One's perception of time is relative to circumstance, I think. Seems as if I've been riding a virtual tilt-a-whirl of late, so time is somewhat blurred, much like the colors of a rainbow bleeding into each other... Music ignites my thinking and the lyrics I hear spark curious thought about the "color of time..."
Good sense, innocence cripplin' mankind
Dead kings, many things I can't define
Occasions, persuasions clutter your mind
Incense and peppermints, the color of time
I'm sure I first heard these lyrics on AM radio in 1967, but they were just popular noise to me then. Fifty years ago, in late April, 1968, just after my sixteenth birthday, I went with friends to see the Beach Boys, Buffalo Springfield, and the one-hit wonder Strawberry Alarm Clock at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis. I was most interested in seeing Buffalo Springfield and I remain a captured fan of this illustrious folk rock group whose members split up to go separate ways only a few short weeks after this particular concert. Strawberry Alarm Clock opened the show and I'm certain they played more than one song, but their "one hit," "Incense and Peppermints" is the only one I recall hearing that night. Of course, it was... How could I forget it? It is regularly heard on the airwaves still today... "the color of time..."
After several decades of this song running through my head, the words of "Incense and Peppermints" have taken on a brighter tone. The mid to late '60s was a colorful time... My mind has been expanded a bit since those more innocent days. The psychedelic rock era was in full swing... My turntable was stacked with the vinyl sounds of groups like the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Vanilla Fudge, Jefferson Airplane, Traffic, The Electric Prunes, and Strawberry Alarm Clock. Even the Beach Boys surfed the psychedelic waves with "Good Vibrations" during this musical revolution. The fashion world was reflective of the loud, electric sounds that were in vogue in these "groovy" times. Girls in "pop art" mini-skirts and Bohemian style dresses caught my attention. To get in step, I turned to paisley shirts and bell bottom jeans. Such an interesting time to be young and impressionable...
At sixteen, "good sense" was not always at my beck and call. Some of my actions in those days were not particularly representative of "innocence" either. Yet, there are "many things I can't define" contributing to "cripplin' mankind" and I'm not so sure that "good sense" and "innocence" are among them. In observation of today's world, I'm leaning more in the direction of nonsense and ignorance as primary suspects in the crippling of man's kindness toward others unlike themselves or those with different ideas. The "talking heads" on the television screens clutter my mind with misrepresentations of facts pertinent to witnessed "occasions" in effort to persuade me to see things as they want me to see them as opposed to the way things have actually occurred. Seems they're dressing up their opinions to look like news. Or at least that is what I think is happening...
Who cares what games we choose?
Little to win, but nothin' to lose
Incense and peppermints,
Meaningless nouns
Turn on, tune in,
Turn your eyes around
Look at yourself, look at yourself
Look at yourself, look at yourself
There are those certain board games and some low stakes games of chance where there is little, if "nothin' to lose," but some of life's "games" have real consequences when the rules aren't clear. Risks can quickly override rewards when the message is muddy. Sound decision making requires good information and I think I hear some "news" reporters playing games with "meaningless nouns" and verbs. Relevant facts are cast aside in favor of quasi-fictional accounts to
peak our interest and to boil our blood. I'm trying to remember the
tipping point of the wrecking of civility. Oh well, that is a topic of conversation for another time and place, but I will "turn my eyes around" and "tune in" to the voices that continue to guide me through the maze of day to day living. Many of those voices could be heard on my proving ground even before I was born. I reflect...
2018 has been a controversial year on the national and international fronts. As matter of fact, Oxford Dictionary's descriptive word of the year for 2018 is "toxic"... But has it been any more contentious than any other point in the colorful history of our world? I arbitrarily choose 1948 because it fits my personal timeline... My destiny was somewhat jump-started that year when my mother moved from the northeast Arkansas hamlet of Manila shortly after her high school graduation to Newport, Arkansas to live with relatives and to work. On a roll of the dice, my father had made his way to Newport shortly before. They would marry in 1950 and I would arrive on scene in 1952...
