I have never created the popular to-do list before I die, better known as a bucket list. However, two weeks ago, members of a team I belong to were asked what was on our bucket list. At the time, I said, “Nothing. If it all ended tomorrow, I’m good.”
And I felt confident about that profound conclusion…until this morning, when I’d learned that America had lost one of its most priceless treasures, jazz vocalist Keely Smith. She died in Palm Springs yesterday at the age of 89. She’s not a trending topic on Facebook at all today, but in my heart she’s one of the best singers I’ve ever enjoyed in my lifetime.
Learning of her passing reminded me that, apparently, I did have a bucket list, and it had one thing on it: to see Keely live in concert if ever she did one again. A few years ago, she managed to do one concert a year, in Palm Springs, California, but time and circumstances had never jived together for me to be there when she was.
I’d even set a Songkick alert for her, an Internet gem that would conduct a daily scan of concert tours by favorite artists. Alongside all the contemporary searches I had set for artists closer to my generation, Keely was right in there, and I was delighted. Reminder notices every now and then would tell me that the alert was still active but, so far, no concerts were slated.
My first introduction to this amazing song stylist began as a bonus from a holiday party my parents had hosted for family. Adult beverages were limited to eggnog, but there were two bowls, one with and without a kick. The kick of course came from Bacardi rum, and apparently when you bought the bottle of Bacardi, they gave away a free music album. I got the “without” eggnog and custody of the 33 and 1/3 album (score!).
Taking my harmless brew back to my room, I put the album on the turntable and found jazz. I found adult contemporary, big band, jazz guitar instrumentalists, and four-part harmony, all on one album.
The first artist featured on the liner notes is my favorite of the group assembled, and yes, mark age four as the time I’d begun reading the liner notes on my albums. (Okay, so maybe I looked at the pictures and stared at the names, but soon, I’d be reading those things.) Keely Smith’s smiling face showed a young woman with short black hair and bangs, wearing a crisp white shirt. When I heard her sing “Fools Rush In,” crisp would be an appropriate way to describe the level of perfection she had when she sang. Her fluid vocals literally lilted their way to the surface and there was strong power within her expert phrasing.
Other artists on the list included Harry James (“Cherry”), Laurindo Almeida (“Fly me to the Moon,” yes please!), Jack Jones (“This Could Be The Start of Something Big,” which it was before he was to become most famous for singing the theme song to TV’s “The Love Boat” a “few” years later. Jonah Jones did “On The Street Where You Live,” and Al Martino crooned the “Painted, Tainted Rose.”
The first ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba’s I heard did not belong to the Beach Boys, thank you very much. They came from The Four Freshmen on "The Girl from Ipanema."
Woody Herman’s “Woodchopper’s Ball” became an “I can name that song in five notes” piece for me, and I recognized it when Gene, Gene, The Dancin' Machine, came out dancing when Chuck Barris needed a time stretch on "The Gong Show." The album also included Stan Kenton’s “End of a Love Affair”; the great Ray Anthony did “Charade,” and George Shearing offered “September Song.”
There was also a helpful little paragraph about what a Bacardi Party was, but I could have cared less as I was happily ensconced in my ultra hi-fidelity album played through the little child’s record player that was advanced enough to deliver the sound.
But back to Keely. Most of the television shows she would have made selected appearances on, at the time, were past my bedtime, so it would be a few years before I ever got to see her, although many of her songs would play on our adult contemporary stations, alongside Elvis, Andy Williams, Barbra Streisand, Johnny Mathis, et al. The Beatles were still busy in their cave, or cavern, as it were.
In 1970, I read in my vast collection of TV guides that it was former CBS Programming executive Fred Silverman who’d (re-)discovered Sonny & Cher, having seen their live stage act in Las Vegas, and he knew it would be perfect for television. Fred, to our mutual joy, was right and hundreds of hours of happy programming later, we have The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, now on DVD.
But, their Vegas act was actually inspired, and to a large extent borrowed, precisely from the style between Keely and her husband, dynamic bandleader Louis Prima. If you watch this one video of “Up a Lazy River,” focus on Keely, her standing in the background while Louis yucks it up and has a blast.
