50 – Novim’s Nightmare – Cat Stevens – 1975

Novim's Nightmare - Cat Stevens

            When Numbers came out in late 1975 I was at Blackburn College, eagerly looking forward to its release (as I eagerly awaited anything new from Cat). I bought it at an appliance store on the Carlinville square I can no longer recall. It wasn’t a record store; it just had records for sale.

            I took it back to my room, put it on my Garrard Zero-G turntable, turned up my Pioneer SX424 receiver, put on my big red Koss headphones, dropped the stylus, and sat back to listen.

            “A Pythagorean Theory Tale”… what the heck was that about? It was a concept album with a children’s book to follow (which never appeared as far as I know). The first song was an instrumental (“Whistlestar”).

            The music was very pretty on the next song (“Novim’s Nightmare”), but what did the lyrics mean? (I always listened the first few times with the album cover (with lyrics) in hand).

            “Once I had a dream, that worried me
                        Like a drunken guillotine
                        Lingering just above my head
                        Why, why, why, why?
                        Why was I born "The Nine"
                        Cursed repeatedly
                        Who would know if I should die.
                        No one needed me     

                                    ***

            All at once my bones began to change
                        I was tall and young again,
                        Sweet as rain falling on the snow
                        Who, who, who, who?
                        Who is he, who am I, and
                        What laid in between?
                        How can I say goodbye? No one let me in
                        Can't see no need for Nine no more
                        Now it's too late to open the door.      

            Ohhhhkaaaay….

            The Rolling Stone review was brutal “… an album so breathtakingly stupid that even the most loyal fan (Hey, I resemble that!) could count its merits without using any of the fingers on either hand.”

            And it went downhill from there, “Sententiously subtitled “A Pythagorean Theory tale,” Numbers , ostensibly the story of some numerically named extraterrestrials, really isn’t about anything at all- no minor flaw in what purports to be a concept LP.”

            I guess he didn’t like it.

            I like “Novim’s Nightmare,” but I can honestly say I’ve not listened to the whole album since the 70s, but even the worst Cat album has one song worth listening to.

            I then made the mistake of going to YouTube and looking at the video for “Banapple Gas.”

            Here’s the link. Banapple Gas

            Yikes!! 

            By itself, the song is a little weird. Watch the film and you can see why he stayed away from recording for 30 years. (though he did two more albums after Numbers, which maybe was his repentance) .

49 – The Hurt – Johnny Cash – 2003

The Hurt - Johnny Cash

            This is a song I bought from Zune marketplace as a direct result of seeing the video. A devastating, heartbreaking video with an aged, but still undiminished, Johnny Cash several months before his death. The song, written by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, is about an addict, and you know Johnny Cash sings from experience there.

            The instrumentation is spare; a piano, and Johnny’s voice:

                        I hurt myself today
                        To see if I still feel
                        I focus on the pain
                        The only thing that's real
                        The needle tears a hole
                        The old familiar sting
                        Try to kill it all away
                        But I remember everything

            When the lines below are sung, June Carter is seen briefly.

                        What have I become
                        My sweetest friend
                        Everyone I know
                        goes away
                        In the end
           

            And as it flashes on June Carter, several months before she died, the lyrics hit home with a power that’s unlike any other, on my Zune anyway.

            Then, as the piano chimes (and that’s the only word for it when you listen with ear buds) louder and louder, the song climaxes.

                       
                        And you could have it all
                        My empire of dirt
                        I will let you down
                        I will make you hurt

                        If I could start again
                        A million miles away
                        I would keep myself
                        I would find a way.

            Incredible and, again, shattering. The most powerful music video ever (in my humble estimation). It brings me to tears just hearing the song, because it cannot be separated from the video and the images of a young and, especially, old Johnny Cash.

            But it also reminds me, weirdly, of my youth, when we would get together at Thanksgiving or Christmas in Rockford, Illinois with my grandparents, my grandmother’s brother and sister-in-law, and their unmarried son who still lived at home and played the Hammond Organ (foreshadowing my career at Accutronics, which was owned by and supplied all the circuit boards for Hammond Organ).

            He played both kinds of music, Country and Western, and a lot of Johnny Cash, but he played in a kind of mechanical way with a sort of Liberace leer. He was in his mid 30s, still at home, unmarried, which at the time I found a little weird (writes the guy who didn’t marry until he was 34, though I moved out of my folks’ home after college).

