2B or not 2B?

I feel sorry for today's children coming of school age and then young adulthood in the 21st century. They will not have the joy of writing on paper with a pencil in their everyday lives.
Everybody seems attached to their digital devices that spell out words for you before you have even typed a single character from the keyboard that pops up on one's "smart screen."




When my own children were of school age, one of the things I actually enjoyed as a parent was to go shopping for "School Supplies."  We would buy a dozen pencils usually a medium firmness HB box. They may have used them for art or math, but the box never lasted the year... before the end of the school year, they would be rummaging amongst my stationery items for a pencil.


When I went to school (I think Charlie Dickens may have been at the desk next to me...) I not only had an open topped ink well in the corner of the desk, I was given 2 pens to dip into the aforementioned ink-well!  How ever, the thrilling "supplies" I went to school with, was a compass set (look it up in Google. It seems fitting to mention here, that I still have that same set in my possession.) And 2 or 3 pencils -- generally HB ones, but possibly a B softness for drawing biology specimens. However, I and my friends were quirky individuals, interested in art, but not artists. So I am unclear why we adopted the habit of using a strong. firm pencil sharpened to a very fine point; My favourite was my 2H. Yes you read that correctly, a 2H. Extra hard, so one could press hard and not snap the point as well as giving one a fine straight line.  Great for drawing hot rods during chemistry and idolized sketches of "Julie" a few desks over in Maths ... well, any drawing. My note books had few lines of writing but had hundreds of drawings in them.


Now do not get my started on "propelling pencils". I loved them too, For more idiosyncratic reasons ...that I no longer recall, I used to use a green leaded one.


That pencil lasted me through college and in to my first  job. Whilst there, I was correcting a draft letter and my boss informed me that the "green" coloured ink (or pencil) I was using for corrections was a no-no. Green ink was for the excusive use of the accountants.


Had to revert to blues and blacks, but my 2H remained a useful tool for doodling during boring meetings!!

The day the music died

 I remember when young, and moaning about school and probably about homework, my mother would say: "Ah, these are the best days of your life. Time for fun and excitement." It did not seem very exciting being 15 in gloomy London in the 1950s.

England still had not fully recovered from WWII nor would it for many more years. However, what a privileged life we were living had not sunk in yet. Free education, even at the University Level, warm homes and food in the fridge. Yes, we had a fridge back then. The neighbours thought we were weird wanting a fridge in that climate, but of course, nowadays, it is a different story.

 

I think I have finally absorbed what my mother meant by those words. Childhood and schooldays appear to have been like a spaceship ride from one simple planet to another very complicated one called adulthood!

 Teachers, counsellors "life-style" coaches forget to warn you that even adulthood comes in a variety of stages: young adult, mature adult.... and the one most people ignore -- Old Adult!

I gave this portion of my life little consideration until it appeared like a wild dog on the scene and bit me! Ouch, being old aches!!

I have a good memory and feel blessed to be able to vividly recall many events from the 1950s and 60s. However, I have ended up in a location without the people that figure prominently in those memories. Similarly, there is a whole decade -- the Seventies, a time that truly helped shape me, and gave me the opportunities to realize a lot of dreams, plus learn "adult" skills. Now I find, those people also seem to be out of reach.

The factor that figures as links between all these events is music.

My memories are intrinsically wound up in melodies. Working on my radio shows leads me to refresh the memories and articulate many of my feelings from those times. Not surprisingly, I long to be able to sit with those people & relive those times; but time has robbed me of too many of the actors in my life.

I remember very well February 4th, 1959, when my Dad woke me up for school with a cup of tea and the newspaper whose headline shouted out that Buddy Holly had died. It was a huge shock.

Feb 3rd, the day that the plane crashed, is the "day the music died" according to Don MacLean in American Pie.  I feel blessed to have enjoyed a long life after that day, which has been filled with music and love and friendship.

 

Yet, I still wish, for just a moment, that I could experience things again with my friends from the best days of my life.  School Days !!

Christmas

mostly, my family and friends know me as a Scrooge-like person when it comes to Christmas celebrations.
The truth, however, is less obvious. The scrooge character has become associated with people who are tight fisted or unhappy or trying to squeeze the last drop of work out of the staff without acknowledging their family's needs.
Scrooge has also become associated with what we now call the "ghosts of Christmases past" and "Christmas Future" -- a future that will happen if we do not change the present. (Present as in Time not gifts.)

Well, if Christmas was a one week affair, full of carols and hymns with it culminating  in a family gathering. I would love it.

I am not the first, nor the only one, that laments all the commercialization of Christmas, but to me it is not about gift giving or the Santa fable, with too many voices saying how parents can harm their children with the continued spreading of that tale.
It is a) the length of the shopping spree that depresses me, and b) the types of gifts. Really, A car with a bow on it for Christmas?!  How big is this demographic? Of course some of the One-percenters can do that.
Just to set the record straight, I love Christmas. I still remember "Christmases past" with a smile and a tear. I was raised in vicarage for my first 9 years. I still remember sitting in the church watching my Grandfather conducting the Christmas service; every time I hear Hark the Herald Angels sing, I can see him standing there announcing the "final Hymn". I cry, even it is Mariah Carey's version!
And Elvis singing Blue Christmas recalls a very special memory and link with my sister. (I miss you, honey. If only the young Michael had a clue as to how jets, the Internet or Skype are useless tools for replacing the touch of a hand.)
It is the Christmas-Futures I can no longer cope with.
The ache of missing loved ones increases every month and Christmas just seems to amplify the pain.

