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....!
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Those Marvelous Turks make the Most Wonderful Music.. Oh and that's a Picture of Ataturk in the Background! Thank you...
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| That's Him... That's Mustafa Kemal Ataturk! |
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?
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,
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!!)
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| 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......."
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.
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