            He did meet a nice girl at work (he worked for the company that made Chiclets and every Christmas we would get a sampler pack of their products, Chiclets, Certs breath mints, Beeman’s and Black Jack gum), married her, and had a daughter. I felt bad for him  because when his mom died, his dad remarried and, when his dad died, the house he lived in was left to his step mom and he had to pay her rent to live in the house he grew up in. Then she sold the house from under him and he had to move out.

            My grandmother was still alive at the time and she bought several pieces of furniture from him, to help him out financially, that her (and his dad’s) parents had owned. I have one piece, a beautiful oak side board.

47- Christiaan, No – Jimmy Webb – 1977

Christiaan No - Jimmy Webb

            I love this Jimmy Webb song. I used to cherry pick parts from it to sing to my son when he was very little. The parts that were in my register anyway.

            I doubt he remembers any of it, but I substituted Zay-Zay for Christiaan when I sang it to him (though we never called him Zay-Zay), I needed it to retain the meter).

                        “Christiaan, no, no, no, Christiaan no,                                                                                              

                         Take your time, take your time, take it slow,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

                         You’ll be leaving soon enough to make the teardrops flow.

                                                            ***

                        “You will grow, grow, grow, Christiaan grow                            

                         You will glow like the moonlight on the snow,                                    

                         You will fly like the snowflakes, when the wind begins to blow         

                         take it slow”

                      

                                                           ***

                        “’Cause it hard to know what you want to be,

                          When you’re just a little boy who’s turning three,

                          When you’re just a little boy who’s only turning 29,

                          Take your time.”

            Simple, but not too sappy (“ Watching Scotty Grow”, for one).

46- Let My Love Open the Door – Pete Townshend – 1980

Let My Love Open the Door - Pete Townshend

            Kind of a tough call on this one. I almost lumped it in with my other MTV songs since it came out around the time MTV started in 1981and they played the heck out of it, but I think it stands alone since I was had purchased the Empty Glass album before this song turned up on MTV.

            I like it mainly because of the sentiment of Pete’s lyrics:

            “When everyone keeps repeating that you’ll never fall in love,

            “When everyone keeps retreating and you can’t seem to get enough,

            “Let my love open the door.”

45 – Daydream Believer – John Stewart- 1971, and

Daydream Believer - John Stewart

Daydream Believer - The Monkees

            The Monkees’ take on this simple song is their last #1 hit and is one of the perfect pop songs of the 1960s. From the moment the jingle jangle piano opening starts (Peter Tork on piano) it always makes me smile. It’s the late 60s, JFK is gone, but MLK and RFK are still around (for awhile yet) and everything is groovy.

            My whole life is ahead of me and everything in Suburbia (Algonquin) is good.

            Years later, I heard John Stewart on the Steve Dahl show explain how the Monkees changed one of his words, to not freak out people like me, I suppose.

            In the line, “You once thought of me as a white knight on his steed, now you know how happy I can be”, which doesn’t make sense, really, had been changed from “…now you know how funky I can be.”

            When John Stewart recorded his version in 1971 for his album, “Lonesome Picker Rides Again,” he replaces the word and adds a few changes o the chorus at the end.

            The song’s 3:07 construction is super simple, in the Monkees’ versions it’s Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus, repeat 4-5 times, to fade.

            John Stewart repeats the chorus 2 times then begins to make some substitutions.

            “…to a Daydream Believer and a homecoming queen” becomes

            “’…to a Lonesome Picker and a homecoming queen.”

                        then

            “…to an old surfer drummer and a homecoming queen.”

                        then

            “…to old Nashville Carter and a homecoming queen.”

                        and finally

            “…to a daydream deceiver and an old closet quee…” and he breaks up laughing.

            Great song.

44 – Keep Me in Your Heart – Warren Zevon – 2003

Keep Me in Your Heart - Warren Zevon

            That Warren Zevon could write and produce this song knowing how little time he had left is amazing to me.

            It’s the song I want played at my memorial service.

            ‘Nuff said.

43 – Hallelujah – John Cale – 1991

Hallelujah - John Cale

            This is the John Cale version of Leonard Cohen’s great song, “Hallelujah”.  It has been used many times, in many shows and movies, such as “Shrek”, “House”, and “Scrubs”, but the one it always reminds me of is “The West Wing”.

            Actually, the version used in the West Wing was Jeff Buckley’s, but regardless, the song reminds me of  “Posse Comitatus”, the unforgettable episode where Mark Harmon, playing C.J.’s Secret Service agent/new boyfriend, is gunned down when he inadvertently walks in on a robbery in progress in a NYC convenience store.