Now, fast forward to 1974, and watch the looks Cher gives Sonny and Sonny’s happy-go-lucky mannerisms and fun while singing. So, the success of their TV show, which began in Las Vegas, owes much of its style and thanks to Keely and Louis, and they said so often in interviews.
All the usual publications will fill you in on the specific Keely Smith details such as being born Dorothy Jacqueline Keely, and she started singing professionally at age 15. Not only did she collaborate with Louis Prima on some of her most famous duets, she sang with Frank Sinatra and released albums with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra and Billy May & His Orchestra.
She won a Grammy award (together with Louis for “That Old Black Magic,” for best pop vocal performance by a duo or group), and she’s in the Grammy Hall of Fame. A 2001 album, “Keely Sings Sinatra,” was also Grammy nominated.
But let’s talk about how this amazing woman had such a crisp, clear, clean voice that made it seem effortless for her to take lyrics and make them come alive. Her beautiful voice took a standard song we knew well, and she made it her own each time.
She had such talent and yet as time and life would come her way, she appeared to remain absolutely the same person, one that fame left untouched. She and Louis had two children together and she seemed to enjoy her life out of the spotlight, but not out of the hearts and minds of those who got to hear her.
In 2008, Keely showed she still had ever that same vocal power, when they paired her with Kid Rock at the Grammy Awards, and he was clearly outclassed vocally, and botched the lyrics and phrasing beyond repair, but as a pro, she stayed right with him. Of course, you’ll notice saxophonist Dave Koz taking Sam Butera’s part for the song.
Reflecting on the life and talent of this wonderful singer, I’ll just share this and leave it right here, as the kids say today. Keely Smith, singing one arrangement of “I Wish You Love,” with Nelson Riddle & his orchestra. Thanks for your sharing your gifts and talent with all of us, Keely. We wish you love, too.
Today is one of the saddest days in recent memory—it’s the day they closed the doors, forever, on the Office Max in College Station, Texas. Yes, to those who consider far more serious matters of great world importance, including world peace, tax bills, and football playoffs, this is entirely trivial, but not to me. I have a longstanding love affair with office supplies.
It began with a childhood love of school and my dear mother’s willingness to indulge my request for Hefty #2 pencils and Big Chief tablets if I explained that “I really needed them.”
Those who knew me then recall I would spend an hour selecting a school binder, the right color for the zippered pencil case with the holes punched in for your notebook, the tabs for subject dividers, the favorite colors of anchor lead Husky #2 pencils by Empire, and, of course, the size of Big Chief tablet I felt comfortable with.
After mastering the big pencils, it was a pencil with our school name on it that I could get for five cents in the school office. Sometimes, I’d treat myself and use my allowance on some Dixon Ticonderoga #2 pencils from Handy-Andy or others from Winn’s 5&10 would delight. I might purchase an extra school practice book (my mother should have known the signs of a nerd by then) from Kresge’s.
All these brands would occupy my thoughts until I learned the beauty of pens. In elementary school, it was Venus Max colored drawing pencils for the geography maps we had to draw. Then, in high school, we used Paper Mate Flair pens and stippling pens for bio drawings. The ballpoint Paper Mate stick pens with the pretty blue barrels and the blue caps had seen me through high school notes.
With my transition into engineering classes, I felt a close kinship with Pilot Razor Point fineline markers. The pen tips, though, eventually got worn and crushed, and there was nothing more fun than a new pen, for $.79 (at the local college bookstore). Color choices abounded, and this was before they sold multipacks. You can’t take notes with the wrong pen! Later on, I'd find the Pilot V's to my liking. Fellow supply lovers are nodding their heads in agreement. Others are forgiving when I opine on office supplies.
I still remember how I felt in the 70s when Engineering and Office Supply (EOS) closed their Redmond Terrace location. I found my first Pentel automatic pencils there (0.5 HB lead for the black barrel, and 0.7HB lead for the blue barrel). This is far worse. I like to browse selections of pens plus I’m picky about computer paper (how many nerds look for the brightness rating and weight on your laser paper?). I love having an assortment of jumbo paper clips in a cute new container every now and again.