Back to 1948 to glimpse at the news of the day... (1) Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian pacifist and leader of that country's independence movement, is assassinated; (2) the Winter Olympic games resumed in the neutral Switzerland for the first time since 1936 with the axis countries of Germany and Japan being refused invitation and the Soviet Union choosing not to participate; (3) Czechoslovakian government falls to the Communist Party; (4) U.S. Supreme Court rules religious instruction in public schools violates the Constitution; (5) the Cold War escalates with the Soviet blockade of West Berlin; (6) the movie "Gentlemen's Agreement," which is focused on anti-Semitism, wins the Academy Award for Best Picture; (7) the Marshall Plan was put into place to aid in the reconstruction of Western European economies following WWII; (8) Israel becomes an independent nation and one day later invasive forces from Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq kick-off the Arab-Israeli War; (9) the Soviet Union initiates the deportation of more than 100,000 Lithuanians to Siberia to repress resistance to Soviet policies; (10) the era of apartheid begins in South Africa when Jan Smuts becomes Prime Minister; (11) Albert I, the first U.S. monkey astronaut, is launched into space, but dies during the mission; (12) U.S. President Truman signs executive order ending racial segregation in U.S. Armed Forces; (13) Korea formally splits into two republics; (14) United Nations adopts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and creates the World Health Organization; (15) the Long Playing Record (LP) is made of vinyl and played at 33 rpm and the transistor radio is invented; (16) Harry Truman defies all political expectations in defeating Thomas Dewey for the U.S. presidency...
2018 has been a controversial year on the national and international fronts. As matter of fact, Oxford Dictionary's descriptive word of the year for 2018 is "toxic"... But has it been any more contentious than any other point in the colorful history of our world? I arbitrarily choose 1948 because it fits my personal timeline... My destiny was somewhat jump-started that year when my mother moved from the northeast Arkansas hamlet of Manila shortly after her high school graduation to Newport, Arkansas to live with relatives and to work. On a roll of the dice, my father had made his way to Newport shortly before. They would marry in 1950 and I would arrive on scene in 1952...
Back to 1948 to glimpse at the news of the day... (1) Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian pacifist and leader of that country's independence movement, is assassinated; (2) the Winter Olympic games resumed in the neutral Switzerland for the first time since 1936 with the axis countries of Germany and Japan being refused invitation and the Soviet Union choosing not to participate; (3) Czechoslovakian government falls to the Communist Party; (4) U.S. Supreme Court rules religious instruction in public schools violates the Constitution; (5) the Cold War escalates with the Soviet blockade of West Berlin; (6) the movie "Gentlemen's Agreement," which is focused on anti-Semitism, wins the Academy Award for Best Picture; (7) the Marshall Plan was put into place to aid in the reconstruction of Western European economies following WWII; (8) Israel becomes an independent nation and one day later invasive forces from Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq kick-off the Arab-Israeli War; (9) the Soviet Union initiates the deportation of more than 100,000 Lithuanians to Siberia to repress resistance to Soviet policies; (10) the era of apartheid begins in South Africa when Jan Smuts becomes Prime Minister; (11) Albert I, the first U.S. monkey astronaut, is launched into space, but dies during the mission; (12) U.S. President Truman signs executive order ending racial segregation in U.S. Armed Forces; (13) Korea formally splits into two republics; (14) United Nations adopts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and creates the World Health Organization; (15) the Long Playing Record (LP) is made of vinyl and played at 33 rpm and the transistor radio is invented; (16) Harry Truman defies all political expectations in defeating Thomas Dewey for the U.S. presidency...
Some of these events from seventy years ago are eerily similar to some goings on in present day... It is as if an artist is painting the same landscape from a slightly different vantage point. The "color of time"???
Look at yourself, look at yourself
Yeah, yeah, yeah
To divide this cock-eyed world into two
Throw your pride to one side, it's the least you can do
Beatniks and politics, nothing is new
A yardstick for lunatics, one point of view
From my "one point of view," "nothing is new." Yet the central themes of these select events from four short years before my birth and the people who taught me up about them, effectively have influenced the color pattern of my world. In looking at those happenings, I see illustrations of debate over basic human rights, alienation of others when in disagreement, segregation of peoples unlike those in power, sacrifice to expand horizons, surprise on the political front, and invention to enhance entertainment. Each of us can color these pictures as we wish and interpret their meaning accordingly...