            It’s also the one where the President (Martin Sheen, the President we pretended was real during the GW Bush years) runs into his opponent for reelection played by James Brolin and Brolin, when told of the death says, “Crime. Boy. I don’t know” and President Bartlett (Sheen) after some more strained small talk, says “In the future, if you're wondering, 'Crime, boy, I don't know,' is when I decided to kick your ass."

            You know by its context that somebody’s going to die when you hear “Hallelujah”, it never accompanies good news. It was a classic use of popular music in television to comment on or act as a counterpoint to what was going on onscreen.

            (If you read Ken Levine’s blog, and I do religiously, that’s why I link to it on mine; he feels that the use of music in this way is a cheat, a lazy way to make a point. I agree to a point, but this song is emotionally wrenching in its use here. C.J. finally gets a life outside the West Wing and “Bang!” it’s over)

            Most people agree the first use of popular music in TV drama was Michael Mann’s “Miami Vice”. Or at least it was the first time I was made conscious of the powerful emotions that the right song with the right image can produce.

            “Hallelujah’s use in the West Wing was heartbreaking. I don’t know if it’s Aaron Sorkin who chose the music, but “The West Wing” always used the perfect song at the perfect time.

            There’s another song on my Zune that was used brilliantly by “The West Wing”, about 15 postings from now, as I look at my list, so be forewarned.

41 – Walk Your Feet in the Sunshine – Jimmy Webb – 1974

Walk Your Feet in the Sunshine - 5th Dimension version

            This has always been my favorite Jimmy Webb song (and there’s so many to choose from: Wichita Lineman, The Highwayman, Galveston, and Christian, No (foreshadowing!)). It’s great to sing along with and has Joni Mitchell singing back-up vocals.

            It brings back memories of a specific time and place, Accutronics in 1980, when I played the song daily.

            In 1980, I was the Process Engineer/Quality Manager at Accutronics. My boss, and mentor, Mr. Mortimer, knew I liked variety in the jobs I held there, so he gave me a task…

            From my start in 1974, to 1980, Accutronics only built single sided printed circuit boards, but in 1980 they decided to begin building double sided boards, allowing circuitry on each side, connected by the plated through hole barrels. My task, with a budget of $10,000, was to build and prove out a prototype plating line to do this.

            The $10,000 was used to purchase plating tanks, bath heaters, chemistry, lab ware for analyzing the chemistry, and equipment to perform cross-sectioning; including a microscope and camera set-up (state of the art in 1980 was a Polaroid attachment for the microscope). I kept the microscope in my front office so that it was out of the corrosive plating atmosphere.

            I was given a part of the shipping dock that had been a plating room when the company was called Poncher Industries. All the plating tanks, anodes, rectifiers, racks, and other equipment I re-purchased in 1980 had been sold off in 1974, when Accutronics decided they didn’t want to do plating.

            I was also given a small, 6x9 room to set up my lab in. I had a great time, scrounging tables, ¼” sheets of PVC plastic to use as countertops, and three different kinds of paneling to finish off my cubbyhole lab/office. I also built the wooden platform to hold the nine 25 gallon plating baths and did all the wiring (having maintenance take a look at my work, I didn’t want to electrocute myself).

            But the best part of this project was I was able to set up a stereo system to listen to tapes and music while I worked. I had a Sony Tuner/Amplifier that was basically 2 cubes, one with an FM tuner, one with an amplifier, with speakers built into each. Connect a tape deck, separate the speakers, and “voila” you had stereo.

            And “Walk Your Feet in the Sunshine” was #1 on my Hit Parade. Along with a cassette tape whose loss I still mourn (it jammed and wrapped itself around the capstan), a tape of the stereo simulcast on FM radio of Cat Stevens on “ABC In Concert”, from 1973. It was a 90 minute concert with Dr. John, and Linda Ronstadt as guests singing Cat’s songs (“Pop Star” and “Fill My Eyes”, respectively). He also performed the full, 20+ minute version, of “Foreigner Suite”, uninterrupted by commercials. I’ve been searching for a Tape or DVD online for a long time, must be tied up in some sort of rights issues?

            I’ve always been at my best (in my mind anyway) as a scrounger. I am able to jerry rig and work around most impediments, to my detriment, Lynn would say sometimes. (She’s experienced my attempts at plumbing)

            I still recall a weekend shift I worked one summer at Accutronics when I needed solder bars to run a machine and a pump to change out baths. And I had no access to either. The bars were locked in a front room that I didn’t have a key to and the pump was locked in the Maintenance shop in the basement there.

            I knew a key for the room where the solder bars were was in a locked desk. I climbed under the desk and found I could manipulate the locking mechanism so that I could open the drawer with the key and I used a pair of pliers to pull out staples that held the chicken wire that encased the Maintenance shop.

