The Thing about Music....!

 

Memoirs of a Geezer

  

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:         The Thing about Music....!

Those Marvelous Turks make the Most Wonderful Music.. Oh and that's a Picture of Ataturk in the Background! Thank you...
(Can you Spot the Baglama?.... Or is that an Oud?)

That's Him...  That's
Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk!

    Reflection:   Is it a highly prevalent sort of contemplation, or         maybe meditation? A  practice among those who have entered     into the realm of, how shall I put this... GeezerHood, maybe?...  the     Age of "Greater Wisdom" or Elderlyness, perhaps, Historicalness     (could be?)...! Take Music, for example...

    I readily confess that my knowledge of and taste in music is         anything but exemplary, eclectic, or broad based, or extensive.  (Hope I'm not being repetitive or redundant or monotonous or     constant...   You may weigh in with your own observations about my     redundancy, if you wish!)  

   Where was I?!  Oh yes, the realm of music.  As a youngster, or an                   adolescent, I was eager to escape my home life, and thus I resolved to dash away, straw suitcase pre-packed, near at hand, or to seek and find a more propitious means of finding my way in life.

In the end, having come to my senses and having heeded advice from those brighter and perhaps more insightful than my, then, young self, I chose to enlist in the U.S. Armed Services.  You know...  ready availability of shelter, food, clothing, etc.    

Fresh out of secondary school, I reported to the local military recruitment center, swore

the appropriate oath, and before I could ask myself, "What the hell are you doing, you ridiculous bubblehead?..." I was on a Braniff flight, bound for a basic training center in Texas.  The weather was hot in June!  We did a lot of sweating.

Eventually, if we were well behaved (or our training leaders, perhaps, were sick of the sight of us!), we were offered what our lead Training Sergeant termed, "a Patio Break."  The music on its ancient jukebox was exclusively Country, not a standard nor an aria nor an R&R tune within ear shot.  I began to taste straw and alfalfa; I imagined tucking my thumbs into bib overalls, drawling and dribbling "Dixie Speak" and lots of Y'all's, Yonders, Reckons and fixins!

After suffering through the ear-piecing bellowing of training sergeants, calisthenics far too aplenty, "Attentions," "Forward or Backward Marches," and more insults than even my own dear father heaped upon me, I was dispatched to a training school in another

Texas location.  (Thought I'd never get out of Texas...), not to mention never hear another but a country ballad by George Jones, Buck Owens, Patsy Cline, Merle Haggard, Bob Wills, Texas "Fats" Pimpslee...   Hell, even a quite young Willie Nelson?

Then, before I could ask my pal, Rex Winkle, who originated from an obscure village in Southern Utah, "Hey, y'all goin don to the boozy waterin' hole made just for enlisted trash...?" I was sent to a strange foreign land...  TURKEY!  That extraordinary land southeast of

Bulgaria, south of the Black Sea, southwest of Georgia and Armenia, west of Hellas (or Greece, to lots of Americanos!)...  where I listened to lots of Turkish music...

Dede Efendi, Serdar Yilmaz, Baha Yetkin...  and the beautiful tunes of the famous, Zeki Muran (two dots above the "u), including "Let's Tweest Agin Lak We deed Last Sooomer"!  Zeki was the Turkish answer to...  I don't know...  maybe Elvis, maybe Bill Haley...  

We listened to that and other of Zeki's fabled melodies whilst speeding along dark, narrow, gravely roads at night courtesy of our favorite taxi driver, Hikmet, his ancient cab fitted with a 45 RPM record player buried somewhere in the dash board!  He spent more time looking at us in the back seat recommending others of Zeki's modern tunes!  "Face forward, look at the road!!..." someone hollered, brow dripping with sweat!

I mean, the point of all of this is this:   I missed my teenage music years!  Had no idea who were the Beatles, Everly Brothers, Byrds, Doors, Stones, Who, Floyd Pink, Beach Guys...   Truth is, I am very fond of all sorts of music -- Rock, Blues, Standards, Opera,

Who the hell are these oddly
appareled guys again??