On a brighter note, Bring on the eggnog ! Put on Phil Spector's Christmas LP ! I also enjoy the sharing of time with family and friends, but I do not need another gift to open for the rest of my life... however, if you need a hint, I always appreciate another book. (p.s. not a hardback!)

Discrimination

I have to say that for the major part of my life I have been treated the same as everyone else in the community around me. My friends and neighbours were blind to my skin colour, accent and accurate knowledge of my origins.

That is not to say that people have not insulted me along the way nor made absurd assumptions about my links. On reflection, some of them were hilarious.
In the fifties, the local busy-body of the neighbourhood introduced my family to the "other new immigrants" in the vicinity... small issue, he was a Jamaican, not from India... or even Asia! There was little that we had in common, other than ANY newcomer to an area.

Luckily, he and his English wife were a charming couple and did not take offence. We did not actually become fast-friends, but we were always friendly to each other.

I write about this now because I was listening to a radio interview which focused a lot on discrimination that Blacks were suffering in Canada, specifically Ontario and Nova Scotia in that radio show.
Yet, I had many West Indian friends in Toronto and, it amused me no-end that they would make fun of other Blacks that had come from Africa. Admittedly, it was many years ago, and the substitute terminology "African-Canadian" to include all Blacks was not in common usage. However, back then, they saw their two worlds as being very different.

In Toronto, I was trying to rent a 1-bedroom apartment in the Italian quarter of Toronto, (it was a great flat!) but the woman showing it to me, the "head" of the family no doubt, asked if it was for my wife and me. When I said "No" because I was a bachelor. She told me I should find a good woman and settle down. I, a single man, ought not to be looking for a 1-bedroom flat in town.
Her logic was comical... I guess she thought that I would regularly be bringing women back to her family's "home" and it was not appropriate. I am not sure how I was supposed to find a good woman to settle down with, if I did not actually have a base from which to start looking.
So, even bachelors meet weird discrimination.

It may be that I was fortunate to grow up in a quieter more gentle time. The world seems a lot more angry nowadays.

The most obvious discrimination my family met most people do not even know about. We are Anglo-Indians. In Calcutta, now Kolkata, in the immediate post-colonial time, we did not fit in anywhere; As Christians, our religion was away from the mainstream, and at that time, the two main religions on the sub-continent were not even getting along with each other. That was why we immigrated to Britain.
If you wish to see what Anglo-Indian discrimination was about, watch PBS' Indian Summers; It does a decent job of bringing out the problems.

correspondence

From my teenage years, I have written letters regularly to family and friends. It did not matter if they lived just down the road from me, or around the world. There is magic in receiving a letter in the mail, opening it and then sitting down to enjoy reading it in peace; Then re-reading it immediately.

I have a "pen-pal" from 60 years ago with whom I am still friends. She also became a huge family friend and we shared many fun filled travel outings together in different countries.

When I arrived in Canada, a century ago... at least. I wrote a round-robin letter. It was addressed to the whole family: Parents, Nana, Aunts (in 2 separate locations) and my sister. Back then, the copies were carbon copies. Sometime after a year or so of employment, I was brave enough to sneak into the corridor where the photocopier was, and make copies in the lunch time to send to the different locations. I kept track of which family member received the "top copy" and who got the Xeroxes! I rotated the receiving of the much prized hand written version!!

I also did something similar with the gang of friends I left behind, and in the first two years, I would often receive back a multi-party tome. Sometimes created under a haze of booze and late night party going. (I often wondered what kind of socializing they were doing without me, if someone was to suggest around midnight, "Let's write to Mik" and there were others who  agreed that this might be a fun thing to do !!)

I am not as hopelessly misguided as to thing that I was a siren-calling  attraction, it was a lot more a case of boredom and a desire to emulate a Monty Pythonesque situation. (We were big fans.)

After a couple of years, the family correspondence continued in the previous manner, but old friendships broke up, drifted away or just plain preferred a one-on-one natter. Luckily, there were 3 or 4 of those friends that trailed into the next century. Only a handful, but I still enjoy putting pen to paper for them.

I truly feel the present generation, and society in general, severely under-estimates the joy of writing letters.

Now that my parents have passed on, as have Nana, Aunts & Uncles, and way too many friends, I often dig out the old correspondence, -- did I forget to say, it is important to retain the material? -- and read those stories and tales and jokes of a long time ago.

I do have  a digital social media presence (Hello! what am I doing RIGHT now!) However, I cherish those old letters.

Thank you Sir Rowland Hill, you started a wonderful thing.