I'm going to jump into my time machine on this final day of 2018 and go back to some places I've been to cast my eye upon the "color of time"...
First stop, sixty years ago, 1958, Newport, Arkansas... I enter first grade at Walnut Street School totally oblivious to the world around me except for the friends in my class and the fun we have on the playground. I go to church and play Little League baseball with some of these same friends and a few others my age who go to East Newport School on "the other side" of town. The schools in Newport are segregated in the late '50s, so all the faces I see at school are white. But to my good fortune, Elteaser Balentine, a young black woman only 19 years of age when she began working for my family, looks after me and my sister during this time. I grew to love her and still do... So, from my "Eltea experience," I get to see people for who they are. Black and white are colors without hue and I see them in similar light... Sometimes too much light, sometimes not enough... The "colors" of this early time in my life are basically associated with the Crayola crayon box that sits on my desk in Mrs. Shoffner's first grade class room... 1958 is darkened a bit by the traumatic experience of my baby sister, Ann Marie, dying shortly after birth due to complications from spina bifida. Could she have overcome this health issue in today's advanced medical environs? I can't know since my time machine is not capable of bringing her back to present day with me. The color is changing on my watch; it must be time to move on...
I get back into my time machine, a bit anxious about my next stop. I'm not sure I want my memories to get confused by facts. Dagnabbit, I sound somewhat like a 2018 "news" reporter! I touch down in 1968, I'm 16 years old and pretty smart. When I dialed up 1968 as a destination, I was thinking that 2018 was tumultuous, but then again... Fifty years ago... When it comes to color, think tie-dyed or a Jackson Pollock abstract! The news is splattered with the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, the racial turbulence surrounding the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and the riots in other major U.S. cities, the unpopular Vietnam conflict punctuated by the My lai incident, the Poor Peoples March on Washington, D.C., and the Black Power salute made in protest by Tommy Smith and John Carlos at the '68 Olympic Games in Mexico City. Living in northeast Arkansas isolates me from much of this turmoil, but I still find myself perplexed and somewhat shaken by these goings on. More breaking "news"... Apollo 8 orbits the moon as the first manned space mission to do so and the U.S. Supreme Court invalidates an Arkansas statute that prohibited the teaching of evolution in public schools. As a personal aside, I achieve the rank of Eagle Scout alongside my friends Clay Wright and the Scoggins twins, Terry and Eddie. I go to a concert in Memphis to see The Beach Boys, Buffalo Springfield, and Strawberry Alarm Clock... But then you knew that! And the Newport Greyhounds go undefeated in football in the Fall of '68... The color of this time is awash in Orange and Black!
Before returning to the cockpit of my time machine, I attempt to put some things together in my littered mind... Like a jig-saw puzzle, some pieces fit nicely, but there are some "things" that don't fit my way of thinking...
I quickly reflect on the assassinations of Gandhi, King, and Kennedy and wonder... Into the future, I have had opportunity to walk in places visited by these men and study their respective peaceful approaches to conflict resolution... In the aftermath of their deaths, I scratch my head...
My dad often urged me to invite any adversary over to my house "to play" if and when our disagreements got out of hand, yet the example set in the revival of the Olympic Games in '48 fails this test...
The progress made in the space program from '48 to '68 seems to have stalled after man stepped on the moon in 1969... I guess it is simply a matter of money like so many things are, but I don't like giving up in light of the sacrifices made to get to that point...
I ponder the gap in the U.S. Supreme Court rulings relative to ceasing religious teachings in public schools and invalidating the prohibition of teaching evolution in Arkansas public schools... What was being taught in Arkansas in the arena of human origin, if not creation and/or evolution?...
And why can't "we" get along? "We" still have a lot of work to do with respect to human relations in America... This is not a "paint by numbers" world... I'm thinking we need to color outside the lines in search of some common ground...
I'm certainly thankful for those 1948 inventions of the transistor radio and the 33 rpm record album! The music from these gadgets saturated my soul with psychedelic sounds in my youth keeping me in tune with the world around me while distracting me from the chaos...
