Mythical History Tour

Yesterday while going through a box of old papers, I came across a research paper I wrote for a college journalism class: The Beatles and the Electronic Media. The paper was dull as dishwater, and don't worry, I won't ask you to read it. However, attached to it was the following brief essay, which I apparently wrote for extra credit. The professor enjoyed it and raised my grade from a B to an A, which made me realize that, if I was going to have a successful career as a writer (and as it turned out, I wasn't), it would have to be as a writer of complete nonsense.

The Beatles: 1920

In 1920 two young men from Liverpool, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, scraped up enough money to make a trip to London to see a special concert at the Paladium: Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra. It was a journey which would change their lives and the shape of the musical world.

Lennon and McCartney returned to Liverpool with the idea of forming their own big band. Unfortunately, they only had two takers: George Harrison and Richard Starkey, better known as Ringo Starr. Even so, they billed themselves as "The Lennon-McCartney Orchestra" and proceeded to try to take Liverpool by storm.

None of the four had had much experience with jazz; most of their musical experience was in the form of community band concerts: military marches, Gilbert and Sullivan and the like. They had managed to get hold of Scott Joplin's Red Back Book, and so were familiar with ragtime. Their early sound was a sort of bizarre Joplin-Sullivan-Whiteman hybrid. Amazingly, it caught on. Liverpool didn't know much about jazz, either.

In 1921, while playing their brand of jazz at a Liverpool nightspot, the group was discovered by Brian Epstein, who talked them into letting him become their manager by promising big bucks in the recording industry. It was Epstein who suggested that "The Lennon-McCartney Orchestra" was a ludicrous name for a four-man ensemble. He suggested "The Rolling Stones." They finally decided on "The Beatles."

Epstein took the group to a friend in the recording industry, George Martin. Martin liked the group's sound, and immediately signed them to a contract. Within a year their records were selling like hotcakes and being played on BBC Radio. The Jazz Age had hit Britain.

Perhaps the strangest phenomenon in the Beatles' career was their conquering of the United States. After all, we invented jazz, and surely we could tell the difference between the real thing and ersatz Liverpudlian. But perhaps by the time the Beatles hit our shore, we were jaded by the Charleston, flappers, and hooch. We were ready for something new. Early in 1923 U.S. radio stations got hold of copies of the Beatles' latest hit, "I'd Like to Hold Your Hand." Paul Whiteman heard it and invited the group to join him in giving a formal concert in New York City. George Gershwin was there, performing his own Rhapsody in Blue. In his autobiography, Gershwin states, "The Rhapsody in Blue was well received, but it was the group from England, the Beatles, that the people really came to see." Music critics have stated that they detect the Beatles' influence in much of Gershwin's later work.

From New York, the group traveled to Chicago, where they had the honor of sitting in with Jelly Roll Morton and his Red Hot Peppers. Morton had a profound influence on them, and is said to be the inspiration for what is considered their greatest work, Sgt. Pepper's Red Hot Band.

Throughout their tour, the group made many live appearances on radio, playing their Liverpool jazz and charming audiences with their wit and modesty. They returned to Britain and continued making hit records. Then, in 1927, they were asked by Warner Brothers to do a semi-documentary film, the first talky, The Jazz Singers. The Jazz Singers was a tremendous success (witness the number of remakes), but the jazz era was nearly over. By 1930, the Beatles had disbanded.

In the words of Duke Ellington, "They really had something. I don't know what it was. But you know, the first time I heard those boys, I thought they were black. That's how good they were."

So Many Books, So Little Time

“So many books, so little time.” Those words come to mind a lot these days. The other day I Googled the phrase, and I discovered that the Internet attributes it to Frank Zappa. This bothers me a little. I have nothing against Frank Zappa. I’m sure he deserves credit for a lot of things. It's just that I’m not sure he deserves credit for this particular phrase. I'm pretty sure other people said those words long before Frank Zappa did—lots of other people.

Does Frank Zappa really deserve credit for this phrase? Also, why
is there only an empty chair in this picture? Where are the books?

For instance, I could swear Burgess Meredith said those very words—or words very much like them—in one of my favorite episodes of The Twilight Zone. You remember. It’s the one where Buzz plays a bookish bank teller who is constantly complaining that there is not enough time to read all of the books he wants to read. One day, he slips into the bank vault to hide and finish his book. While he is in there, a nuclear attack destroys the city and people around him. With no job and no people to disturb him, he suddenly finds himself with “Time Enough at Last” to read all the books he wants.

