I’ll go where you want me to go
March 9, 2008 | Nostalgia | Comments [2]
i-ll-go-where-you-want-me-to-go.mp3 Rob Gardner
I believe in Christ
March 7, 2008 | Nostalgia | Comments [4]
View at dusk. When my Phone was broken , I couldn’t take pictures so I had to break down and buy a camera. Its strange all the other stuff you need to get to go with it. For instance my batteries went dead in 4 hours. I need a rechargeable set , that is another 40$ , I can’t afford that now, so I will just buy regular batteries till i can. Then a printer is another $200, I have to wait on that as well. Mom, I am almost finished with the 4th volume of “A work and glory”, I will send you the volumes as I finish them, their are 9 and I am going to read them all because it is also learning about history, and I try to be learning something new everyday. Thats the one thing I like about Horticuture, it is an exact science and you will never learn everything, so I am constantly learning stuff everyday. The downside is we are really short at work with people in the Gardening department. You have to take a test, Its a 4 hour test to be in this department, and they can’t find people that can pass, you have to make a 90%. The manager said the tests at Home Depot that are the hardest in the Gardening department and the Electrical Department. People think all you do is sell plants, but I have to know all about chemicals and fertilizers and alot of stuff. I hope they find someone before April , thats when it goes crazy for awhile. They are trying to certify me on the forklift, but it is taking me awhile because I am nervous when I drive it.
Like a river
March 6, 2008 | Nostalgia | Comments [2]
like-a-river.mp3 Felicia Sorensen
this is the view off my balcony in the winter, there is a river that winds around in the valley below and mountains in the background. It goes with the song. I may connect pictures to my songs from now on.
For Mom – Instrumental
March 3, 2008 | Nostalgia | Comments [1]
a-poor-wayfaring-man-of-grief.mp3 Jay Schmitt
Song of the day- Instrumental
February 29, 2008 | Nostalgia | Comments [2]
greater-love-accompaniment-instrumental.mp3 Boy does Satan try to urge me not to do this, I suppose he’s afraid someone on the internet might stumble across one of these songs on a sad day, these are the thoughts he puts in my head “Don’t post songs, it just shows your family how boring and pathetic your life is”, but I am shaking it off and doing it anyway.
Mom
February 28, 2008 | Nostalgia | Comments [3]
a-little-more-like-thee.mp3 Since that link worked for the song I will try and send you a daily song from an LDS artist or choir it can be your daily song, here’s one that everyone can relate to but I think you may have to listen to it several times and listen carefully to the words as it is a little faster.
Glad your feeling better
February 27, 2008 | Nostalgia | No Comments
I am glad to hear your feeling better. I knew I had the song from the prophets funeral somewhere on a CD, but I got the title wrong. Its called ” My Shepherd will supply my needs”, maybe this will make you feel better. This choir sounds better than the Hoover choir. Just click on it. my-shepherd-will-supply-my-need.mp3“
Music
February 11, 2008 | Nostalgia, Self-Kudos | Comments [5]
After a L-O-O-O-N-G hiatus, I’ve started getting serious about music again.
Mom can tell you the stories. I got my first “electric bass guitar,” a Fender Mustang short-scale, when I was 15. My bio-Dad made the down payment for me and Mom and Dad arranged for the credit. I paid them by babysitting for the kids next door when we lived on 27th Street, whose single mother worked until the wee hours of the morning as a cocktail waitress.
I had that bass until my Freshman year in college when it was stolen from my dormitory. Wish I still had it; I think we bought it for something like $350 in 1973, and it’s now worth about $1,200 on eBay!
I didn’t have an amplifier at first so I bought an adapter cable at Radio Shack and plugged it into the amp in the cabinet-style stereo we had in the dining room (used to drive “Papa Luis” crazy because I’d forget to plug the turntable back in and they couldn’t figure out why the record player didn’t work!)
I went on from there to learn to play the acoustic guitar, then took classical guitar lessons at Alabama School of Fine Arts and majored in Music for a couple of years in college. While in college, I played bass ALL the time, upright bass in the college symphony, in a bluegrass group (”The Mud Acres String Band”), and in a Jazz trio. Played electric bass in a sort of “prog rock” band as well.
But after I dropped out of school for while in ‘77, I sort of lost my zeal for it, always thought I was just “not good enough,” really had low self-esteem in that regard, I guess. I got married to Lynda, and we immediately made Seay, and that was about it.
Of course, since then Seay has been trying to establish a music career of his own, and I’m proud of him.
I’ve always had a guitar or two lying around and from time to time I’d play a bit, then lose interest again. About three years ago I started getting VERY interested in playing again and got together a small group of guys in an “acoustic guitar” band, but that fizzled out pretty soon, too, with everyone too busy with other stuff.
