I think and hope that my children and grandchildren will do a better job than my generation has done as stewards of the nation. I think and hope that the next generation will not be as divided as America is in 2016. I think and hope that in the future, people will leave their fact-free political bubbles and engage with each other again with real facts to guide them. And if we all “let the children’s laughter” remind us of childhood innocence and all that is right with the world, we will see the good in others, including others with whom we disagree. It’s amazing how far that goes towards reaching compromises for the good of everyone.
The chorus of the song is also quite inspiring:
I decided long ago, never to walk in anyone’s shadows
If I fail, if I succeed
At least I’ll live as I believe
No matter what they take from me
They can’t take away my dignity
Because the greatest love of all
Is happening to me
I found the greatest love of all
Inside of me
The greatest love of all
Is easy to achieve
Learning to love yourself
It is the greatest love of all
Linda Creed wrote these lyrics in the midst of her struggle with breast cancer. The words describe her feelings about coping with great challenges that one must face in life, being strong during those challenges whether you succeed or fail and passing that strength on to children to carry with them into their adult lives. In February 1985 Creed’s words were recorded by Whitney Houston. Creed died on April 10, 1986, at the age of 37. “The Greatest Love of All” reached number one on the charts just five weeks later.
A letter to my granddaughter on her first birthday
November 9, 2016
My granddaughter Caroline holding court
from her highchair
Dear Caroline:
Happy first birthday! So you’ve completed your first planetary trip around the sun and we’re back to where we were a year ago when you first saw the light of day. Well kid, from here on it’s just more of the same – winter followed by spring, summer and fall every year for the rest of your life. Did you have a favorite season this year? I’ll bet you enjoyed fall in Vermont with all those leaves to pick up and play with. But you may have also enjoyed winter with all the snowballs and snowmen your brother and your cousins made. This year you may be able to join them in the fun. And someday you will get a chance to try skiing on those great Vermont slopes.
Well it’s been an eventful year. We got to see you several times and that was great. I hope the trips to New Jersey were not too difficult. I know it can sometimes be hard sharing a back seat with your brother. We certainly enjoyed watching you go from crawling to walking this year. We’re also looking forward to hearing you speak to us in words. You can call me “Grandpop” or “Pop” for short as your brother does. I know you can say “Pop.” You just put your lips together and blow. Or maybe that’s for whistling. I’m not sure. But you’ll figure it out I’m sure by this time next year.
We had some news in our family this year. Your Aunt Jenn and Uncle Rich got engaged and they will be getting married in a few months. They don’t have any children of their own yet and so they really love having you around. And I’m sure you will have a special role in their wedding.
You may remember that in my letter to you last year I said that there was “a chance that by the time we have your first birthday party, a woman will be elected president.” Well, that did not happen and we’re all pretty bummed out about it. You see the election was just yesterday and a guy named Donald Trump won. He has not shown much respect for women, but he got elected because millions of women voted for him. Anyway, we’re hoping for the best, since President Trump will probably be the first president you remember. Maybe he’ll surprise us, but frankly I doubt it.
Women like you seem to have a hard time winning high political office. I don’t know why that is, but it’s not just the fault of men like me. There are more women than men in this country and if they worked together, they should be able to elect whoever they want. But somehow many of them, joined by a lot of men, decided that Hillary Clinton was not the right one to be the first woman president. So the honor is still available, although you won’t be eligible until 2050. Actually, I hope that we can elect a woman, perhaps Elizabeth Warren, four years from now. It would be great to have you start elementary school with a woman in the White House.
I am sorry to report that we did not make any great progress slowing down global warming, although your grandparents did put solar panels on our roof and your grandfather drives an electric car. We also didn’t make any progress on stopping gun violence. It’s worse than ever. And this year some of the guns aimed at dark-skinned people were in the hands of the police. We’ve got to work harder to stop innocent people from dying.
Anyway, I wanted to mark your first birthday and give you my thoughts on the state of the world. As you can see, it’s an imperfect world. But it always has been and always will be. All people like us can do is try to make it better. And you can do that one person at a time. Caroline, you make people feel better just by smiling. Don’t stop doing that. Your grandfather is relying on you to provide him with hope for the future.
Love,
Grandpop
Great songs come from the heart
December 2016
Growing up in the New York area, where there has rarely been any country music on the radio, I have never been a big fan of traditional country music. Country rock, sure. But not people like Roy Acuff, Porter Wagoner or Tammy Wynette. But I recognize artistic genius when I come across it, and I came across it in 1974 when I first heard Dolly Parton’s beautiful “I Will Always Love You.”