Then he breaks his glasses.

Buzz has “Time Enough at Last”—until he breaks his glasses.

The irony!

As a book lover, I understand just how devastated Buzz is when he breaks his glasses, and I feel sorry for him. However, I do not feel too sorry for him, because I know that if I were in his position, I would find a way to read. I would find a pair of glasses or a magnifying glass somewhere; if necessary, I would make one. Or maybe I would teach myself Braille.

Because “so many books, so little time.” And the older I get, the littler the time gets. Consider that I am now nine years older than Burgess Meredith was when he played that meek, bookish bank teller. And consider how many more books have been written since 1959, when "Time Enough at Last" first aired.

So many books, so little time!

In one respect, I am much better off than Buzz. I have a Kindle. I take it with me everywhere, so that I will always have something to read: when I’m standing in a line, when I’m waiting in the doctor’s or dentist’s office, during breaks at work. The nice thing about a Kindle is, if you break your glasses, you can enlarge the size of the words until you can read them. Of course, if there's a nuclear holocaust you're screwed, because electronic devices will be toast. But then, if you don't have access to a bank vault, you will probably be toast too.

I will never be without a book, until they pry my Kindle from my cold, dead hands. Or maybe they could just bury me with it, because—who knows?

Now if you will excuse me, I have some serious reading to do before summer is over.

Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?

For approximately twenty-four hours following last week's historic Supreme Court decision of Obergefell v. Hodges, I saw nothing but joy on the Internet. My Facebook feed was filled with rainbows and "LoveWins" hashtags. (I must admit that I still don't fully understand hashtags, but I could appreciate the sentiment.)

Then the backlash started. It ranged from disapproving but forgiving ("Jesus still loves you, even though you are a sinner") to downright hateful ("You are going to burn in hell, and I would be happy to supply the match").

I am not a theologian, and I will not presume to tell you what the Bible says or does not say about homosexuality. (There are plenty of other people on the Internet who will be more than happy to do that.) I do know that Jesus had a lot to say about tolerance and forgiveness. And the one thing he said that he particularly wanted his followers to remember was that bit about "loving thy neighbor as thyself."

I am not a Buddhist, either, but one of my favorite quotes, which I came across for the first time on the Internet a few years ago, is this one:

"If you propose to speak, always ask yourself, is it true, is it necessary, is it kind."— Buddha

An excellent rule, particularly in these days when everyone feels free to express whatever they like on the Internet, regardless of how it may affect others.

1. Is it true?

Before posting anything, it should go without saying that you should make sure it is true. Don't take the word of one source. Google it, and see what other people have to say about it. For instance, I Googled the above quote and found that Buddha never said it. It was actually some guy named Bernard Meltzer, and what he actually said was, "Before you speak ask yourself if what you are going to say is true, is kind, is necessary, is helpful. If the answer is no, maybe what you are about to say should be left unsaid." (Which in my opinion is just as good, though somewhat less succinct.)


2. Is it necessary?

Let's face it, nearly everything that is posted on the Internet is unnecessary. Unless you are posting a warning about an imminent tornado, earthquake, flood, fire, locust swarm, etc., the world can do without your post. However, if it passes the next test, I would say go ahead. I fully intend to post this, although, like everything else I have ever posted, it is completely unnecessary, and will only be read by a handful of people (at least a few of which, according to my Blogger stats, are in Russia).

3. Is it kind (and/or helpful)?

You don't need Google for this, just a little empathy. Try to put yourself in the position of your readers. Ask yourself, "How would I feel if I were [gay, straight, conservative, liberal, black, white, Christian, Muslim, etc.], and I read this post? Would I feel it was kind? Would I feel it was helpful? How would it make me feel?"

If it's not true, not necessary, not kind or helpful, then why on earth would you want to post it?

If you are American, have a safe and happy Fourth! And please remember that our Founding Fathers believed that we were all created equal, all of us with the same unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

And if you are Russian, "Dobraye ootro!"

Tell Me About the Man

Tomorrow would have been my father’s 90th birthday. I find myself thinking about him, of course—but also, oddly enough, I find myself thinking about tape recorders.

I find myself remembering the coolest gift my parents ever gave me: a Craig Model 212 7-transistor portable tape recorder—the exact same model Jim Phelps used to play his self-destructing taped messages on my favorite TV show, Mission Impossible.