Classical stuff, Country too...   It's just that I missed the 60s!  (I was keeping the world safe for democracy after all!!...  something like that!!)

When at last I matriculated, that is, entered University Life, having been honorably dismissed from military service, I had no idea what the hell my classmates or contemporaries were talking about!   "Who the devil are the Shondells, the Rhondells, Pips, people Grateful to be Dead??!!"  I was lost, out of it, ridiculed, but I could sing "Merhaba," "Nasilsinez," "Bishey Deyil," "Teshaker Ederim," and of course "Let's Tweest Again......."   

I should of course mention that one of my military compatriots in Turkey (there were four of us to a barracks room!) had a boat load of 33-1/3 RPM recordings of Warbling Persons...   E.g.  Julie London, Frankie Sinatra, Dean-o, Sammy Davis Junior Junior, Perry C., Billie, Nat, Ray, Mario, Ella, Bing, Pat, Dinah, Judy, Tony, Louie, Eartha, Dorseys, Mills Bros., Woody, Sarah, Fats, Vaughn, Mel Torme (I just remembered his surname!)

In the 70s and 80s I caught up with Willie, Waylon and the boys, having been indoctrinated by them on the aforementioned "Patio's"...  State Fairs, Summerfests, other concert venues!  I'm still a bit dense about popular music.  I constantly ask SweetHeart, Tad, and others, "Who's that?"....  Who sang, "Norwegian Wood Floors...  Do I like that one, SweetHeart"...? 

And thus, to end this foolish reminiscence, I apologize to music purists, to those with encyclopedic knowledge of modern tunes and their composers and singers of songs!  I apologize to Bob, John, George, Ringo, Paul, Norman, Tad and SweetHeart...  (Was there a Norman?)...

(Special Note of Dedication:  For SweetHeart, Tad, Alie, Bethie...  and for those four "insect guys," Zeki (who's probably dead), that saloon owner in Okauchee, and all others dedicated and devoted to all manner of music and to keeping memories alive and tunes warbled when lyrics and melodies or wandering notes wafting on the winds of time enter their thoughts!)

Humbly Submitted 07-16-2025 -- Joel K.

 

   

Good Gosh!... Canals??!! Have We Been Spirited (Moved?) onto a Narrow Boat?... Ridiculous??!!...

 

Memoirs of a Geezer

  

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:           Good Gosh!...  Canals??!!  Have We Been Spirited                                                (Moved?) onto a Narrow Boat?...  Ridiculous??!!...

What is it about relocating in the Age of Geezerhood that's strange, almost ghostly, like a haunting!  I look about myself and I'm on the stern, tiller in hand, ploughing resolutely on a slender canal, slowly, as if having just having acquired my own narrow boat.  Have to reach my destination...  many canal miles to navigate!!...   

Its predominant color is dark blue, the boat, that is.  "Geezer One -- Destination Unknown!" painted boldly in brilliant white, emblazoned on the side, in unmistakably large lettering!  "Not for Hire"!  I recognize the font!  It's "Shrikhand Bold."  I'm quite certain...  

(I think I acquired this font during one of my recent attempts at fashioning a logo design for a client...  Good Grief!!  Was the client a British narrow boater??!)  

Very strange indeed, eerie.  I awake in the night gripping the tiller, knuckles white, bulging.  My hand cramping!  I cannot seem to release my vise-like grip.  My thoughts

So many tunnels in the
canals!  Scary sometimes!  

slip from sloshing water, bleating sheep, honking and quacking geese and ducks.   I moor along the tow path side, tied up to a bollard, sweating profusely...  I pad to the kitchen and check the batteries, walk cautiously along the gunwales to check the elevation of the solar panels at the top of the boat...    