My guitar (and bass) collection kept growing, however. I now have several acoustic guitars, three basses, a nice “jazz” guitar and a bunch of amps and other odds and ends. But lately, since I turned 50 I guess, instead of going for a sportscar and maybe a “blonde” accessory, I started really obsessing about playing music. I hunted around for some guys to play the stuff that I like – “jazz-rock” for want of a better name – and even have begun taking lessons in Jazz theory from a local professor of music.
Saturday I had my first “full-fledged” band rehearsal with some guys I found via the internet. One is a keyboardist about my age, has a music degree from University of Houston, very accomplished; another is a transplanted Englishman who’s an engineer at TI and does a lot with “programming” synthesizers, and the drummer is a young kid who doesn’t like the stuff most kids his age play.
The keyboard guy, Rick, already had some charts written down of some things he’d composed, and we just went at it, and really sounded pretty good by the end of the three hours we spent. I can still read music just well enough to get along, and then we just explained things to the drummer, who quickly “got it.”
I don’t know where it’ll lead – things like this usually fizzle out soon after they start for one reason or other – but it was just FUN to play again! I just missed it so much.
Anyway, when and if we record anything (which we plan to do very soon) I’ll be sure to post it up here.
(Gosh, I need to dredge up some old memories about Mom’s interesting reactions to some of my music “projects” when I was a teenager! Remember, the first kid is always a BIG revelation to the parents!)
Five Year Old Lainie’s Testimony Of The Prophet
January 29, 2008 | Nostalgia | Comments [2]
Lainie’s comments about teaching her primary class on the Pres. Hinckley thread reminded me of a story that I should set down here for “posterity.” And also because it’ll embarrass her.
When we joined the church in Macon, Georgia back in 1966, we began going to church there in a small chapel that the church had purchased from some other denomination. In those days, before the “block meeting” schedule that we have now, you typically had priesthood meeting early in the morning, and then Sunday School as the “main” meeting of the morning. Then you went home, and came back in the afternoon for Sacrament Meeting.
Other meetings including Primary were held on weekdays. It was all set up according to what was convenient in Utah, of course. Children under 12 at that time met during Sunday School apart from the adults, in what was called “Junior Sunday School” (much as we have Primary separate from the regular Sunday School today).
Junior Sunday School would meet in its own small assembly room just like Primary does today. On Fast and Testimony Sunday, the kids would have their OWN testimony meeting in Junior Sunday School.
One Fast Sunday right after we began attending, I was sitting with Lainie in Junior Sunday School, and the teachers asked for those who wished, to bear their testimony. You did this simply by standing up, with your arms folded, and speaking so everyone could hear.
That Sunday, Lainie was called on for her testimony. She shot up out of her seat and said “I’m thankful for this church, and my family, and President DAVID MO MCKAY!”
President David O. McKay was the prophet at that time.
Thinking of Times Past
December 28, 2007 | Nostalgia | Comments [1]
Our house was dressed to the hilt with Christmas decorations from one end to the other, and no one to see them but us….and then came Lainie….and then today came Tony, Lauren, and Austin. We were so happy that they came. Luis made some chili, and nobody seemed in a hurry to go. Of course, the kids (meaning Lauren, Austin, and Jordan headed off to the living room, and grabbed remotes, and started whacking away at new games that jordan got for Christmas (I guess) Jordan went home with Tony. If only we could have snuck Teyla in the back seat, we would have done it.
Lainie made the mistake of playing with Teyla for five minutes, and now she hounds Lainie for hours. Lainie wore her out this afternoon. She took her to the park, and then strolled her for an hour, until she fell asleep. (Teyla, not Lainie).
I am so happy that Lainie is here. I hope she’ll be comfortable enough to stay for awhile, but she just can’t sleep well at night, and being away from home may be really tough on her, and she may decide that she has to go back home.
Buddy, I went to your “My Space” photos for the first time tonight. Lainie showed Carmen and me how to get there. I wish I had all of those photos for your book. But you can add them when I send you your Album. If I can get your album ready for Lainie to take back with her – I will.
I hope everything went well and all of you enjoyed your Christmas. I loved Christmas when all of you were little. By the way, Bud, did you get your Christmas ornament? Tony was here today, and inasmuch as Brenda snatched up the green mouse (bought at the same time as the blue velvet clock, and both being forty years old), and I gave Ben and Julie the ornament that I made in Relief Society either in 1974, the year Ben was born, or 1975. Tony went off today with the little clown, which is approximately between fifteen or twenty years old.