Craig Model 212

I loved that tape recorder. I used it to record music off the radio, my favorite TV themes off the television (including, of course, the theme from Mission Impossible) and the god-awful comedy sketches my friends and I improvised in my room (most of which were based on Mission Impossible).

I remember the day Dad brought the Craig home with him on the train from Chicago—a box wrapped in plain brown paper with a wire handle attached—and presented it to me as an early thirteenth birthday gift. He couldn’t wait to see the look on my face when I unwrapped it. You know that scene in A Christmas Story where Ralph’s father gets excited as he watches Ralph unwrap the BB gun? I’m pretty sure that’s how it was with Dad when he gave me that tape recorder.

You see, I inherited my obsession with audio equipment from him.

Dad also had a portable tape recorder: a Webcor Royalite. At fifty pounds, it was anything but "lite." However, it did have a handle on it, so it qualified as portable. (In those days, you could put a handle on anything and call it "portable." We had a portable television that weighed almost as much as a refrigerator.) About a decade older than my Craig, Dad’s Webcor used vacuum tubes instead of transistors. It had all sorts of knobs, levers, and push-buttons, and a fluorescent green bar that indicated the volume level.

Webcor Royalite

It was this beautiful machine that made me yearn for a tape recorder of my own. I was mesmerized by the turning tape reels and the green light that pulsed to the sound of my voice. Dad used it to record music, and occasionally in his work as an attorney or his hobby as a genealogist. He also used it to make recordings of his kids.

I have written about how my father loved to tell stories about us ("For Dad"). One of his favorite stories involved an interview he recorded of me, shortly after I had begun to talk, concerning "the man"—my name for the small bronze bust of Abraham Lincoln he kept on his desk. I had no memory of the incident. I didn’t even remember hearing the recording, and at times I suspected that my father made it up. However, when I visited my sister in Virginia last year, she played me the CDs she had found on which Dad had lovingly preserved all of the recordings he ever made of us on that old Webcor. Suddenly, I heard the barely intelligible babble of a child, and my father's voice, unbelievably young:

Dad: Why don't you tell me about the man?
Me: No.
Dad: Who is this man?
Me: Um.
Dad: Didn't I tell you who he was?
Me: Um.
Dad: President Lincoln?
Me: Yeah.
Dad: Can you say President Lincoln?
Me: Yeah.
Dad: Would you say President Lincoln?
Me: Uh-uh.

Both my Craig and Dad’s Webcor are long gone—replaced by cassette recorders, which in turn were replaced by digital recording. But it should come as no surprise that both these marvelous old machines can be found on the Internet, in good working condition and for a reasonable price. (The Webcor only costs a little more than the cost of shipping it.) I must admit that I was briefly tempted to buy both of them, but I don’t need them. I don’t even need the CD of those old recordings.

I'm happy just to have the memories.

There Was this River; There Was this Beer

"But in the morning, a golden band of light moves down the cliffs towards the river, and in the afternoon that same band moves back up until it is only a sliver at the top, and then it is gone. Side canyons lead to trickling waterfalls with maidenhair fern and columbine. Raging summer thunderstorms create red-brown waterfalls that plummet from the rim to the river, turning it brick-red in an instant. The stars at night sparkle shamelessly. The rapids are first fearsome and then exhilarating."—Christa Sadler, There's this River

Yes, that's exactly how it was.

There's this River is a book of stories by Grand Canyon boatmen—the men and women who work as guides on whitewater rafting trips down the Colorado River. The stories are by turns exciting, funny, and breathtaking—and some of them are no doubt true. Loretta and I bought the book sixteen years ago, at the end of our own journey down the Colorado River. We bought the book, then promptly forgot about it—until last weekend, when we dug it out and began reading it for the first time. Yesterday, as I read a story about a guide's hilarious encounter with a bighorn sheep, I could hear the voice of Jesse, our swamper (assistant guide), as he read us that same story on a calm stretch between rapids.

The memories came flooding back. Jesse, our guides Brian and Kim, our fellow passengers: the two New York firemen who measured each rapid by the amount of water they collected in the drinking cups attached to their life jackets ("Half a cup, Bob!"); the two French Canadian women with whom we had an interesting conversation about French Canadian music and who, after the trip, sent us a CD; and Doris, the plucky seventy-three-year-old who quickly became the boat's unofficial mascot ("Doris! Doris! Doris!").