Wait a minute....   What!!??  I'm in the bathroom.  I grip the sink.  Turn on the faucet and splash water on my exhausted

mug.  Still, I rock back and forth as if the motion of the narrow boat and those passing on my left cause a wake and an uneasy loss of balance! A passing captain, right hand on his own tiller, waves with his left!  Smirking!  Who was that?  Someone I know?...,

Insane! bizarre!  It's the move, the relocation.  Odd dreams?  Panic?  Maybe it's "Narrow Boat Journeys"?  Television programs show them on certain, strange streaming channels!  Maybe that's it...   Channels, Canals...!!!  Is that the catalyst??!!

I must get back into bed.  I must sleep.  I must focus my thoughts away from Narrow Boats and thousands of miles of British canals.  Realign dreams!  In another incarnation,

Ghost Canal Boat?  Was it actually 
lost under the turbid ripples?  Does it plow
aimlessly, Haunting the canals
to this very day?

perhaps?  Transporting coal to foundries and iron works!?  That damn steam train!  It's destroying our haulage business...  We'll lose everything...  Wait, I'm awake again.  It's that "alarm-like" freight train just south of our building, across the river!  Couple of hundred noisy freight cars and oil tankers, clanking along steel rails!...  Making a hell of a racket!!

The steady clacking of the narrow boat engine.  Four miles an hour...  I'll never get to wherever the hell I'm going...   More sheep!  Swans dart across my bow, paddling furiously for the safety of the other side of the canal!  DRAT and BLAST!  I drop my windlass into the canal.  I must don my snorkel and sea goggles and execute a search.  I hate plunging into the filthy canal soup!  I must recover the windlass!!...  Without it I cannot raise the paddles, cannot allow water to flood the lock chamber!!...  

I'm submerged in the liquidity of the dream.  A length of rope is caught in the propeller,

something else....   trapped...  weeds, snarled, waterlogged, putrid, immoveable...  I must raise the weed hatch, stare below, remove the tangled mass...  Can't motor forward...

Obsessed?!  Alas!  Most likely!  Watching too many Narrow Boat adventures.  "Cruising the Cut," "Great Canal Journeys"...  others perhaps?...  That's the trouble.  They invade my dreams...  Hypnotic images!  Those darn things are taking over my usual fantasies!!  I'm drowning in them!  Waterlogged!  That's the whole trouble.  I must start watching mountain climbing adventures...   No...  I might sleep walk, climb, trip...  fall off the balcony!!  HELP!!

Humbly submitted 07-10-2025 -- Joel K.

        

  

 

      

   

Spending Time Wisely... Pondering Identity, Sometimes Our Own, Sometimes that of Others!

 

Memoirs of a Geezer

  

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:             Spending Time Wisely...  Pondering Identity,

                    Sometimes Our Own, Sometimes that of Others!

Deep in the mists of geezerhood, with all of its obscurity, challenges, wonders and expectations -- ever Closer to surrendering the Illusion of Immortality -- in an effort to escape the clutter and cluster of urban smog and dust-scape, we tend to wander...  Where?  Somewhere!  Anywhere...  perhaps north, sometimes in other directions?!

At the beginning of a recent such brief odyssey, we were delighted to spy two BlueJays, each a buzz of glorious color.  As if the pair -- blurred but unable to conceal themselves entirely -- were speed painting their 

primary hues, spreading then onto the contrasting green of flora, some of it incipient, some in the full explosion of spring beauty and color!  

Heading south toward the river, SweetHeart and I were attempting to discover the oddly narrow stream of what we believed to be a tail of the river and how it joined its larger body.  In the end, thwarted by a power pole and impassible shrubbery, we were compelled to cross to the other side.  To no avail, we could not bend our vision to follow its path and the probable junction of a small thread to a larger skein! 

Having crossed, we found ourselves on a flag-bedecked vision of various contours of field and meadow, a greensward, bordered by vestigial woodlands, still spare, just budding in the nascent burst of early springtime.   