            I was able to access both, run production, and fix what I had undone so that nobody (especially the Maintenance guys) was the wiser. Until now.

            Maybe I missed my calling as a B & E guy.

40 – Lonely Boy – Andrew Gold – 1977

Lonely Boy - Andrew Gold

            I always liked this song, I identified with it because he describes a boy being born in 1951 and how a couple years later his “mother brought him a sister”. (I was born in 1954, my sister 3 years later) But I was not a lonely boy in any way I can recall. The one line that resonates is “When they said I was the only son, I thought I was the only one.”

            Andrew Gold was the son of Marni Nixon, who sang the vocals for several stars in the 50’s, Audrey Hepburn, in “My Fair Lady”, Natalie Wood in “West Side Story”, and Deborah Kerr in “The King and I”. He also played on many albums in the 70’s and produced one for Linda Ronstadt.

            I don’t recall being jealous of my sister as a toddler. For years I thought I remembered, at 3, when my mom went to the hospital to have my sister and I was left with my grandparents, but years later my mom said it was probably when she went to deliver my brother, Greg, who died of SIDS.

            I do remember that. I remember my grandfather coming to the apartment in a big blue Plymouth and everyone being sad. I called him (my baby brother) Gregory Pecker for some reason. I remember going out to Bluff City Cemetery and seeing my dad’s parent’s graves, with a simple “Kammrad” stone, but I’m not sure where the baby was buried. There was no headstone, and we almost never talked about “the baby” after that.

            I also vividly remember the nightmares I had in that apartment. They always took place in the bathroom (it had a tub with a window high up in the wall) and they always included a star-shaped thing appearing in that window. In them I would be frozen, I couldn’t scream or call out or do anything. I’m not sure what stars mean in dreams. (I guess that’s what Google’s for, no?)

            I remember nothing of the layout of the apartment, I think it was on the second floor, but I do recall a telephone pole in the backyard that had rungs driven into it about 4 feet off the ground (they were usually higher, so that a repair man needed a ladder to reach them) and I was obsessed with finding something to boost me that 2 feet or so, so that I could climb it (just like Dad! See #37).

            Several years later our landlord from that apartment was arrested with a couple other guys counterfeiting currency. They actually made an appearance in the Sunday Tribune’s funny papers, “Dick Tracy’s Crimestopper Tips”, because the only reason they got caught was that they threw out their rejects in the garbage and someone saw them and turned them in. (The Crimestopper tip was, “always look in the garbage at a suspect’s house” or something like that)          

            He was also indicted in connection with Silas Jayne’s plot to murder his brother George in 1970. (George was killed by a sniper as he played bridge in his house). His lawyer was also the lawyer for E. Howard Hunt of Watergate fame.

            I was 4 when we moved from that apartment to our house in Algonquin in 1959, and I entered kindergarten at Eastview Grade School (now owned by St. Margaret Mary and run as a Catholic Grade School) that Fall. The school is about five blocks from our house, but if you cut through someone’s yard, it was about two blocks. There was a small strip of trees that was on the edge of the property that over the last 50 years has grown into a forest that has deer living in it, my mom tells me.

            There was one particular house that we dared not cut through because the two brothers that lived there went to Lutheran grade school and they laid in wait for us public school kids to try to cut through, and then threw rocks at us and chased us away. One of the brothers became one of my best friends in junior high and high school; I drove him to high school each day in my mom’s Pontiac Catalina. If I woke up and didn’t see any lights on in his house I would call their phone number and hang up when they answered (waking them up, which I’m sure they appreciated) in those pre-caller ID days.

           

39- How Great Our Lord – Randy Newman – 1995

How Great Our Lord - Randy Newman

            This is the third song from the great concept album, “Randy Newman’s Faust”, which features James Taylor, as God, explaining how things work in heaven to an adoring heavenly choir. Premise based on the classic story of the man who sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for success, update in Newman’s version to a young man who wants to be a rock star.

            James Taylor is God,  Randy Newman voices the Devil, Don Henley, the shallow Faust, Bonnie Raitt is Martha, Linda Ronstadt is Margaret, and Elton John is “Angel Rick” (don’t ask).

            In the song, God sings:

                        Sorry ladies, to make you wait

                        There’s a couple of Buddhists at the Pearly Gate,

                        Asked my permission to come on board,

                        “What’d you do, Lord?”  (sings the choir)

                        I had to have them put out with the trash.

                        Sing it!