There were four of us traveling together: my sister Susan, brother-in-law Kevin, Loretta, and me. Here's a picture of our boat hitting our first rapid:

Left to right: Loretta, me, Kevin, Susan, and other wet people

By the way, if you ever take a whitewater rafting trip on the Colorado River, here's a tip: do not wear jeans. Our jeans got soaked at the first rapid, and they never dried out. We spent the rest of the trip in our bathing suits. Here's another tip:

Take plenty of beer.

We never experienced any of the calamities experienced by the boatmen in There's this River—no flipped boats, broken bones, near-drownings, or attacks by bighorn sheep. The closest we came to disaster was when we ran out of beer.

We were warned. At the general store in Lee's Ferry, before we boarded the vans that would take us and our gear to the river, our guides told us that this was our last chance to buy beer. And, they warned us, if we were going to buy beer, we should buy plenty—more than we thought we would need.

They should have told us to buy a lot more than we thought we would need. Maybe twice the amount.

The four of us drink beer, but only good beer. The only good beer at the general store was Heineken, and we bought nearly all they had (which was not a problem, as almost everyone else was buying Bud Lite). We were confident that it would be enough for our five-day trip on the river.

We were almost right.

At the load-in, everyone's beer was put into a big nylon net bag which trailed behind the boat. The icy water of the Colorado River kept the cans chilled to optimal drinking temperature for the entire trip—or would have, if the beer had lasted the entire trip.

A couple of days into our journey, it became apparent that our Heineken was disappearing faster than it should have been. The net bag was intact; the missing cans could not have been lost in the rapids. There was only one possible explanation. Someone was boosting our beer. (Who? I have my suspicions, but the suspect shall remain nameless, primarily because I can't remember his name.)

Kevin and I enjoy some of the rapidly disappearing Heineken

By our last night on the river, everyone's beer had run out, along with every drop of any other alcohol that might have been on the boat. How did we know? Because one passenger (who shall remain nameless, primarily because I can't remember his name) went to everyone in camp, on his knees, begging for a drink. The poor guy was miserable. If any of us had had any alcohol left at that point, I'm sure we would have given it to him.

Between the heart-breaking sobs of the man who shall remain nameless and the brilliant full moon that flooded the canyon, I doubt anyone got any sleep that night. Fortunately, it was our last night on the river. The following day we were taken out of the canyon by helicopter, back to civilization.

And, mercifully, beer.

Room Service, with Beer

(If you'd like to see more pictures from our Grand Canyon adventure, here's a link to an album on Flickr.)

Father's Day 2010

I don’t remember how we celebrated Father’s Day when my father was young. (Of course, you never think of your father as young. But when I look at pictures from those days, I can’t believe how young he was.) I don’t remember what gifts my brother, my sister, and I gave him. Probably ties, picked out and wrapped by our mother. In those "Mad Men" days, a tie was pretty much the standard gift for a father, whether it was Father’s Day, Christmas, or his birthday.

I do remember the last Father’s Day I spent with my father.

It was four years ago. Both of my parents were having serious health issues. My father was experiencing chronic hematuria (blood in the urine)—a symptom of the bladder cancer that within two years would kill him, although we did not know it at the time. My mother was in a nursing home, recovering from yet another bout with pneumonia—the disease that would eventually cause her death. On top of all that, my aunt in Indiana was about to undergo surgery for an abdominal aneurysm. As they say, it never rains but it pours.

On impulse, Loretta and I decided to take the summer off and drive across country with the cats, stopping first in Indiana to stay with my aunt until after her surgery, then in Virginia to spend several weeks with my parents and take the initial steps to get them into some kind of assisted living. Finally, we would stop in Buffalo to spend July 4th weekend with Loretta’s family before heading back to California. It was an incredible, bittersweet journey, and someday I may tell you all about it. For now, I am only going to tell you about Father’s Day, which was one of the sweet parts.

As they got older, my parents' world got smaller. They rarely left the house, and when they did, it was usually for a visit to the doctor's office, the hospital, or the nursing home. But occasionally, when Mom and Dad were well enough, my sister Susan and brother-in-law Kevin took them for a weekend getaway to their cabin in the mountains bordering Shenandoah National Park.

My parents lived for those trips to the cabin.

When it was built, Kevin made sure they would be comfortable there. They had their own room with a beautiful vista of the woods and a clearing Kevin created where deer came to graze at dawn and dusk. The bathroom was handicap accessible, and Kevin even installed a chair lift so my mother could get up the steps to the front porch.