Back in October, I learned the news that my Office Max store had been slated to close by the end of the year. I was devastated.
Why should it matter that the “Max” store is closing when the parent company “Depot” remains open less than one mile away? Because the two stores are similar only in the word “Office.” There is a world of difference in the personnel who staffed my Office Max and the very nice folks at Office Depot. Depot staff are competent and pleasant; Max staff/team members were extraordinary.
Customer service isn’t just a department to call; it’s a philosophy of a store that’s reflected in every aspect of their operations. Such was my Office Max. If you’re local and you’ve shopped at either one or both, quick—can you recall the names of the folks who work in the different departments?
Perhaps that’s an unfair question if you’re not an authentic office supply junkie. Maybe you don’t have to have anything but what you walk around and pick up off the shelves. Maybe you have a box of 12 pen refills that last you a year as you don’t care what kind of pen you write with or whether your legal pads are narrow ruled, wide ruled, or quadrille ruled. There are needs, you know, for all three categories. Well, there are! No, I’m not kidding.
This Max was a team, a family, and collective group of kind professionals who gathered to help every customer with the same level of expertise and professionalism, and we were all special to them.
It started with Carlos, a manager with years of office supply experience. He helped me decide between four different HP printers that I was considering, as he knew my typical page prints, based on how often I bought reams of paper at Max.
Carlos put me in the computer chair of my dreams when I came into the store too tired to shop but I needed something. I collapsed into one that looked comfortable, only to realize I’d left a key coupon at home and the sale on the chair would be ending that day.
He said, “No worries, I’ve got you, and I know you won’t use the coupon for anything else.” I reassured him I wouldn’t and he not only gave me the floor model, he even found a very creative way to get it into my jaunty little sports car (thing of the past) to boot! Customer service, Max style. Happened all the time.
By the way, the words “some assembly required” are fine when it’s children’s toys that need assembling. I once had a $39 failure trying to build the “Easy-to-assemble” two-shelf bookcase from Depot. Since I didn’t own a power drill, my Phillips head screwdriver, channel locks, and hammer were not enough for the job, and out it went to heavy trash day, along with a few tears and a few choice words said outside of the earshot of the dog.
For computer choices, if you don’t know how to "build your own" on the various techno websites, and you must own a Windows system, because you work in a Windows world, when everyone else tells you at least once a day that their Apple MacBook Pro never has the problems you are having. Right? Anyway, if you want a Windows system and you, like virtually everyone else in town, have vowed never to set foot into Best Buy ever, ever again…you could go to Max and have Harrison talk you through the best system available at the best price at the time. Harrison never steered me wrong, computers, peripherals, routers, and without seeing my full system, was the troubleshooter when my three-screen view went down to two. I thought I'd have to spend at least $200 on a new monitor. He said, "It's probably the USB to VGA connector that failed." Try that first, and though they didn't have one in stock at Max, the web site did! Two fast days later, no new monitor required, and a net savings of $160.
It’s not just about selling you technology. It’s about service after the sale. Two years ago, I bought a 1TB portable hard drive. In fact I bought two of them at the same time, as they were on sale for $89 each. Cute little red My Passport Ultras, from Western Digital. Oh don't I sound like I know what I'm talking about? You betcha! They teach as well as advise at Max.
On a business trip in November, to my dismay when I connected my portable hard drive to my travel computer, the error “Cannot read hard drive” came up. Fortunately I could access my files to work on from a different source but certainly the hard drive was the repository for lots of photos I determined to keep, but not on my desktop because of the space required.
When I returned to B-CS, I promptly went up on Sunday afternoon with the hard drive, and was delighted to find Harrison working that day. I explained my dilemma and told him I’d located a program online that could help recover, data but it was $98 and I wasn’t willing to buy what I wasn’t sure would work or try to use it without knowing how to prep a new drive to receive the transferred information.
