Family: Define That for Me

If you have a close knit family, cherish it, by all means. My parents' generation did a lot better job than mine of staying in touch. I used to fuss because we traveled from my home in Northern Virginia to North Carolina every two weeks or so. I had virtually no social life until I was old enough to drive.

Well, Saturday, one of my cousins passed away. We've not been in touch a lot in recent years. But I have memories of childhood, first of his trying to run away from me, and then of fun times, like when we shared a trombone on the porch of my uncle's parsonage making a racket and some time later, when he came up for a visit and we clowned around with my old reel to reel tape recorder. We laughed until we cried.

I knew him as Richard. His new friends knew him as Tom. He knew me as one name early on, then as John. But my friends now know me simply as ROEBUCK.

But my generation, and the generation of my children don't hold family as close to the heart as we did. Sadly, many just don't seem to care any more. This is what I mourn for.

The BRIGHT side of all this, is that I have discovered within myself a capacity to love, I thought had died with my broken heart at the rejection of the woman I describe as the love of my life. But each year it seems, I meet new friends whom I love like family. I'll take that.

I Will Always Love You

The REST of the Story:

A generation thinks of it as a Whitney Houston song, because of its use in the motion picture "The Body Guard." They'd never heard of the song that went to number one on the Country Music charts twice for singer/songwriter, Dolly Parton.
Dolly wrote the song as a "good-bye" to Porter Wagoner as she set out for a solo career and eventually surpassed her former protege. Dolly and her management "pitched" the song to Elvis and really wanted him to record the song, but it never happened because an agreement couldn't be made with regard to publishing rights.
The song is the familiar standard progression of early rock and roll called the "relative minor." In the key of C, it would be C A-minor F G, in D, D, B-minor G A and in G, G E-minor C D. and every song from "Who Put the Bomp" to "Why Must I Be a Teenager in Love" has used the formula. The slight difference is that it is slowed down.
The ironic twist here, is that now the song is known to be the song of the niece of one of Elvis' back up singers and members of the Sweet Inspirations, Telma Houston.
The world may never know what it would have sounded like had Elvis recorded it. And for MY money, the world was cheated!
So occasionally, I do the song using Dolly's arrangement at karaoke in an "Elvis" style.

Six Degrees...

My dad was in Los Angeles during World War II recooperating from a gunshot wound ti the leg he suffered on the Island of Saipan. He did quite a bit of sightseeing while there, in fact there are photos of him at Hollywood and Vine Streets. Today, they'd call it "clubbing," although dad never was much into the alcohol part of the deal.
Somewhere, in one of these clubs he ran into future game show host Garry Moore of To Tell the Truth and other TV shows. He said, "Hello, Garrison Moorefit!"
and Mr Moore's reply was, "How the hell did YOU know?"
My grandmother, Marsha had taught him piano and dad remembered him. Mr Moore's full name was Thomas Garrison Moorefit, III.
Dad also got a kick out of seeing Bing Crosby without his toupee.
I guess that's my six degrees of separation with that particular famous person.
In the motion picture, "The Graduate" there was "Mrs Robinson" whom Simon and Garfunkel sang of in the title song and top ten hit. Well MISTER Robinson was played by Murray Hamilton, born and buried in Washington, North Carolina and, you guessed it, another student of my grandmother. Hamilton also had a role in the "Jaws" film.
That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!