I turn the music up real loud and point my time machine into the direction of 2018... I had intended to make some additional stops in the past, but will save those trips for another day. My plans for 2019 may allow more "free" time for such excursions...
I touch down back in present day just in time to tear the final page from the 2018 calendar... In most respects, 2018 has not been much different from any of my previous 66 years... Not so much the same old carnival ride, but an opportunity to jump on a different roller coaster with a few new twists and turns... A good number of passengers who have been riding life's roller coasters with me in the past got off over the past fifteen months to go "home..." I'm already missing the laughter shared on these past "rides" with the likes of my classmate Susan Baker Houle; my younger cousin Robin Meacham; neighborhood mate Buddy Conner; college party pal Van "White Dog" Spence; the brothers Waddill, Robert and Ronnie; former co-worker Neil Ainley, and my fun friend, Jane Roberts Parnell. I also miss the smiling faces and cautious voices of the parents of several childhood and high school playmates, especially those of Carolyn Wright, Patsy Forrester, John Brand, J. D. Smart, Ed Scoggins, Mary Schratz Balch, Madge Bullard, Anita Proffitt, and Jimmie Heard. Other family friends who have recently exited the midway of life's carnival grounds include Kern Kennedy, Emogene Morris, Sally Molleston, Nadean Humphreys, Kathryn Ann Torian, Eloise Bell, John Burgin, Sheila Hammonds, Bill Holmes, Jack Hogan, Polly Sharp, J. C. McMinn, John Peel Johnston, Pam Wilmans, Kyle Sanders, Russell Stobaugh, and my young friend Hayley Evans Ozier. As these faces fade from my vision, I hear the spelling of R-E-S-P-E-C-T artfully sung by the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, who also left life's main stage earlier this year. Each of them now absent from sight, but forever in my heart filled up with love and respect for their roles in my life...
Our existing world is a bit "cock-eyed" and the essential ingredient of "respect" necessary to realign relationships is missing from the dialogue amongst those we expect to be leading the way. A "yardstick for lunatics" appears to be the proper tool for gauging distance in "politics," since the distance "across the aisle" in Congress is wider than the Grand Canyon. To keep my head on straight during this topsy-turvy 2018, I took a few music oriented side trips to distract my attention away from political shenanigans... I wandered over to City Winery in Nashville to see The Zombies alongside friends Tracy and Keith Croft and Martha Hatley Saino early in the year. As a long time fan, it was nice to see The Zombies elected to the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame just a few weeks back. I also darted down to Helena in early October to catch Dave Mason's and Steve Cropper's Rock 'n Soul Review at the King Biscuit Blues Festival with friends Floye and Rodger Hurt. Kathryn and I attended both the Chicago Blues Festival and Chicago Jazz Festival this past Summer. The highlight of these events was being a part of "the in-crowd" watching Ramsey Lewis in his announced final Jazz Festival appearance. We caught Joan Armatrading at City Winery in Chicago and met new friends Kevin Bunten and Patrick Houlihan there. Kat and I also saw the Bacon Brothers in a lively show at the Sheid in Mountain Home and we hosted the Legendary Pacers on their late Summer stop in our fair city in the Ozarks. I am saddened by Kern Kennedy's passing from this life just a few days ago. Kern was the last surviving member of the "original" Sonny Burgess and the Pacers group, the house band at the Silver Moon Club, Newport's iconic honky-tonk. "We wanna boogie!... Man, you oughta see the lights when the sun goes down, just a poundin' and a boogyin' and a paintin' that town..." The color of time...
I thoroughly enjoyed three "homecomings" of sorts during 2018... In October, I attended the reunion of the undefeated 1968 Newport Greyhounds football team. What a memorable night! Hats off to David Black and John G. Pennington for organizing the get together of "old dogs" prior to the Hounds hosting the Manila Lions under the Friday Night Lights that shine so brightly on the Newport football tradition. It was really cool watching Cash Forrester lead the Hounds to victory as the starting quarterback. Cash is the son of classmate Bobby Forrester, who played quarterback on the '68 team. The real fun was listening to "the stories" of games past and sharing in the laughter with old friends and coaches. On the field at halftime, friends represented each of the '68 team members who have departed life's playing field since those glory days... Donny Appleton, Eddie Crawford, Billy Don Summers, Buddy Conner, Calvin James, Terry Scoggins, Jerry Winston, Glenn Gay...