Harrison said, “leave your drive with me and let me see what I can do.” Four hours later I came back and he said, “I found a program online that only cost $79 (instant savings of $17!) and I downloaded it and am running it on your drive right now. It’s going to have to run overnight, but it will be fine here. Check in tomorrow by phone and I’ll tell you how far along it is.
The next morning at 8 am he said it would be about 6 pm that night before it was finished and in case his manager sent him home, he’d come back and make sure it finished, on his own time.
Sure enough, Harrison had too many hours in to remain on the clock that day but on his own time, he came back and finished it up and then showed me how he’d partitioned the new drive for me and where the data was (divided by recovery into four segments). Well, this may all be gobbledygook to you, but to me it was irreplaceable photographs and memories I’d never see again if they weren’t recovered. That kind of above and beyond service wasn’t just for me. I was one of many, many regulars this Max store had. He also knew that a full-time writer and editor couldn't last long without her files. And whether or not he was on the clock didn't matter to him. I was his customer.
Two years ago, when Gen. Joe Hanover was alive, and he had put me through the first revision of his life story, where he thought he just wanted the old coil binding unwound and some new pages slipped in, haha, we went to Copy Max (the print center inside Office Max) and the manager, Art, met him and shared with him how they could transform his project into something befitting a general.
Art and Joe became good friends and probably four reorders of a large number of copies ensued before Joe was ready to go to hardback printing. But Art always addressed Joe as “General,” and his dear Michelle, by name. They weren’t the regular customers I was, but the point is that Art and his team remembered all their customers by name.
Then there’s my patronage of CopyMax. With no disrespect to any other independent proprietor in town, who do fantastic work and support this community, I loved my CopyMax and wouldn’t go anywhere else. No matter how much I don’t know about the world of “what you can do” in document design (I write the words, I don’t do the layout), Chris solved my problems with such kindness and courtesy.
He kept up with all my projects (and I had a ton of them), and he’d ask me how my clients’ projects were advancing. How he kept all that in his head, along with that of the entire customer base they had, is amazing. Chris graduated from Texas A&M today and is going to Depot down the block. Keep in mind my print and copy projects now belong to Depot, as long as Chris is there.
Then, there’s one of the key managers, Mike, who is well known and beloved in this community. He was the most capable, thoughtful assistant manager in the grocery stores formerly known as Appletree (previously owned by Safeway), and our small town friendly atmosphere kept people going to Appletree. Eventually they sold to Village Foods and Mike kept things going well. It was a great day to see him in Office Max and while he was there, customer service continued to be the priority. I can’t say it enough times, this group of employees was a team, unparalleled in consideration, efficiency, and good advice.
So, why the shutdown? A corporate reaction to a proposed nasty rate increase at Culpepper Plaza (or that’s what we used to call the strip development). You could almost sense it coming when the uber popular (why? It’s Aggieland) Spec’s Liquor next door relocated to the vacated Anna’s Linen’s space over in the University Drive center that holds Michael’s and Half Price Books and Records, among other stores.
It would appear that the rent increases have now caused two major stores to leave. But in Max’s case, that was all the impetus corporate needed to close my favorite office supply store. Did it make economic sense to keep Max open when Depot was just a mile down the road? Maybe not to big city executives who pore over spreadsheets and look to save costs wherever possible.
But their corporate decision took away customer service I have counted on for as many years as Max has operated in College Station. Depot here does not automatically earn my business; the print center there does, with Chris there, as he understands how to create what I need, no matter how ineptly I explain it.
And as of today, the doors are shuttered. At first they were planning to stay open until December 27, but I’ll bet the same executive team decided they didn’t want to bear holiday pay for the 25th. At least that’s the way it appears to this heartbroken, slightly bitter customer.
With Saturday, December 16, their targeted final day, clearance prices moved from 25-50-75-90% by Thursday, December 14. I went in on Thursday, and there were teams of contract people knocking down displays to transport them who knows where. Only a few display printers were left, which no one would risk buying because they carried no warranty and you know better than to buy one where Little Precious and Chip off the block Jr. have pushed the buttons nonstop when mom or dad were busy perusing the myriad of choices.
