog? I'm from Chicago and have missed it every day since I left 20 years ago. Chicago is hands down the best city in the world!
Cordially,
SwingKid
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