Go Hounds!
Later in October, the Norfork United Methodist Church, celebrated 125 years of service to its congregants and the community. It was a glorious day alongside our church family in recognition and remembrance of those who established the firm foundation of this little church in the Ozarks all those years ago.
In early November, Kathryn and I attended Homecoming events at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro and a reunion of my Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity brothers. I raise my glass filled with fond memories and fun moments in honor of Steve Collar, Mike Dickson, Woody Harrelson, and Paul Gauriglia for organizing and hosting our time together. My Big Brother Keith Croft and his make-shift band of Jimmy Little, Cindy Wiggins Paul, Mike Dickson, and Dave Pierce played some mighty fine tunes for our listening pleasure on Friday night at the Brickhouse Grill. And Woody Harrelson hosted us in Tail Gate City prior to the game on Saturday. Such an enjoyable weekend in the company of good friends...
Perhaps the most joyous occasion we attended in 2018 was the January wedding of daughter Evelyn to David Morris. Evelyn and her daughter, Claire, join David and his daughter, Cameron, in making their home in El Dorado. A beautiful union on a beautiful day! Sometimes the pieces to life's puzzle just come together perfectly...
And to add a bit more fun to our everyday living, Kat and I welcomed a new puppy to our household in late 2017. We celebrated Addison's first birthday in August of this year. She is keeping our 14 year old Jackson in line... Both are West Highland Terriers with sparkling personalities...
Having grown up in Arkansas, I can pretty well tell time by the colors around me... The light pastels of the wild flowers in Spring time; the sharp blue skies and green pastures of Summer; the vibrant red, yellow, and orange Autumn leaves adorning the trees before they Fall; the dull brown and pale gray shades of bleak mid-Winter... The color of time... My forever friend, Clay Wright, has taken up paint brush and palette to become quite the water-colorist in this retirement. The coloring of his landscapes is magnificent!
In wrapping up the 2018 Christmas season, my life long pal, Freeman Travis, took me for a brief ride in his time machine. What a treat! We visited downtown Newport at the 1954 Christmas parade on Front Street... Santa' sleigh was pulled by real reindeer; a sight one doesn't normally see in northeast Arkansas. I had no memory of this event, but there I was at two years old, in my daddy's arms, watching the parade as part of an extremely large crowd. Freeman's time machine has a video of this parade taken by his dad, Mr. Buddy Travis, playing on a display screen for all to see. You may view it as posted on my page in Facebookland... Thanks for sharing and thanks for the "new" memory, Freeman!!!
Well, the hour is getting late... It is time to set my Strawberry Alarm Clock for early morning, 2019 and the color of a new day... I don't want to miss anything!
I'm Miles from Nowhere... guess I'll take my time...
joe
Before returning to the cockpit of my time machine, I attempt to put some things together in my littered mind... Like a jig-saw puzzle, some pieces fit nicely, but there are some "things" that don't fit my way of thinking...
I quickly reflect on the assassinations of Gandhi, King, and Kennedy and wonder... Into the future, I have had opportunity to walk in places visited by these men and study their respective peaceful approaches to conflict resolution... In the aftermath of their deaths, I scratch my head...
My dad often urged me to invite any adversary over to my house "to play" if and when our disagreements got out of hand, yet the example set in the revival of the Olympic Games in '48 fails this test...
The progress made in the space program from '48 to '68 seems to have stalled after man stepped on the moon in 1969... I guess it is simply a matter of money like so many things are, but I don't like giving up in light of the sacrifices made to get to that point...
I ponder the gap in the U.S. Supreme Court rulings relative to ceasing religious teachings in public schools and invalidating the prohibition of teaching evolution in Arkansas public schools... What was being taught in Arkansas in the arena of human origin, if not creation and/or evolution?...
And why can't "we" get along? "We" still have a lot of work to do with respect to human relations in America... This is not a "paint by numbers" world... I'm thinking we need to color outside the lines in search of some common ground...