All that was left by then anyway were some great deals on a surplus of notebooks and binders and a tray of pen refills for pens I didn’t own. I went ahead and bought up many binders, intending to donate them. I wasn’t happy to see the yellow caution tape around areas where nothing was left. It felt like a crime scene with police tape marking the sections where the public was no longer allowed.
I’m almost ready to drive the 60 miles to Staples in Temple from now on to shop, because their prices aren’t as high as Depot’s are (file boxes for $13.99 vs. $35.59. My rewards account (Depot/Max) says I’m a VIP member but I was happier with my Max Perks.
I moved from Pilot Razor Points to their Roller Balls, the V rollers, the Dr. Grip’s, the Pentel Energel roller balls, and the Uni-ball 207s Micropoints. I had them all and in many colors. Don’t have a Sharpie in color? Call me, I can hook you up. Sharpies are very important. You know this.
I’d waste, er, spend, fifteen minutes staring at the pen wall in Max. Depot didn’t have that. Other times, I lived wild and bought a multipak for $6.99, in the days when I was living wildly. Pretty big risk for $6.99. Just saying. If ever I didn’t like the pens, I’d donate them to those who needed or wanted spare supplies.
Max sold refills to Keurig coffeemakers for their customers. I haven’t been in Depot recently to say whether or not they sell them too, but I don’t care. Depot has those godawful fluorescent lights in their store. Max had better lighting, better ceilings, and most of all, plenty of floor space for you to feel like you weren’t squeezed into a sardine can.
The computers on shelves at Depot are fine, but the ones that were on the custom display counters in Max made me actually think about buying one. Product selection was more expansive at Max. Depot has Depot brands, other names (Foray) that are Depot brands and Blue Sky (from China, the same brand I can get at Walgreen’s more affordably). Max had better legal pad selections.
For some reason Energizer battery selections became obscured and in Max and all you saw were Duracells, while some Energizers were still sold at Depot. That’s the only item I can think of where I’d go to Depot…the dadgum Energizer batteries. No disrespect to the cute pink bunny but the Energizers lasted longer, period.
I should be ashamed that I’ve gone on this long about an office supply store, but it was a pleasant opportunity for a writer to shop for essential supplies and beautiful presentation accoutrements that stepped up my game, I was told. When Depot “merged” with Max, I knew then that this day would ultimately arrive. I was just hoping against hope that it wouldn’t be for a far longer time.
RIP Office Max, and thank you to all the staff at the store formerly on Texas Avenue, for every professional courtesy and kindness you shared with our community. You will be remembered.
The mere mention that Navasota Theatre Alliance was staging "A Tuna Christmas" was sufficient impetus to grab tickets on whatever night they'd be available. Just a hint of the opportunity to enjoy this play made it a sold-out event for every performance before the debut. The brilliance of three creatives--Jaston Williams, Joe Sears, and Ed Howard--created the characters, and I do mean characters, of Tuna, Texas, and you'll meet a total of 22 characters (portrayed by just four actors) in "A Tuna Christmas."
Hilarious writing makes for some of the most rib-splitting monologues. Four actors, J. Paul Teel, Scott McDuffie, David Brown, and Kevin Parker offered their talents and created theatre magic. They were larger than life in dead-on delivery of rapid-fire dialogue so fast that it would bring a tear to Aaron Sorkin's eyes. Director Mark Taylor was perfect in capturing every aspect of this performance to stay true to the original.
If you're a veteran of Tuna, you know the slogan of Didi's Used Weapons, you know the cause that Petey Fisk makes his own, you know the names of the two girls at the Tasty Creme, and can't stop laughing every time they answer the phone.
J. Paul Teel as Arles Struvie and Scott McDuffie as Bertha Bumiller are brilliant, David Brown knocks it out of the park as all three children in the Bumiller family, and Kevin Parker as Farley (and Phoebe!) Burkhalter had people shaking with laughter.
J. Paul Teel as Petey Fisk said it well, "...Skunks are moody, raccoons are self-centered and wild hogs have a zero success rate as yard pets."