Before 1974, Dolly was just this whiny voice with a big bust and big hair to me. Because of her caricature-like looks, she was as easily dismissed as Tiny Tim. (If you don’t know who that was, ask someone over 50.) But the artistry Dolly Parton showed in writing and singing “I Will Always Love You” opened my eyes to a talented songwriter.
You see, in my mind, an artist is someone who shares common experiences with the rest of us but is able to express the feelings of that experience in a way that makes us sit up and say “Yes. That’s right. That’s true. You nailed it.” By this or any other measure, Dolly Parton has proved her artistic talents as a country songwriter in the same league as other performers such as Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash.
Dolly’s inspiration for “I Will Always Love You” is an interesting story. She broke into show business in the late 1960s on television with country star Porter Wagoner. But when she took the job, she told Porter that she wanted to be her own star someday and not part of a duo, and so she would stay with him only for five years.
When the five very successful years were up, Porter pleaded with Dolly to stay. They had heated arguments in which Dolly would try to explain her position. But she felt that he wasn’t listening to her. He thought she was unhappy with him when for her it was just about her career. So like a true artist, she went home and wrote a song expressing in music what she had tried to get Porter to understand in their heated discussions. The song’s lyrics are quite simple and amount to an elegant “it’s not you, it’s me” break-up:
If I should stay
Well, I would only be in your way
And so I’ll go, but yet I know
That I’ll think of you each step of my way
And I will always love you
I will always love you
Bitter-sweet memories
That’s all I have, and all I’m taking with me
Good-bye, oh, please don’t cry
Cause we both know that I’m not
What you need
But I will always love you
I will always love you
And I hope life, will treat you kind
And I hope that you have all
That you ever dreamed of
Oh, I do wish you joy
And I wish you happiness
But above all this
I wish you love
I love you, I will always love
I, I will always, always love you
I will always love you
It is the combination of the terrific melody that Dolly wrote with the simple but direct message of the lyrics that finally got through to Porter Wagoner. He agreed to let her go. She recorded the song in 1973 and it became her first hit. In fact, it was such a hit that it was reported that Elvis wanted to record it, but only if he could get a share of the publishing rights. Dolly reportedly turned down the offer. This was fortunate because in 1992 Whitney Houston covered it and created one of the monster hits of all time, making millions for Dolly. And it all came about because Dolly Parton wanted a way to let Porter Wagoner down softly. Sometimes good karma pays off.
You can see Dolly talk about the song at https://youtu.be/jr8tffNHJno and get to hear the composer sing it.
Why do so many people hate big cities?
December 2016
One of my cherished Christmas traditions of recent years is to watch as many Hallmark Christmas movies as I can. Yes, they are predictable and emotionally manipulative. But that is actually the type of entertainment I need to get me in the Christmas spirit.
That’s why it is so disheartening that so many of these movies have plots that involve people from the city who are lonely, who work too hard, or are just plain miserable human beings, who leave and go to the “country” (often against their will) and when they get there, they have a Christmas experience akin to Scrooge’s and they never return to the big, bad city.
The implication is that these people were somehow corrupted by living in a big city and the only “good” place to live is in a small town. We are led to believe that somehow small-town folks are kinder and nicer human beings than city folk.
I have not found that to be true. People do not survive in a big city by being miserable to other people. The very fact that you are sharing a small patch of land with millions of people means that you will have to deal with people all day, every day at all hours of the day and night. Unlike in small towns where people can actually get away from other people if they want, in the big city, the only escape is a small apartment. This is why city dwellers spend so much time on the front stoop, or in parks where they are forced to interact with their neighbors. And yet, city folks know how hard privacy is to come by, and so they treasure it and do not intrude in the affairs of others unless invited. That’s why so many celebrities live in big cities. They can walk around and not be bothered.
By contrast, I have often found small town people nosy and judgmental. There is pressure to conform to a norm that simply does not exist in a big city. This is precisely why our cities are populated with thousands of people who have fled from small towns.
And that brings me to ask if life in the “country” is so idyllic, why do people flock to the cities? If people are voting with their feet, cities win hands down. Our population has constantly become more urban every year for the last century. Some of the most famous “city people” like Cole Porter, Truman Capote and Sarah Jessica Parker all grew up in small towns and moved to New York.
Hallmark movies glorify a belief about small towns that is deeply imbedded in the American mythology. I think the myth that cities are evil places arose as an attempt to reduce the flight of population from the country to the city. There was a feeling after World War I that was expressed in the popular song of the time – “How you gonna keep ‘em down on the farm, after they’ve seen Paree.”
Hollywood has reinforced the mythology through movies and television that reminisce about the good life in small towns (think It’s a Wonderful Life and The Waltons) while stressing the crime in big cities (think The French Connection and just about any cop show on television). To be fair, television has also produced some shows that portray city life in a somewhat positive light. I count Seinfeld and Cosby among these.