I'm certainly thankful for those 1948 inventions of the transistor radio and the 33 rpm record album! The music from these gadgets saturated my soul with psychedelic sounds in my youth keeping me in tune with the world around me while distracting me from the chaos...
I turn the music up real loud and point my time machine into the direction of 2018... I had intended to make some additional stops in the past, but will save those trips for another day. My plans for 2019 may allow more "free" time for such excursions...
I touch down back in present day just in time to tear the final page from the 2018 calendar... In most respects, 2018 has not been much different from any of my previous 66 years... Not so much the same old carnival ride, but an opportunity to jump on a different roller coaster with a few new twists and turns... A good number of passengers who have been riding life's roller coasters with me in the past got off over the past fifteen months to go "home..." I'm already missing the laughter shared on these past "rides" with the likes of my classmate Susan Baker Houle; my younger cousin Robin Meacham; neighborhood mate Buddy Conner; college party pal Van "White Dog" Spence; the brothers Waddill, Robert and Ronnie; former co-worker Neil Ainley, and my fun friend, Jane Roberts Parnell. I also miss the smiling faces and cautious voices of the parents of several childhood and high school playmates, especially those of Carolyn Wright, Patsy Forrester, John Brand, J. D. Smart, Ed Scoggins, Mary Schratz Balch, Madge Bullard, Anita Proffitt, and Jimmie Heard. Other family friends who have recently exited the midway of life's carnival grounds include Kern Kennedy, Emogene Morris, Sally Molleston, Nadean Humphreys, Kathryn Ann Torian, Eloise Bell, John Burgin, Sheila Hammonds, Bill Holmes, Jack Hogan, Polly Sharp, J. C. McMinn, John Peel Johnston, Pam Wilmans, Kyle Sanders, Russell Stobaugh, and my young friend Hayley Evans Ozier. As these faces fade from my vision, I hear the spelling of R-E-S-P-E-C-T artfully sung by the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, who also left life's main stage earlier this year. Each of them now absent from sight, but forever in my heart filled up with love and respect for their roles in my life...
Our existing world is a bit "cock-eyed" and the essential ingredient of "respect" necessary to realign relationships is missing from the dialogue amongst those we expect to be leading the way. A "yardstick for lunatics" appears to be the proper tool for gauging distance in "politics," since the distance "across the aisle" in Congress is wider than the Grand Canyon. To keep my head on straight during this topsy-turvy 2018, I took a few music oriented side trips to distract my attention away from political shenanigans... I wandered over to City Winery in Nashville to see The Zombies alongside friends Tracy and Keith Croft and Martha Hatley Saino early in the year. As a long time fan, it was nice to see The Zombies elected to the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame just a few weeks back. I also darted down to Helena in early October to catch Dave Mason's and Steve Cropper's Rock 'n Soul Review at the King Biscuit Blues Festival with friends Floye and Rodger Hurt. Kathryn and I attended both the Chicago Blues Festival and Chicago Jazz Festival this past Summer. The highlight of these events was being a part of "the in-crowd" watching Ramsey Lewis in his announced final Jazz Festival appearance. We caught Joan Armatrading at City Winery in Chicago and met new friends Kevin Bunten and Patrick Houlihan there. Kat and I also saw the Bacon Brothers in a lively show at the Sheid in Mountain Home and we hosted the Legendary Pacers on their late Summer stop in our fair city in the Ozarks. I am saddened by Kern Kennedy's passing from this life just a few days ago. Kern was the last surviving member of the "original" Sonny Burgess and the Pacers group, the house band at the Silver Moon Club, Newport's iconic honky-tonk. "We wanna boogie!... Man, you oughta see the lights when the sun goes down, just a poundin' and a boogyin' and a paintin' that town..." The color of time...