In the clubhouse on that purposely limited expanse of greenery, on which a number of combatants were attempting to strike dimpled white spheres, we donated one such found object to a surprised and grateful young woman about to participate in that very same campaign.  So many of them!   Swinging, striking, missing!  Possibly cursing!  What has happened, I wondered, to American productivity.  "Doesn't anyone work anymore?" Perhaps owing to fear and frustration, a feeling of ennui and hopelessness, the absurdities and lunacy of a political landscape populated by feckless buffoons whose aims and language many fail to fathom, perhaps never will!

Never mind all that.  We move on!  I suppose some would question our own dedication to the betterment of the nation's economic health.  We are old, yes, but we continue to work as much as we're able.  Being older, or historic, as our grandson describes us, we sometimes seize moments when industry fails to beckon, and thus we wander.  Our attempts to find joy in simple pursuits, to spend time in peaceful reflection, visions of wings, the undulating and constant movement of water, gorgeous vistas of green, purple, pink, lavender, sepia, emerald and sage!  Dazzled often by its variety, complexity, beauty and memory!  

Our wanderings do take us, or perhaps lead us inexorably, to destinations comprised of those aforementioned joys, miracles and colors, where ospreys soar and dive and capture

river fish with which to feed their young and themselves.  Until late summer when offspring begin to fledge, testing courage and wing strength, ability and that ancient, instinctively-rediscovered route to winter feeding grounds far to the South. 

We often wish that our forte, our primary bread-winning focus, were educative travel, leading followers to distant shores, exotic cities and towns, to far-away places, fascinating ideas, customs and faces!  (The word "forte" -- by the by -- contains a Silent "E" and is pronounced "Fort," and means one's strength, one's matier, one's principal gift or talent, one's "Thing," so to speak!)

Alas, at least for now, we wander in limited scope and distance, but we can and do dream of greater escapes.  Well, to be honest and accurate, we've both traveled somewhat

extensively, in our distant past -- to France, Spain, Morocco, Italy, Estonia, Turkey, Mexico, Canada, England, Finland -- and to many destinations in our own country.  Mustn't grumble, but still we long to wander further afield, and oftener!  

Meanwhile, we have our Great Lake, the Confluence of Three Rivers, our namesake river and other bodies of water in which big ships plow their way to ports and harbors and depositories.  Many offloading their goods and their essential cargoes from great, cavernous holds, or collecting commodities to ferry to other faraway places, ports and harbors, many great vessels with self-discharging structures aboard, destined for as many ports with enormous collection canyons and conveying contrivances on their shores!

As we steer our course toward oblivion, or a pleasant terminus in the realm of wander, I suppose we do at times tend to consider our own identities.  Who are we, what is our aim or purpose in life?  Do we continuously ponder our identities, what we're intended to do or be.  Our friend, Bill, cares deeply about such inponderables.  We, on the other hand, do not, or usually we do not.  We do, however, care about how to spend our time enjoyably and profitably, meaning profitable in terms of happy enterprise.  And we will, I hope, continue to do so when time and tide enable us to wander leisurely, even aimlessly, through the often bewildering mists of GeezerHood!  

(Special Note of Dedication:   For SweetHeart and all of our good chums and relatives who have been elevated to the status and the state of Wisdom!  I note that aristocrats speak of being "Elevated to the Purple," that is, achieving a position of royalty.  Those of us not of the peerage or royal lineage achieve veneration through the process of aging gracefully, and should therefore be accorded great respect and admiration...  possibly purple garments too!)  

Humbly submitted 05-13-25 -- Joel K.

  

  

 

    

       

 

The Delights and Wonders of Having Dogs in One's Family!

 

Memoirs of a Geezer

  

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:           The Delights and Wonders of Having Dogs in One's Family!

Nickie!  Quite adept at
piano, she was!!