It's hard to pick a favorite character, but of all seven that J. Paul Teel portrayed, probably Didi Snively takes the cake...you will not be able to hold it together when she sings Christmas carols, dripping in long pauses for drags on her imaginary cigarettes...when she swears, I swear you are going to lose it.
I'd always heard what a great actor he is, but this was my first time to see him in action. Scott McDuffey expertly delivered the rapid speech of Thurston Wheelis, and yet he seemed like an entirely separate actor when portraying Aunt Pearl Burras.
Costuming was brilliant, hilarious, and you will just have to see for yourself, because I'm not giving a thing away for all the rest of the sold-out audiences to enjoy if they're Tuna newbies.
Staging was genius--sets were minimalist but convincing. Transitions between scenes were nothing short of expert. I've never seen knock down and set up move so fast, and it took only two people less than one minute between acts, barely enough time for costume changes you'd think.
After the show my friends and I decided that the beauty of the superb story tonight rested in the message that all of us who exist in a small town or separate microcosm of the universe live and work here, flawed as we are, gifted as we are, hopeful as we are, and sometimes just trying to get through the day know one thing to be true....at the end of the road is always love, compassion, caring, understanding and...peace.
As Mark Taylor ends his show notes, the way Petey ends his Christmas PSA, ..."Peace on Earth, good will to everybody. I never get tired of hearing that." Neither do we, Petey. Neither do we.
Bad news: This show is sold out. 100%. Every night from here forward. All you can do is get to the theatre and pray someone is a no show. By the way, snow didn't stop anyone from getting to the theatre on time. Every seat was filled.
Special thanks to the primary sponsor of this show, Trinity Heads, Inc. in Navasota--if you've ever set foot in a chemical plant, you know that a head is an expertly designed and manufactured pressure vessel cover...Trinity Heads leads the industry and they're based right there in Navasota. Additional funding came from the Hotel Tax Revenue funded through the City of Navasota through their Arts Council of Navasota. Many individuals contribute from $35 to over $5,000 a year supporting this organization.
Special recognition is due to Navasota city leaders (and the Navasota Grimes County Chamber of Commerce) for making their population of around 7500 blow the doors off the arts...nonprofits are thriving there. You know there's something special when people will drive 30-40 mins from here to be there. They also host their annual state-of-the-art legendary Navasota Blues Festival there. Don't look now, but they are doing some serious trailblazing over there. B-CS is truly grateful for everything they offer to all of us to enjoy. You keep doing what you're doing and we'll drive over to be with you for it. We will, we will.
To join the group of people who loves what they're doing, visit www.navasotatheatre.org. Navasota Theatre Alliance and Tuna, Texas-- a winning combination.
It is. It is. It is. It is. ....It is! Bravo to all.
Walter Elias “Walt” Disney was born 116 years ago today. In 1901 our country was in the Second Industrial Revolution, or “Technological Revolution,” and the United States was about to experience major changes in how things were made. At this exciting time of exploring the unknown, time, creativity, and imagination were three of the most important assets anyone could have.
The first cartoon or animated film was credited to Emile Cohl, a French animator in 1908, the same year Christian Ludolf “Buddy” Ebsen was born. In 1928, at age 27, Walt Disney released “Steamboat Willie,” featuring the product of his wonderful imagination: Mickey Mouse.
Eight years later, Buddy Ebsen would star alongside his sister Vilma Ebsen and Eleanor Powell in “Broadway Melody of 1936.” In the iconic YouTube clip, Buddy is proudly wearing a Mickey Mouse sweater as he sang and danced his way into American’s hearts, never then realizing what was to come.
In 1951, according to an article in D23, the Disney publication, “Walt Disney hired Buddy to demonstrate a dance routine; the dance was filmed, and Walt’s crew analyzed the action, frame by frame, to devise a way to animate a nine-inch figure with the same movements.” The actual date of 1951 is subject to correction as a display of Project Little Man notes the year 1949 when Buddy was hired to dance against the grid. It makes sense that he began the process in 1949 and it took the engineers at least two years to go from drawing to reality figure.