                        “Oh Lord,

                        How Great our Lord!”

            Somewhat blasphemous, but what do you expect from Randy Newman?

            When this album came out I was working at Tingstol. They had purchased a building in Elk Grove Village, not far from where I work now, and had begun moving the business from the Northside of Chicago, Fullerton and Southport, to it.

            I remember driving with my friends (now at Tingstol as well) Oscar S. and Rich Mankiewicz (see RIP-Rich Mankiewicz -July 2012) in my 1984 Toyota Celica hatchback with 150,000+ miles on it, from the plant on Fullerton to the new plant, with my cassette copy of the album playing.

            Oscar didn’t find it as amusing as Rich did, Rich being an agnostic, at best.

            I was pretty much the first office employee to move to the new building as the equipment was set up. As the Quality Engineer, it was my job to do process capability studies on each machine as it came on line. Also, Elk Grove is about ½ the drive as compared to the drive to the Fullerton plant.

            However, the longer drive was somewhat offset by the nearby restaurants on Fullerton: Stefani’s, Hoghead McDunna’s, and an excellent Thai buffet were just a few of the great eats available.

            Also, working in the city allowed me to drive to several nearby bookstores at lunchtime, when I needed to get away for a while.

            A year or so later, the Goodman Theater in Chicago mounted a version of “Randy Newman’s Faust” that I dragged Lynn to (though Lynn does like a lot of Randy Newman’s work generally) that starred David Garrison (Steve, the first husband of Marcy, the Bundy’s neighbor on “Married…with Children”) as the Devil. The other parts were taken by local talent.

            Don Henley, Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor, and Linda Ronstadt probably wanted too much, I imagine.

            Or maybe it was a lack of dancing skills since this was an all singing, all dancing version. Though the thought of James Taylor loping about the stage does sound entertaining.

38 -The Man with the Child in His Eyes – Kate Bush – 1978

38 -The Man with the Child in His Eyes – Kate Bush – 1978

The Man with the Child in His Eyes

42 -Something About You – Level 42 – 1985

Something About You

63 – Down Under – Men at Work – 1981

Down Under

66 – Major Tom(Coming Home) – Peter Schilling – 1983

Major Tom (Coming Home)

67 – Elstree – The Buggles – 1980

Elstree

74 – Mexican Radio – Wall of Voodoo – 1983

Mexican Radio

116 – Everybody’s Got to Learn Sometime – The Korgis – 1980

Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime

124 – The Getaway – Chris DeBurgh – 1982

The Getaway

126 – Wouldn’t it Be Good  - Nik Kershaw – 1984

Wouldn't It Be Good

            I’m gonna group these 9 songs together because the only reason I have them on the Zune is because I saw a video on MTV back in the day when they actually played videos, and bought the album.

            The Man with the Child in His Eyes-Kate Bush- She wrote this song at 13, recorded it at 16 as a single. The video version comes from her first album released several years later. I always found her eyes arresting. The video was mesmerizing as well.

            Something About You-Level 42- Reportedly their name comes from the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I don’t know what Level has to do with it, since the answer is just 42. The song is cool, though.

            Down Under-Men at Work- Sprightly video, wacky characters, eminently sing-alongable song. Only use of projectile vomiting in a pop song (“..where the beer does flow and men chunder”), that I’m aware of. Also led to a spike in sales of Vegemite for a week or two.

            Major Tom(Coming Home)-Peter Schilling- A sequel to David Bowie’s “Space Oddity”, sung phonetically by the German Schilling. I seem to recall his visit o Dick Clark’s American Bandstand where he had some trouble answering Dick’s questions because he spoke little English.

            Elstree- The Buggles-Another song from the “Age of Plastic”, one of two Buggles albums that were released. I found the second album, “Adventures in Modern Recording”, at a record store in a mall at Rand and Palatine roads whose name escapes me. It was on the way to EJ Korvette’s, another long gone store that had an album department with a pretty decent Imports section. I bought the 3-sided “Monty Python’s Matching Tie and Handkerchief” album there (I’ll explain in a future post).

            Mexican Radio – Wall of Voodoo – Another great sing-alongable song. “We’re on a Mexican..whoa-oh..radio”

            Everybody’s Got to Learn Sometime – The Korgis – A band named after Queen Elizabeth’s lap dog. Very pretty song, though. Almost a “Wall of Sound” production, starts slow and simple and builds in instrumentation and volume as the song progresses.

