I recently had the pleasure of viewing the Ken Burns series titled “Country Music” on NPR.

Not sure why I enjoyed it so much. I have always generally liked country music and have some of it in my personal electronic universe but I did not grow up in a home that celebrated music in any form. We had a record player and a few Christmas albums but that was it. I guess I am in the generation making the transition from radio to TV. My only clear memory of listening to radio was on Saturday nights when the audio version of “Gunsmoke” and “The Lone Ranger” were on. I didn’t listen to music on radio when I was younger and even today I usually tune to talk radio in the car. I was surprised when I found myself tearful during some of the episodes produced by Mr. Burns. Maybe that is a characteristic of country music. It connects with you at some basic level.

Co-incidentally, not much after this, my wife was burrowing through her boxes of papers and brought something to me for identification. It was a program from the Grand Old Opry at Ryman Auditorium on Saturday, June 20, 1964. That summer I was at advanced USAF ROTC summer camp at Sewart AFB in Smyrna, Tennessee near Nashville. On the date above we were all loaded on buses and taken to Nashville. We probably made an impressive sight marching into the auditorium in uniform and filing into the rows of seats.

My recollection of the auditorium was that it was like being in a church. The long rows of dark wood benches were pretty much identical to pews. There was no air conditioning but there were profuse personal hand fans available. The one I used had a reproduction of “The Last Supper” on one side and an advertisement for a funeral home on the other. I don’t have any memory of the music. I enjoyed the distaste expressed by some of my northern comrades with no personal ties to the musical genre.

Looking at the program now I note that the organization seemed to be in intervals associated with a specific sponsor. Some familiar Southern names such as “Luzianne” and “Martha White”, along with “Pet Milk” and others were 30 minutes long while after 10pm there four intervals of 15 minues and associated with names such as “Schick” and “Ford”, The evening concluded with 30 minute intervals of “Coca Cola” and “Lava Soap”. Some well known names are scattered throughout the evening. I guess if you were in more episodes you earned more. I note Porter Wagoner, Roy Acuff, Marty Robbins and June Carter among others.

Lots of claims on the back page by the Opry. Prices quoted make me feel old. Popcorn 10c, Coca Cola 10c and 20c, cushions $1. I assume you had to return the cushion.

Hope you enjoyed the series or plan to view it soon.

First blog entry since moving over to WordPress. There was a facility in Google to name your blog. What do you think of “Clwyddavis in the 21st Century”? I never figured how to trigger a trumpet call when the site was entered. Oh well, it was a little over the top I guess.

What about Ash Wednesday? We shared a celebration with First United Presbyterian day before yesterday on March 6th. We enjoyed a selection of soups and were energized by the number of kids who seemed to like the program. Meaningful conversations were started and satisfied a need for something beyond food. We concluded with ashes being applied by our pastor and the pastor from First United. Later in the evening I saw Chris Cuomo of CNN with ashes on his forehead. We have gone through the Ash application on a couple of other occasions but it is not a long standing custom in my experience. Maybe in most Presbyterian lives. Maybe that is worth a blog.

My first exposure to this feature of Ash Wednesday was in the late 60s. I was in the Air Force stationed in Montana. I got one of those communications dreaded by all junior officers in all branches of service. It included the phrase “…and in addition to his other duties, Lieutenant Davis will serve as Ground Safety Officer”. Yuck, additional duties. Since I was mainly a Personnel Officer I managed to swing a class in managing ground safety programs. It was being taught on the NYU campus in New York. After getting there the class was relocated to a Hotel in midtown Manhattan. Most attendees were staying in nearby hotels anyway. Those of us in uniform were glad to get off a college campus with the news from Vietnam dominating life every day. On the first Wednesday in the new location I was leaving the hotel where the class was being taught and kept encountering folks with ashes on their head. I wondered where the fire was. Little did I know.

FLASHBACK EXPERIENCE – Over the last several years I have developed the habit of keeping up with my reading via eBooks. In the last year I had developed an attachment to the works of David McCullough. I enjoyed his books on The Wright Brothers and the construction of The Panama Canal. I noted that he had a biography of Harry S. Truman and went looking for it. I couldn’t find it in any of my public library haunts. Amazon wanted $17. I finally figured out that the book came out about 25 years ago. I was going to have to get an actual (GASP!) paper version. The Ginter Park Branch called to say my book on Truman had arrived. I experienced the friendliness and helpfulness of the staff and the smell of books. Of course I almost needed help getting the book to the car. There were 962 pages of text and another 200-300 pages of reference material. I forgot books could be so heavy.

I had to renew it once but made it to the end by the second expiration date. I recommend it. I was born in the Roosevelt (Franklin) era and grew up during Truman and Eisenhower. I often would read of some event and think “that was a few days before my 8th birthday” or “two weeks after my 10th birthday”. I need to adjust to think of my life overlapping ancient history. There was a description of Mr. Truman in the last period of his life. I didn’t know if was something Truman said or some phrase by Mr. McCullough. It said Mr. Truman felt like “last leaf on the tree”. And so it goes.