End of September 1966

It was the last week of September, 1966. I was in New York City staying at the YMCA at 34th & 8th Avenue. It was a beautiful autumn week and I was overwhelmed by all that I had experienced that summer. I forget precisely whether the return flight was on the 28th or the 29th !! However, I do remember one thing very clearly  -- I bought Sam & Dave's new LP,  Hold On I'm Coming for Dee. I was so anxious to get home and play it for her; while we drank tea and lounged on our blue living room carpet and fretted over our seemingly chaotic lives!

Of course, from a 50 year perspective, I know how simple our lives really were. We were still unnecessarily dragging our emotional baggage from school days & college.
"Life" had not truly begun yet..

More Beatles

I feel more than fine that I was at the vanguard of the post-war generation and to have spent my youth in England along with The  Beatles.  To press home the point here are  the Lads with I Feel Fine.

SONGS
I Feel Fine - The Beatles

I Feel Fine  was recorded in Oct. 64 released in November 64. While for us in the UK,  Beatlemania began in 1962 & gained steam throughout 1963 it was a part of a whole youthful music explosion. 

 Suddenly, record companies were signing up every group appearing on a stage in the UK. However, the music papers still liked to create dynamism by setting one group off against another. Are they the new Beatles, etc. One of the first so called rivals was the Rolling Stones. They went  on to world wide success,  right up to the present day. The tune that cemented their reputation in the USA was Satisfaction.

Oddly enough, the British group with the next No.1 in the US after the Beatles in the summer of 1964 was not the Stones but The Animals with House of the Rising Sun.

SONGS

Satisfaction  - The Rolling Stones

House of the Rising Sun - The Animals

 

There was a resurgence in musical friendship at this time. A lot of mutual  admiration and support. Not surprisingly, the public followed the musicians' lead. The British bands loved Aretha Franklin Here is her classic cover of Otis Redding's Respect.

SONG

Respect - Aretha Franklin

Following on the British invasion was American youth's discovery of its own great artists. Especially Tamla Motown material. Here is I Can't Help Myself from the Four Tops. A No.1 in 1965 that was replaced at the top by the Stones with Satisfaction.

SONGS

I Can't Help Myself - The Four Tops

 

Before the Beatles landed on Ed Sullivan & took over the Billboard music charts, US young people were obsessed with Surf style rock and the whole California life-style. Sun, sand & songs; Unlike the east coast music which focussed on Broadway, Brill Building and Do-wop.. One of the most popular groups of the era that are also big and still touring in the C21st are the Beach Boys. Their central creative genius was Brian Wilson. The Beatles felt that in the mid-sixties it was the Beach Boys who were their arch rivals because they too explored uncharted musical territory. Next up are 2 California themed hits.  California Dreaming from the  Mamas & the Papas and  Help Me Rhonda by the Beach Boys.

 

SONGS
California Dreaming - Mamas & the Papas

Help Me Rhonda - Beach Boys

A Liverpudlian group that began by covering  US R'n'B songs but also found a distinctive style of their own were Freddie & The Dreamers. They ended up being bigger stars in America than in the UK because the American public fell in love with Freddie's zany antics on stage. Here is I'm Telling you Now from  Freddie & The Dreamers. Then another early Beatles hit, the John led vocals of Do You Want To Know a Secret.

 SONGS

I'm Telling You Now - Freddie & The Dreamers

Do You Want To Know a Secret - The Beatles

An American group that I was in love with in the sixties were the delicious girl group The Ronettes. Their hit, Baby, I Love You is an icon of Big Haired girl groups from the 60s. Also, a song that came to define everything that was associated with the Post WWII society, My Generation from The Who.

SONGS
Baby I Love You - The Ronettes

My Generation - The Who

 

The Ronettes were masterminded by their manager/producer Phil Spector. Another Spector produced hit was You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling a No.1 hit for The Righteous Bros. Spector was called in to finalize the production of the Beatles last LP, Let it Be.  The first Beatle with a solo vocal LP was Ringo singing You Always Hurt The One You Love on his 1969 released Sentimental Journey album. Full of his mum's favourite songs. He also had a huge 1973 success with Photograph.

 SONGS

You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling - The Righteous Bros

You Always Hurt The One You Love - Ringo

Photograph - Ringo

 

The late sixties were a time of turmoil in cities with young people protesting the Vietnam War and the Old Ways in general in Europe. True to its happiness ethos Motown had Martha & the Vandellas singing Dancing in the Streets. A great dance tune re-done by loads of others over the decades. But the sixties bad boys of rock -- the Rolling Stones sang an anthem for the times in Street Fighting Man.

 

SONGS

Dancing in the Streets - Martha & the Vandellas.

Street Fighting Man   - The Rolling Stones

  

 

Leaving tonight with  a classic Beatles song We Can Work it Out. A hit from 1965, however, one of the daddies of R'n'R was Chuck Berry a big influence on the Stones and the Beatles. Here is his 1964 hit You Never Can Tell. The story of a teenage wedding,  listen to the story telling that Berry winds into a great rock rhythm. Just as the Beatles learned to do with such success themselves.

 

SONGS

You Never Can Tell - Chuck Berry

We Can Work it Out - The Beatles