The prejudice against cities has made its way into our politics as well. Republicans seem to hate them (remember the 1975 headline “Ford to City: Drop Dead”?) and Democrats tend to love them.
But as I walk through the very crowded streets of midtown-Manhattan on the last week of the year, I am struck by the large number of tourists who seem to have come from small towns all across the country. They seem to have a love-hate relationship with cities. They love to hate cities, but they also love to come and visit.
I think that if they stayed more than a few days, they would see that the people who live in cities are just like them. If some of them could get over their inferiority complexes, they would see that the so-called “elites” who live in big cities are people who used to be their neighbors. City people have the same love of family, the same love of neighbor, and the same love of community that small-town folks have. In fact, true city people will tell you that a big city is nothing more than a collection of contiguous small towns. People in Manhattan don’t think of themselves as being Manhattan residents. They live in Chelsea or the West Village or Tribeca.
Sure there is more crime in big cities than there is in small cities. That’s because there’s more of everything in big cities. There are also more acts of kindness. The homeless on city streets partake of that kindness every day as people bring them blankets, sandwiches and spare cash. People in small towns are not called upon to be as generous, because the need there is not as great. The reality is that if life was better for the poor in small towns, they would flee the big cities. Instead, they flock to them. City people care.
Because I believe that city folks are just as caring and compassionate as small town folks, I take offense at the Hallmark movie portrayal of the city as an evil place that one must leave in order to find true happiness and be a good person. I find it ironic that many small-town folks voted recently to elect a president who has lived his entire life in a big city and is in fact a Manhattan icon. It’s just another example of the love-hate relationship that people seem to have with cities.
As we enter 2017, I think a good New Year’s resolution would be for small town and big city folks to each try to get to know the realities of each other’s lives. I think they will find many more similarities than differences. Big city people are not all elite and small-town people are not all unsophisticated. There’s a bit of both in either place. They are both fine places to live. I say, “Vive la difference!”
Another radio legend has left us
February 2017
Herb Oscar Anderson died this week at the age of 88. For many people my age who grew up in the New York area, Herb’s was the first voice we heard from the outside world every weekday morning of our childhood.
Every school day from 1961 to 1968 my mother would turn on WABC in the morning as we ate our breakfast and out of the radio came the warm voice of Herb Oscar Anderson. At the top of the hour, after the news, Anderson (who went by “HOA”) would sing his signature song, “Hello Again.” It was a Lawrence Welk-like tune with words by HOA. It began “Hello again, here’s my best to you. Are your skies all gray? I hope they’re blue.” He had a pleasant voice and loved to sing. You can listen to HOA sing it on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5lv-W4HVJM.
In addition to singing “Hello Again,” a few times a week he would also sing “That Happy Feeling,” a Bert Kaempfert instrumental to which he wrote words.
Herb was a good ole boy from Illinois who was brought aboard WABC to cater to people like my mom, who was his contemporary. He tolerated rock music, but you could tell from what he sang and what he played that he came from the Big Band era. But his job was simply to hold on to the “adults” for WABC in the mornings while the rest of WABC (with jocks like Dan Ingram, Ron Lundy and “Cousin” Bruce Morrow) catered to us kids.
Herb called himself the “Morning Mayor” because New York City Mayor Robert Wagner once told him, “Y
ou take care of the mornings and I’ll take care of the rest of the day.” Herb had a real folksy persona á la Fred Rogers that vanished long ago from New York radio. It was a simpler time for us, as childhood usually is. And Herb was a friendly voice that mothers were happy to have in their kitchens in the morning. If Bruce Morrow was our “cousin,” Herb was our “uncle.”
In his obituary in the New York Times, his son (John James, the actor who played Jeff Colby on Dynasty) notes that “My father walked into his job at WABC wearing wingtips and a suit and left in wingtips and a suit.” He was that kind of guy. And by the late ‘60s he could no longer tolerate the music and so he left WABC. He later returned to New York radio on WOR and WHN before ending his career in Vero Beach, Florida.
In this internet world, where kids listen on earphones to their own music, there is no place for a guy like Herb (or any disk jockey for that matter). Young people have cut out the middleman between them and their music. But in so doing, they have lost the feeling of companionship that radio used to bring. Herb was there as I ate my cereal, as I packed my book bag, and as I put on my coat, he told me what kind of day it was going to be. The days were always sunnier and certainly more civil with a gentleman like Herb Oscar Anderson on the radio. RIP HOA.
The consent of the governed –
What happens when a government doesn’t have it?
March 2017
Everyone knows Jefferson’s immortal words from the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Tales of the Tarantula Page 18