"Snickers" was the given name, that is, the moniker conferred upon a certain "CockaPoo" of our acquaintance.  Her original family called her "Nickie."  She was a canine of the feminine persuasion.  Following our adoption of said doggie, we, ever after, called her Nickie as well!  (Snickers seemed to us unkind and inappropriate, sort of...  like equating her to an edible thing...   a commodity!!)

(Cockapoo:  An amalgam of cocker spaniel and poodle, not a rooster and a chubby, honey-obsessed literary cartoon creature!)

The adoption was accomplished following the death of his original master, a much-loved family member whom we continue to miss, even some 40 years or more after the fact.  Prior to her passing, she "bequeathed" Nickie to us, fearful that her remaining family members might tend to forget their dog-connected duties, given work, school and personal commitments and preferences!  Understandable, of course, and we were happy to take the dog into our care! 

She was unique, a kind of "First Edition," One-of-a-Kind...  A fuzzy, highly energetic and sort of manic package with a comic and an antic disposition.  A bundle all together repulsive, maddening, unruly, laughable and lovable!

On one occasion, while trotting about in our neighborhood -- a daily routine designed to

The Blog's Perpetrator
in peculiar joggling
apparel, compelling his
"Best Friend" to
bite his leg!

keep one fit -- glad in goggles, knit cap, scarf, logo'ed leg warmers and other odd apparel, she bit me.  Probably didn't mean to bite her deputy master, possibly a case of mistaken identity...  (or fear of lunacy ?!) -- SweetHeart being the principal or Chief of Masters -- she seemed to apologize after I showed Nickie the bite mark and blood on my lower leg!  Nickie, of course, feigned ignorance!

She even bit our lawyer.  Thank goodness he was a dear friend of long standing!  All taken in good humor, even as he hopped in one-legged pain, quizzing us as to why we were present with a strange beast at a cut-rate salvage yard!  (We might have been sued had she bit a member of the legal profession unknown to us!) 

Nickie barked at everything and anything, including insects, doors, the postman, the UPS and other commercial delivery drivers, other dogs, passersby in the neighborhood, birds, visiting children, dignitaries, collection agents, a mean-looking repossession emissary...

Splendor in the Grass...  
Prior to Burial Ceremony!

***************************

When Nickie became quite old and ill, she had to be carried      upstairs to our bed where she'd spend the night in peaceful slumber.  Hearing morning noises, she emit strident barking, waking the household if not the entire neighborhood, tumble out of bed and mostly fall down the stairs, crash into a closet door at the bottom of said stairs, and commence barking fiercely at the offending door!

When Nickie finally succumbed to illness and old age, we took her to the capacious property of our dear friends, Sue and Rob, and buried her near a fruit tree.  As part of the burial ceremony, I sang the plaintive tune, "Old Blue," and we lowered her into the grave...  "I dug her grave with a silver spade, and let her down with a golden chain, singin' 'Go on Blue (Nickie,) I'm a comin' too..." A truly lovely send-off that those of us participating, and no doubt listening from the road, found to be quite haunting, beautiful and memorable!  (Really??!!)

***************************************************************************

She, Kody,  really did have large Black Spots
on her fuselage, or torso!  You'll have to 
take our word!

And then Dakota arrived, or Kody as we came to call her, a mainly white and black-spotted greyhound acquired from a shelter, or humane society canine care center in the county in which we lived at the time.  Our sweet little daughter felt we could not live without a "canine cousin" in our family grouping.  Kody cuddled up to Bethie, our daughter...   and that was that!

As greyhounds do, Kody loved to run, but only the sprint portion of the exercise, and then we practically had to drag her back home as she felt she had done all that was necessary in the running game.  (I think we heard her speak occasionally -- "Leave me alone here on the soft grass...  I'm resting!") 

Our daughter, she who desperately wanted a doggie companion, moved out shortly after the Kody acquisition, leaving her parents with the permanent care and feeding responsibilities for Dog Kody!  

Kody (center, Mostly) with Family Members.  
SweetHeart is at top.  That's Bethie at left!