The endeavor was called “Project Little Man” and morphed into Disney’s “Audio-Animatronics®” that would become the precursor for Disney theme park exhibits including “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln.” In “To Dad with Love: Finding Buddy Ebsen,” Kiki remembers that when Buddy would take the children to Disneyland, he paused for the longest time, reflecting at the Mr. Lincoln exhibit, yet never saying a word to them about his role in the entire process.
The blog “The Wonder of Miniatures” recently shared this photo and the story from a plaque in the Walt Disney Imagineering Collection.
Buddy and Walt enjoyed a personal friendship as well as a great professional relationship. Here’s a photo where Buddy is showing Walt Disney and others a few dance steps, with Walt trying them out.
In 1954, Walt Disney wanted Buddy Ebsen to act in a new project he was developing, considered him for the title role of Davy Crockett, in a series of TV adventures about one of his favorite folk heroes. Then, Walt saw a young actor, Fess Parker, in a two-minute scene in “Them,” a movie about an army of giant mutant ants, which starred James Arness. Soon after, Fess “became” Davy and Buddy was re-cast as Georgie Russel, Davy’s right-hand man, a journalist.
In all, there were five hour-long television episodes of “Frontierland,” introduced by Walt Disney in 1954/1955). The shows included “Davy Crockett: Indian Fighter,” “Davy Crockett Goes to Congress,” “Davy Crockett at the Alamo,” “Davy Crockett’s Keelboat Race,” and “Davy Crockett and the River Pirates.”
Ultimately, they were repurposed into two feature-length cinema films (one was “Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier” (1955), and “Davy Crockett and the River Pirates”), expanding the Davy Crockett craze.
Little boys from California to New York were running around in their coonskin caps, just like Davy. Record albums featured more “Davy Crockett” songs and themes, Fess Parker “received 10% of the merchandising for Disney coonskin caps and Old Betsy toy rifles,” and Buddy continued to work regularly toward his next big break, which would come via “The Beverly Hillbillies.”
On the opening day of Disneyland, July 17, 1955, Walt Disney had Fess Parker, Buddy Ebsen, Ronald Reagan, and Art Linkletter on hand to welcome the crowd. Part of the ceremony is featured in this video.
As you’ll see, Walt read the dedication:
Frontierland. It is here that we experience the story of our country’s past. The color, romance, and drama of frontier America as it developed from wilderness trails to roads, riverboats, railroads, and civilization. A tribute to the faith, courage, and ingenuity of our hearty pioneers who blazed the trails and made this progress possible.
There’s a charming story told by Grenade Curran, who was a general factotum at Disneyland, about this picture, taken before the grand opening in July 1955 (L to R: Fess Parker, Walt Disney, and Buddy Ebsen).
Buddy also appeared as Sheriff Matt Brady in “Corky and the White Shadow” in 1956, and he was on the “Mickey Mouse Club.” All of this happened, by the way, before Buddy’s two youngest children, Kiki and Dustin, were even born.
On March 3, 1967, an article in Kittanning, PA’s Simpson Leader-Times (among other UPI papers) ran Vernon Scott’s story, noting “Buddy Ebsen will take time out from his highly rated “Beverly Hillbillies” series to star in the last picture on which Walt Disney’s name will be seen as producer. The story went on to note that “…It was Walt Disney who prepared and engineered every detail of his final movie,”…“The One and Only Genuine, Original Family Band” (released March 1968) as “the sort of family entertainment with which both Disney and Ebsen have been identified for three decades.
Aired first in December, 1988, Episode 19 of the Disney Family Album starred Fess Parker and Buddy Ebsen, which you can see here, narrated by Buddy.
In 1993, Ebsen was inducted as a Film and Television Disney Legend, together with others who were honored for Animation–Voice, Animation & Imagineering, Film, and Administration contributions.
Here’s a photo by David McNew (all rights reserved to Getty Images) of Buddy with Roy Disney (at the time Vice Chairman of the Walt Disney Company), taken Feb. 8, 2001, in Anaheim, when Disney opened their California Adventure theme park.