            The Getaway – Chris DeBurgh- The title track from the album that contained “Don’t Pay the Ferryman”, the video/song that got me to buy the album. I found a couple of his albums at EJ Korvette’s and one at the Randhurst shopping center. I then ordered his whole back catalog from Apple Tree Records in Elgin. It took about 3-4 weeks to get them, in those pre-Amazon days. Today, you can download it as soon as you see it online.

            I went to see Chris DeBurgh in 1983 with my friend Jim D (of the quad stereo, #10-Brandenburg Concerto) at Poplar Creek when he (Chris DeBurgh, not Jimmy)opened for Asia. A pretty good concert at both ends as I recall.

            Wouldn’t It Be Good- Nik Kershaw  – A nice little song, I always thought it had parts that sounded like Eric Clapton’s “It’s in the Way that you Use it”. Or perhaps it’s Clapton that sounds like this, since Clapton’s song came out in 1986

37 – I’ll See You in My Dreams – Mark Knopfler and Chet Atkins – 1990

I'll See You in My Dreams - Mark Knopfler/Chet Atkins

            A nice instrumental played by two giants of guitar picking, Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits, and Chet Atkins, folk/country legend.

            I keep the song on my Zune because it reminds me of Chet Atkins’ “My Father’s Hat (I Still Can’t Say Goodbye)”, a song I can’t listen to without tears streaming down my face. My dad never wore a hat , that I can recall, at most maybe a winter cap when he worked outside as an Installer/Repairman with Illinois Bell, but it triggers a response every time since I first heard it on “Prairie Home Companion.”

            Chorus:           No matter how hard I try,

                                    No matter how many years go by,

                                    No matter how many tears I cry,

                                    I still can’t say goodbye.

            (just typing the lyrics makes me mist up, hope one of the kids doesn’t come in right now)

My Father's Hat (I Still Can't Say Goodbye)- Chet Atkins

            My dad passed away 25 years ago this September just past, at 56, and it’s something you never get over, really, I was in the room as he struggled and looked at me with eyes I’ll never forget.

            It started when his doctors changed his heart medication (8 years before he had had a valve replaced with a little poker chip. When it was quiet, you could hear it “click”) and his blood pressure dropped and he passed out at work. (By 1988 he had retired from Ma Bell after 30 years, 28 with perfect attendance. My dad was never sick. I can honestly say I can only think of once or twice in my whole life when I saw him sick, other than a cold now and then. By then he was working on the Maintenance crew for School District 300).

            Quick digression…in the early 80s my parents contemplated selling the house in Algonquin and moving to California to be near my dad’s little sister (Nancy, my godmother). He was going to transfer from Ill Bell to California Bell. To make the move, he would lose his seniority from here and have to go back to being an Installer/Repairman, though he was a PBX installation foreman by then. Also, he had to prove he could still climb a telephone pole using only spurs (strapped to the inside of his ankles) and safety belt. Leaning back with the belt wrapped around the pole, he’d hop up the pole, like a lumberjack.

            This was after the open heart surgery. At 50, he still could do it! He was a little overweight, but still, I couldn’t have done that at 50.

            They ended up not moving when they found that selling the house would only give them a down payment on a one car garage in Petaluma.

            I was working at Amax Plating, in Elgin, at the time and got the call that he was in Sherman Hospital. By the time I got there he was OK, sitting up in bed. I had to fly out of town the next day for business, but the day I got back, September 15, I got another call that he was doing worse. Evidently, the new medication had caused his blood pressure to crash and they couldn’t bring it back up.

            When I came into the room I saw him struggling for breath and as I reached to take his hand, I could see the fear in his eyes, something I had never seen before. The doctors sent me out of the room as they moved him to cardiac ICU, and 45 minutes later, they came out and said he was gone.

            I was better prepared 8 years before with the valve replacement surgery (it happened just after I had seen “All That Jazz”, which includes a graphic scene of them cracking open Roy Scheider’s chest and cranking it open). When he came out of surgery, he was gray, due to them cooling him down to slow the heartbeat, I think.

            What saddens me the most is Lynn never got to meet him (I only called her because she sent me a note of condolence. I had put off contacting her after our mutual friends, Ron and Desiree, had given me her name and phone number weeks before), and my kids will never know him other than through my stories. No video and very few pictures (my folks were not real big on photo documentation).

            It’s the same reason I’ve never been able to watch “Field of Dreams” since it came out in 1989. In a movie theater you can cry without being noticed, but watching at home with the lights on is not doable (unless you’re alone). It’s a great movie, but my dad was my little league manager for the 4-5 years I played organized ball and he showed me everything and he put up with a lot from me.