I posted recently about the passing of my brother. He was named Rodney Steven Davis. I don’t have any memory of where the Rodney came from but using it was probably a good way to get on his bad side, not that he had much of a bad side.

We spent our formative years following my father around the Southeast and Texas in pursuit of his USAF career. I was four years older so I had more moves than Steve. Being raised by a career non-commissioned officer can give you a “focused” outlook on life. We never had joblists, we were told to “fall in” and given our “details for the day”. I was bigger than Steve and I had athletics as an intro into the various communities to which we moved. Steve never took a backseat and always had more friends than I did. He was the more social of the two of us. He learned to cook and took up golf. I made cereal and PBJ sandwiches.

My overseas service during the Vietnam period was in Greenland where I was a lieutenant with an office job. I was in the position of having both a brother and father in Vietnam, though at different times. Steve and I both scrambled to find out if our civilian father was okay after the start of the Tet offensive in 1968. I searched to find something in the the Thule AB Greenland exchange to send to Steve while he was an Infantry officer in Vietnam. My plastic bottles of shampoo were not as welcome as some of those aluminum packages of popcorn that could be cooked under primitive conditions. He was wounded twice but made a safe return.

He was the more spontaneous and generous of the two of us. We have a still younger brother, David, who at one time was living in New Hampshire. He found himself needing to make a big change in his life. Steve didn’t think twice of getting a large vehicle and driving to NH and bringing David and his property back to Alabama, helping him find a job and place to live. Steve was one for immediate solutions to problems. We were alike in our politics, reading matter and worship for John Wayne. Even before Facebook and eMail we could meet after 6 months or a year and pick up a conversation where we left it.

I probably won’t miss his “cheesey” moustache and unhealthy attachment to the University of Alabama football but our world has now lost a good man, a great American, father and grandfather.

I’ve lost my brother.

My mom passed away in 2000, I think.  One of our last gifts from her was a plastic ketchup (“catsup” to the literate) bottle filled with green peppers and vinegar.  It was intended as dressing for greens which all Southerners crave.  The dressing was tart without being too hot and really dressed up a “mess” (there is no more accurate adjective) of greens.  By “greens” I usually mean collards or turnip greens.  Maybe the occasional handful of Mustard greens.  Did Yankees conspire to include Kale as a green?

I sometimes swim with the conservatives.  Because of this I get mail from time to time on the subject of Spanish speakers in our society. I will use “Spanish speakers” as a collective term since there are so many subgroups. I hear stuff like “they don’t want to learn English”; “they swell welfare rolls”; “they commit crime out of proportion to their numbers”; “they have more accidents” and so on.  You probably know some more.

I can’t speak to the complete facts on any of this.  I have lived on the border and had up close and personal experience with “Tejano” dentists, policemen, teachers and fellow students. This was in the late 50’s before it was so common to see Spanish speakers in the South-Eastern part of the country. The single individual who enjoyed speaking English more than anyone I ever met was Mr. Barrera, my English teacher in 10th grade. He was a Notre Dame graduate who seemed to roll the words around and get all the juice there was.  He could have been tasting wine.  I know Spanish was spoken on this continent before English. I feel like all the Spanish speakers I have met who came here did so to take care of their family, just like our European ancestors.

They have won all the medals we award, maybe out of proportion to their numbers.

I know that in the early days of WWII a young man named Guadalupe Rocha crossed the border near Laredo, Texas. When he enlisted in the Army no one questioned his intentions.  He had a knack for electronics and was assigned to the Air Corps. He eventually stayed around after the Air Corps became the USAF. He was successful and retired.

Before I forget, early in this process he married my mother’s sister and became my Uncle Johnny. This was responsible for three terrific brown cousins who didn’t speak Spanish.

January 20th, 2013

This was on the sports page of the Richmond-Times-Dispatch. Sorry I didn’t think to credit the writer.

Pursuing one of my vaguely defined retirement plans I set out to read Moby Dick again.

Again!  After downloading a free copy to my Kindle I soon discovered that I had NEVER read Moby Dick the first time.  It is so iconic that I assumed I would start out slow and pick up the pace after things started looking familiar. 

I must have been confusing the book with the movie starring Gregory Peck as Ahab.  No credits listed for the whale.  I may also have read the Classics Comic.  Remember those? 

So the truth is I am not nearly as well read as I thought.  As a result of my pursuit of the white whale I did learn something about Herman Melville.  Most of his writing that was well received during his career was behind him when he wrote Moby Dick. 

My experience has been that Moby Dick may have been the reason for Melville’s professional decline.   I found it also mostly unreadable.  I read it off and on for about six weeks.  I was only a third of the way through.  Melville must have had a contract paying him by the word.  He has an entire chapter on the color white!

I am presently on a Moby Dick break.  Good luck to anyone who sets out.  Keep Mr. Peck in mind.