Bill, there is a ragged plastic ornament that was bought when we lived on Jefferson Avenue. Since it isn’t in such great shape, I’m sending you that one, and another one. It was bought at the same time as Tony’s clown. It’s a little stocking with a candy cane, two presents, and a doll head, hanging out of it. It’s getting a little dingy, but it has to be at least 39 years old.
Now, let’s see. That takes care of everybody but Beth. I have two very pretty bells left from a set that I must have bought twenty years ago. Or maybe the little deer?? He’s old. Brenda had the right idea. She bought a Christmas ornament representative of each year since she and Darrell married. Or…maybe she said since Crystal’s first Christmas.
Take a lesson from this, and put your ornaments in order.
I’m feeling the old letdown “after Christmas blues” now, so it’s time to begin removing all remnants of Christmas, beginning tomorrow.
Just Remembering
December 24, 2007 | Nostalgia | No Comments
The House is silent now, at 21:22 AM on Monday Morning (Christmas Evening just beginning). I have just finished making the expected cornbread dressing and cleaning up with Maria’s help. She got out her air mattress, and I went to get sheets and found two pairs of pajamas and a shirt that I had stashed away for somebody for Christmas and couldn’t remember anything about it. She pounced on one pair. She’s diddling in the kitchen, and I’m in here. I was in the livingroom, checking out the old Christmas ornaments,and who to give them to. First come first serve. Buddy should have his by now. Maria chose the twin to Buddy’s. Carmen gets the little blue velvet clock. The little green mouse is unclaimed. It was bought in 1968, along with the grandfather clock, but I’m giving that one to Tony. He’s coming Wednesday. He was six months old, crawling around on the floors of that small, matchbox house that we lived in on Jefferson Avenue.
The ornament that I made in relief society is about 32 years old and in mint condition. I took it to Enrichment Meeting the other night, and pulled it out, and showed it to the sisters seated at my table, and they expressed a yawning interest, until I told them that it was thirty-two years old, and then it was “WOW.” I’m thinking Lainie will like that one. She will have been about twelve years old at the time. There’s an old clown and a tiny, stuffed stocking that are at least twenty years old in pretty good condition still. Otherwise, there are various works of this and that and that and this. fhings that have come, served their time,and vanished forever. Has anyone seen the last of the pretty little candy candy canes. They should have made it for at least three Christmases. Nope.
Past history, before they evengot to be history
A Birthday to be Remembered
December 19, 2007 | Nostalgia | Comments [3]
It was difficult to pick a category. But….HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BUDDY! Your Dad and I were invited to eat Christmas dinner with the Westcotts. I had a one week old son, and was barely out of the hospital. Doris Westcott decorated our apartment, and your Dad bought the funniest Christmas tree I ever saw. The two branches on top of the tree looked like they were waving at us. He had bought a new set of ornaments for the tree. Nothing special. They were shaped like large teardrops. There were twelve of them. Colors of pink and green; blue, purple, and that’s all I remember.
The Westcotts never ceased to amaze me. Bill Westcott stood up and cut the turkey at the table. He sliced the pieces so paper -thin that you could see through them. And Doris’s Yankee bread stuffing was out of this world. Those two were well-bred and well brought up. He was a West Point graduate, and I forget what university she attended, but I was the poor “just a high school graduate” in the foursome, and I never could play “bridge” worth a shoot. It bothered your Dad something awful that I was poorly educated, and didn’t seem to excel at anything. But….I THINK this was about YOU. And at the time, I was holding my brand new baby boy, and I thought I was on top of the world. It was a wonderful Christmas. I had my little baby, and Mary had her baby, although she had her baby on April 6th, as I learned much later.
Your’s is still a birthday to be remembered. I started writing this post on December 18th, but I heard the cuckoo clock strike twelve-0-clock. Oops.
love eternally,
your mother, Elaine
Letters from Germany
November 25, 2007 | Nostalgia | Comments [4]
I decided to sift through my letters that I wrote to my parents from Germany (Daddy saved them) and see what I could find about Bill, Jr.’s antics when he was a baby. I ran across a letter that told about Bill, Sr. hitting a German man and breaking several bones and putting him in the hospital for nine months. Bill was being sued, and I never said anything else about it! I have no memory of that!
POPPY/POP/DADDY
November 3, 2007 | Nostalgia | No Comments
My beloved father, and grandfather to all of you, and great-grandfather to your children who never knew him, died twenty-eight years ago November 1st. I haven’t stopped crying. Even now, I can hardly write this. The mere thought of my parents sends causes the tears to literally fall like rain. I miss them so much, especially this past year, and most especially my mother. She’s been gone for forty-eight years. I can hardly bear it, and will stop writing. The tears are splashing everywhere. I want to see her so much that I purely ache all over.