            I was an especially poor loser, and hated being taken out of games. I remember one game I broke my bat (it was a Sears wooden bat I’d had for years) and I started crying like the spoiled little brat I was. I’m sure I got my share of spankings over the years and deserved every one, but that day he just told me to buck up (or words to that effect) and deal with it. I’m sure it’s hard with your kid being on your team. I was not a great player (or even especially good), but I was always chosen for the All-Star team (probably knowing the sh-- fit I’d throw if I hadn’t been chosen).

            Trivia question: My first baseball glove was a Sears, Ernie Broglio model. What was Ernie Broglio’s claim to fame (infamy for Cubs fans)? No fair using Wikipedia.

            Answer when clamored for by popular demand (or if one person asks, I’d love to get some feedback).

36 – Power Failure – Leo Kottke – 1975

Power Failure - Leo Kottke (Live)

            This is off Leo Kottke’s “Chewing Pine” album and has a good vocal. Back in the 70’s, Leo toured with Procol Harum and I guess he liked their version, but I’ve never heard it.

            This album came out just as I was preparing to leave Accutronics for Blackburn College. It brings to mind the trip I made 2-3 times a week from Algonquin to Elgin Community College. Back in 1975 Randall Road, the route I took, avoided towns between Algonquin and Elgin. It was a two lane farm road that had 4 stop signs and a rough train crossing in Elgin.

            Today, it’s a four lane superhighway that has 6 lanes in spots, and I don’t know how many stop lights between Algonquin and Elgin. I used to be able to make the 13 mile run in about 20-25 minutes. If you go down Randall Road today it’s probably 30-35 minutes at best. (I just Google mapped it and they say it’s 27 minutes, if you don’t go down Randall Road.

            My car then was my second 1968 Mustang which replaced my beloved 1967 Austin-Healy Sprite, the first car bought with my money ($350). People today don’t believe I ever fit in that car, until I remind them I weighed almost 100 pounds less than I do today, though I was still 6’4” and still growing. It was a great little car that got good mileage, perfect for back and forth to school, though ungodly cold in winter. It barely had a heater and, being a convertible, had loose fitting window coverage. I would duct tape the passenger side to cut down on the cold coming in.

            It also had no radio, so, after buying a Radio Shack power converter, which converted power from positive ground to negative ground (or vice versa, I can’t remember), I installed a small Pioneer cassette player.

            This was in the pre-1973 “gas crisis” days, when I could fill the tank with a $2 roll of nickels (6 gallons @ 37 cents/gal). It was the last car I ever had that I could actually do maintenance on, other than oil change. I replaced the exhaust system myself, buying the parts from Warshawsky in Chicago.

            I ran into the back end of a Ford LTD in 1975 and did no damage to his car, my front end was mooshed, It was then I found out that the insurance I was paying to my dad was only for liability, not Collision, so when they wanted $600 to fix it, I moved on to the 1968 Mustang which I kept for several years, going so far as to put money into it, to the tune of $800 or so, to have my buddy Mike C (of the .45 under the seat, see #6- “1979”and “Disarm”) now working on his own, running a body shop, put in new floorboards and replace the wheel wells, which were rusted through.

            I could see the road go by through my feet, like Fred Flintstone, so they welded new metal floorboards and they took wheel wells from an AMC Pacer and welded them into the Mustang. It was then painted Illinois Bell green (a dark green that all the trucks were painted in the 60’s and 70’s).

            It got me another four years out of it until I traded it in in 1979 on the only car I’ve ever bought new, a 1979 Mustang. Bought it for $6500 cash, and sold it for $2500 cash 5 years later.

35 – Don’t Bring Me Down – ELO – 1979

Don't Bring Me Down - ELO 

            Even though it comes from 1979’s “Discovery” album, when I was already back at Accutronics, working on getting my thesis into shape so I could submit it and then defend it, it still puts me in mind of Western Illinois University. It reminds me of the primitive, off-brand, portable cassette player I had at the time. As soon as I would buy an album I would tape it and then play only the cassette. On my Advent home deck, in my Mustang, or on my Sonee Walkmun. This kept my albums in pretty good shape.

            I recall listening to tapes in the room where all the Grad Assistants (GA’s), for History, Math, Psychology, and Economics, had desks. Each major had a group of desks pushed together and we used them between classes to camp out and kibbutz with the other GA’s.

            History GA’s were the lowest paid of all (reflecting what an MA in History is worth in the real world), since we didn’t teach any classes (like the Math GA’s did). We proctored exams and made ourselves available for tutoring (though in a year and a half, I don’t think any of the 5-6 GA’s were asked to do any).