I thoroughly enjoyed three "homecomings" of sorts during 2018... In October, I attended the reunion of the undefeated 1968 Newport Greyhounds football team. What a memorable night! Hats off to David Black and John G. Pennington for organizing the get together of "old dogs" prior to the Hounds hosting the Manila Lions under the Friday Night Lights that shine so brightly on the Newport football tradition. It was really cool watching Cash Forrester lead the Hounds to victory as the starting quarterback. Cash is the son of classmate Bobby Forrester, who played quarterback on the '68 team. The real fun was listening to "the stories" of games past and sharing in the laughter with old friends and coaches. On the field at halftime, friends represented each of the '68 team members who have departed life's playing field since those glory days... Donny Appleton, Eddie Crawford, Billy Don Summers, Buddy Conner, Calvin James, Terry Scoggins, Jerry Winston, Glenn Gay...
Go Hounds!
Later in October, the Norfork United Methodist Church, celebrated 125 years of service to its congregants and the community. It was a glorious day alongside our church family in recognition and remembrance of those who established the firm foundation of this little church in the Ozarks all those years ago.
In early November, Kathryn and I attended Homecoming events at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro and a reunion of my Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity brothers. I raise my glass filled with fond memories and fun moments in honor of Steve Collar, Mike Dickson, Woody Harrelson, and Paul Gauriglia for organizing and hosting our time together. My Big Brother Keith Croft and his make-shift band of Jimmy Little, Cindy Wiggins Paul, Mike Dickson, and Dave Pierce played some mighty fine tunes for our listening pleasure on Friday night at the Brickhouse Grill. And Woody Harrelson hosted us in Tail Gate City prior to the game on Saturday. Such an enjoyable weekend in the company of good friends...
Perhaps the most joyous occasion we attended in 2018 was the January wedding of daughter Evelyn to David Morris. Evelyn and her daughter, Claire, join David and his daughter, Cameron, in making their home in El Dorado. A beautiful union on a beautiful day! Sometimes the pieces to life's puzzle just come together perfectly...
And to add a bit more fun to our everyday living, Kat and I welcomed a new puppy to our household in late 2017. We celebrated Addison's first birthday in August of this year. She is keeping our 14 year old Jackson in line... Both are West Highland Terriers with sparkling personalities...
Incense and peppermints
The color of time
The recording of "Incense and Peppermints" has an interesting back story... While Mark Weitz, the band's keyboard player, and Ed King, lead guitarist, collaborated on the writing of "Incense and Peppermints," neither are credited as its songwriters due to some political infighting between the band's manager and record producer. Prior to the record's release, the song was sent to John Carter of the band Rainy Daze, who conjured up the lyrics, and Tim Gilbert, who tweaked the melody. At release, Carter and Gilbert were solely credited with the song. Another quirky twist surrounds the lead singer on the record. Greg Munford, a 16 year old singer with The Shapes was only in the studio to sing back-up vocals, but after several takes with different members of Strawberry Alarm Clock taking turns at singing lead with no good results, they turned to Munford to sing lead. Munford never joined Strawberry Alarm Clock, but his voice took "Incense and Peppermints" to number one on the charts for Strawberry Alarm Clock... Ed King, who would later join Lynyrd Skynyrd, died in August of this year at the age of 68...
Having grown up in Arkansas, I can pretty well tell time by the colors around me... The light pastels of the wild flowers in Spring time; the sharp blue skies and green pastures of Summer; the vibrant red, yellow, and orange Autumn leaves adorning the trees before they Fall; the dull brown and pale gray shades of bleak mid-Winter... The color of time... My forever friend, Clay Wright, has taken up paint brush and palette to become quite the water-colorist in this retirement. The coloring of his landscapes is magnificent!
In wrapping up the 2018 Christmas season, my life long pal, Freeman Travis, took me for a brief ride in his time machine. What a treat! We visited downtown Newport at the 1954 Christmas parade on Front Street... Santa' sleigh was pulled by real reindeer; a sight one doesn't normally see in northeast Arkansas. I had no memory of this event, but there I was at two years old, in my daddy's arms, watching the parade as part of an extremely large crowd. Freeman's time machine has a video of this parade taken by his dad, Mr. Buddy Travis, playing on a display screen for all to see. You may view it as posted on my page in Facebookland... Thanks for sharing and thanks for the "new" memory, Freeman!!!
Well, the hour is getting late... It is time to set my Strawberry Alarm Clock for early morning, 2019 and the color of a new day... I don't want to miss anything!
I'm Miles from Nowhere... guess I'll take my time...
joe
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