    Kody had a Houdini-like proclivity of     escaping her collar and lead, frequently.  On     one occasion we found the escapee climbing up  on the body and shoulders of an elderly     woman!  "Git him off, Git him off," the woman  shrieked repeatedly.  We ran to the poor old     dear and extricated Kody from her terrified     person, comically scolding Kody in the     process.  The elderly woman scowled at and     rebuked us, "He should be on a rope or some other means of restraint for pity sake..."  

"He's a girl dog," SweetHeart responded!

In the midst of our old and sagging front porch reconstruction, Kody clawed her way out of the temporary doorway in order to follow her immediate family and other relatives who were embarking on a walk to the local coffee emporium.  She raced after us, crossing a somewhat busy road only to be struck by a large pickup truck.  No fault of the driver's, as he could not stop in time to prevent striking the racing hound.  The poor man wept as we tried to console him, while at the same time assessing the considerable damage to our poor canine.

She was obviously badly wounded in the encounter.  Shocked and limping, belly sagging and filled with blood and other fluid, we rushed Kody to an animal emergency clinic.  Throughout the ordeal, various veterinarians continued to consult with us, halting our continuous circumnavigations as we nervously paced the waiting area.  "She'll need more treatment," a vet doctor told us.  "Um, she'll need this kind of treatment...  and these sorts

of medicines..."  $3000.00 later we carried her to our auto, and then into the house.  SweetHeart fed her by hand.  Soft foods.  Oatmeal, cottage cheese, soft-boiled eggs....  Kody became the Cleopatra of wounded animals, dedicated servants at her bidding!!

At various times in her life with us, Kody -- food obsessed and thieving like no dog before or since --  ate an entire complement of chocolates, regurgitating and depositing offal everywhere in the house, not a spot of carpeting was spared!  On another occasion, SweetHeart having baked one of her famous cheesecakes promised for a function we were to attend, Kody devoured damn near the entire cake!  Kody was a master food thief.  We were not always happy with her, particularly when she consumed our dinners!  

Our fault, I suppose.  We should have concealed all manner of food stuffs, placing them well out of her reach or ability to sniff out and devour!!  

Pete (left), Yoshi (right) and
Alie (Center)....  Walkies!!

On one of her escapes, she fled into nearby Lake Park and encountered a not-too-friendly skunk.  Our neighbor used his roommate's new convertible, rescued Kody who resultantly,        permanently deposited and impregnated skunk aroma in the    upholstery and carpeting of the gorgeous new automobile.  The roommate was not pleased, perhaps needless to add.  But, Kody was rescued, safe...  That must count for something, eh?

Kody lived 13 years.  We did not have a chance to offer her a burial ceremony, as a local humane animal clinic put her to sleep.  Kody had cancer, couldn't eat, couldn't digest food.  She was positively skeletal.  Very sad.  We miss them both, loved them both.  Wonderful companions.  Wonderful, fun and often challenging family members.  

************************

     Pete with Lucy!        

    There is, however, a kind of compensation.  Both of our beautiful          daughters have dogs -- Pete (Peter, Petey...) and Yoshi, both males         of the species, the former a rescued street dog, a tan-colored mix of     beagle and no one really knows what else, but with a sweet
    disposition.   The latter is all black, another mixture of breeds, a         small "Labra-Doodle"sort of creation!  

Yoshi, après bath!

    He, Yoshi (or Yo Yo, his sort of nom de plume!)      has a bark that seems as though he may have         swallowed an amplifier with no volume control!  Both are interesting, delightful creatures.  We are happy to spend time with them, and that helps to mitigate the loss of those former pals, their memories etched in our heads and hearts, their adventuresome stories a frequent source of merriment! 

(Dedicated to Dog Lovers Everywhere, particularly those who took possibly unwanted  shelter-bound dogs into their hearts and homes.  We are of course kindred spirits, are we not?  Indeed we are!  Thank You!) 

(Humbly Submitted 04-29-2025 -- By Joel K.)