            We received $210/month, plus all tuition and fees (the real payment) for 10-15 hours of “work” (sitting in a 100 level class to take notes and prepare for tutoring). Rent in the Graduate and Married student housing was $130/month, leaving $80/month for food and entertainment.

            On of the most interesting classes in Grad School was Historical Research. Each week we were exposed to a different way to look at data and sources. The first project was a gigantic scavenger hunt, we were given a list of 35 questions and had one week to get the answers from the Reference section of the library.

            Questions like: Who was your congressman on the day you were born? How much cotton was produced in the US in 1854? And what was the population of Chicago in 1897? All of us taking the class scurried about the library for 2 or 3 days, then we got smart and got together and shared locations and books used to answer the questions, thereby reducing our overall work.

            Remember now, this is pre-Internet, 1977, and everything was in a book (“What’s a book, grandpa?”) somewhere in the Reference section of the library, not a few keystrokes away on your laptop.

            Another week we completed a project whereby a computer (it took up a whole room in another campus building) was used to collate data and generate a graph (as I recall). We spent 1-2 days keypunching data onto IBM cards, then took the whole stack over to the computer building (making sure not to drop or mix them in any way) and handed them to the tech who fed them into the computer and the next day you came in and picked up your report/graph.

            One thing for sure, I would have killed to have had a word processor in 1979, when I was working my thesis into shape. I hand wrote my first draft of each chapter, as I do for this blog, (I write it out on lined paper I print, because my handwriting is small. Lines are .125 apart, and I write on every other line to allow for revisions).

            My thesis was written on narrow ruled paper (.250 wide lines), one hand written page becoming three pages typewritten, then typed on my Sears portable electric typewriter, and submitted to my thesis advisor, Dr. Victor Hicken. WIU had very specific requirements for the thesis when ready. It had to be a certain font, on a certain bond paper, and three copies were needed. All were bound in leather, one is in the WIU library, one is in the WIU History department, and I have the third.

            My mom typed up my final draft on a typewriter where she worked at the time and I submitted it in early 1979. Then Dr. Hicken came back with several revisions. If it was a word or two, I could retype the page (once I found a typewriter with the same font at Accu), but if the revision was a line or two, I would have to re-type the page, plus all the following pages of that chapter.

            What a pain.

            Plus, Dr. Hicken felt my thesis needed some maps of the battles my regiment fought in. (I wrote a history of the 36^th Illinois Regiment, called the Fox River Regiment). I had to find a book that was not covered by copyright anymore so I could photocopy the maps and use them in my thesis. I found one at the Abraham Lincoln Bookstore in Chicago.

            It did get me a date with a cutie at Accu who retyped several pages for me. I had a huge crush on Bev, but she was out of my league. After doing the typing I paid her back by taking her to see William Windom play “Thurber” at Aurora’s glorious Paramount theater and then to see the Blues Brothers live at Poplar Creek.

            Poplar Creek was an outdoor arena in nearby Hoffman Estates that seated 10,000 in the covered pavilion and another 20,000 or so, on the lawn. I invited a friend from Blackburn who lived in the area, Mike P, and my best friend from Accu, Jorge B. plus their wives, to go along.

            We got a large pizza from the Pizza Stop (long gone) in Cary and dragged it all the way to Poplar Creek, where the guards at the front gate patted it down (it was in a large, flat, paper bag) before letting us bring it in to eat as we sat on the lawn.

            This concert was the night before the movie opened and the crowd was shouting for “Rawhide”, since Steve Dahl had been playing it in the weeks leading up to the show. Even though they didn’t play it, it was still a great concert. Steve Cropper and “Duck” Dunn, from Booker T and the MG’s, horn section of Tom Malone and Lou Marini, Paul Schaffer on keyboards, and others, plus Dan Aykroyd with his harmonica in the briefcase handcuffed to his wrist, and John Belushi being John Belushi, cartwheeling onto the stage at the start (“Everybody needs somebody… everybody needs somebody… to love”… “Someone to love”).

            Doesn’t get much better…

Everybody Needs Somebody - Blues Brothers

            A couple nights later I took Bev to see the Blues Brothers movie in McHenry, where the audience went wild whenever a scene shot in the area came on screen (much of the exterior shooting of the final car chase was filmed on Route 12 in Lake County, and another scene, with a huge PA megaphone attached to the roof of the Bluesmobile (“Tell your friends!”) was shot at Bang’s Lake in Lake Zurich). It was my last date with Bev, though we remained friendly at Accu.

            Oh well. (See11- To Be What You Must, for a refresher on my philosophy).