That Father's Day weekend was a pretty good one for Dad, so we took him to the cabin.

As always, we enjoyed the beautiful scenery, the wildlife, and the tranquility of the Shenandoah Valley. We watched old episodes of Dad’s favorite television program, Perry Mason. There were delicious meals prepared by our hosts, and a Father’s Day cake that came with a plastic "Sheriff Dad" badge, which my father proudly wore. He loved his gift: a Kindle electronic reader (his days of wearing a tie were over). The only thing that would have made the weekend better is if my mother could have been there, too. Fortunately, she was released from the nursing home in time for us all to make one last trip to the cabin before Loretta and I packed up the cats and headed to Buffalo.

When I think of my parents, I don’t like to think of them in the assisted living facility where they ended up, or even in the house they lived in for so many years before that. I prefer to think of them at Susan and Kevin’s cabin, where they spent some of the happiest hours of their later years.

And when I think of Father's Day, I like to think of the last one I spent with "Sheriff Dad."

Cowboys and Indians

"The Zane family was a remarkable one in early days, and most of its members are historical characters." (Zane Grey, Betty Zane)

I never used to have much interest in the Western genre. However, since moving to California I have developed a taste for the novels of Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour and the movies of John Ford. I recently started re-reading Betty Zane, by Zane Grey. It isn't really a Western. There are no cowboys in it, although there are Indians. It's a historical novel set near the end of the American Revolution, in a frontier settlement on the Ohio River. Which I suppose makes it sort of a Western, as that was about as far west as you could get in those days—unless you were an Indian.

I have Betty Zane, along with many other books by Zane Grey, on my Kindle. Years ago, when I read it the first time, I did not have a Kindle. Nobody did. My father loaned me a worn, dog-eared paperback copy. He told me it was about some of our ancestors. He also told me it was out of print, and he wanted it back.

Dad's hobby was genealogy. Few things gave him as much pleasure as identifying a new branch on the family tree. In the beginning, he had to do his research by traveling to libraries in Indiana and neighboring states. As a child, I accompanied him on an overnight expedition to a library in eastern Ohio. I'm sure he was hoping that I would develop an interest in his hobby, and at first I found it exciting to be included on his quest. However, I soon became bored, and left him alone in the genealogy department to seek out the section of the library where the Hardy Boys could be found.

With the advent of the Internet, Dad suddenly had access to vast amounts of genealogical data, without leaving home. He quickly filled in more and more branches of both the Logue and Shorter—my mother's family—trees. (My mother was not amused when Dad discovered that the two of them were distant cousins.)

As I recall, it was shortly after Loretta and I moved to California that Dad discovered our family's connection to Zane Grey. We shared a common ancestor, described by Grey as "a Dane of aristocratic lineage, who was exiled from his country and came to America with William Penn. He was prominent for several years in the new settlement founded by Penn." However, "Being a proud and arrogant man, he soon became obnoxious to his Quaker brethren."

That obnoxious Quaker was one William Zane. His offspring included Betty (the heroine of Grey's novel), Ebenezer (Grey's ancestor), and Isaac (our ancestor).

When they were young, all of the Zane boys were kidnapped by Indians. Three of them, including Grey's ancestor Ebenezer, were ransomed. One was killed by his captors when he attempted to escape. The youngest, our ancestor Isaac, remained in captivity, held by bonds "stronger than those of interest or revenge such as had caused the captivity of his brothers. He was loved by an Indian princess, the daughter of Tarhe, the chief of the puissant Huron race." In the book Betty Zane—and in real life—Isaac Zane married that Indian princess, whose name was Myeerah.

Isaac and Myeerah were my father's great-great-great-great grandparents (give or take a "great").

My father was understandably excited to discover that we were distant cousins of Zane Grey, who practically invented the Cowboy (with a capital 'C') of American literature. He was even more excited that we were directly descended from a "chief of the puissant Huron race." When he told me the news in a telephone call, he announced that he was going to write to the current chief of the Wyandots and request membership for himself and my sister. He asked if I would be interested in joining as well.

"Are there any benefits?" I asked. "For instance, can I open a casino?"

I turned down my father's offer. He and my sister were dark enough to credibly claim a smidgen of Native American blood, whereas I inherited my mother's fair, northern European complexion.

I would have been laughed right out of the tribe.


(Many of Zane Grey's novels, including Betty Zane, are in the public domain and available as free downloads from Project Gutenberg.)