Walt Disney was born in Hermosa, Illinois, on December 5, 1901, and died on December 15, 1966, having just turned 65 years old. Buddy Ebsen was born April 2, 1908, about 175 miles away, in Bellevue, Illinois. He died on July 6, 2003, at the age of 92. The world of fun family entertainment has benefited for over 50 years of combined creativity of young men who saw opportunities to pursue their passion for entertainment, love of music and dancing, and with dedication and hard work, two legends were made.
The opportunities that Walt Disney gave Buddy Ebsen to showcase his talents defined his future and his eventual career as an internationally beloved actor. Even more would Disney impact the Ebsen family. Daughter Kiki graduated in Vocal Performance from California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), which was founded in 1961, by Walt and Roy Disney, when they merged two schools together. The Disney family would be a major funding source to launch CalArts into its ranking as “America’s top college for students in the arts by Newsweek.”
At the time, Walt said, “CalArts is the principal thing I hope to leave when I move on to greener pastures. If I can help provide a place to develop the talent of the future, I think I will have accomplished something.” He did. The Disney Company and all of the wonderful interactions between Buddy and Walt are featured prominently in “To Dad with Love: A Tribute to Buddy Ebsen.” A brief video EPK follows:
Kiki Ebsen’s theatre show features her vocals and storytelling, with exquisite multimedia by videographer brother Dustin Ebsen. Three musicians accompany her on the songs that span seven decades of their father’s career. The show concludes with the final image of the full-page ad that The Disney Company took out upon Buddy’s passing: it’s a drawing of Mickey Mouse, shedding a tear.
Today, we celebrate the 116th anniversary of Walt Disney’s birth. His phenomenal imagination and creative live on for many generations to come and as Kiki says, “Just because someone is out of your life, doesn’t mean they’re out of your life.” Truth.
Late Tuesday evening, Nov. 21, the New York Times ran the story that confirmed musician David Cassidy had died. Most poignant was the (usually) irrefutable New York Times had two corrections appended at the story’s end for accuracy.
The first error was to correct the spelling of one of David’s half-brothers, Shaun, not Sean; the second was the correct last name of David’s mother, Evelyn Ward (not Wood). As sad as David’s passing is to anyone who ever knew or cared about David as a singer, actor, songwriter, and entertainer, it’s virtually incomprehensible that there was a need for two corrections to facts that any woman over 50 would have been able to answer without Googling.
An even sadder fact is that three other NYT reporters contributed to the story. What does that say about the interest and ability to chronicle a life and legacy of an individual who brought entertainment and distraction to the lives of American (and international) teen fans for decades? It was not like Cassidy’s passing was unexpected, as false news reports had surfaced on Sunday, wrongly quoting his publicist as the source of the news that he’d died that day, “surrounded by family and close friends.”
If you grew up in the 1960s, pre-teen or not-anywhere-near-a-teen yet, you knew who David Cassidy was. Hundreds of issues of Tiger Beat, 16 Magazine, Flip, and other teen-targeted publications ran ever-changing new photos against the backdrop of re-recited family facts and one factoid for fans to take away as “new, exclusive, and tells-all.” Generally the factoids revolved around David’s fave color, the name of his dog, or that he liked to take long walks on the beach as a great first date. Sadly, if you go back and actually read the stories in the archives, you’ll see that the magazines were 95% pictures and 5% text. And as David wrote in his book, he had absolutely no time away from work for long walks on the beach.
What those publications imparted, for teenage girls in those days, was a chance in a million to “meet your idol David Cassidy” or to spend time on the set of The Partridge Family. For teenage boys, the look Cassidy projected was encouraging to those who were not going to be the star athletes of their schools.
You didn’t have to spend hours pumping iron; you had to have a ready smile, play a guitar, and have a good haircut and a strand of pooka shells—all four of those achievable by virtually anyone. That was a win-win for teenagers around the world, and thus David Cassidy was welcomed, into homes every week with "The Partridge Family" on television, and blasting from portable stereos, car radios, and lunchroom transistor radios.
Anyone who owns a Partridge Family album knew David’s family tree. So, too, do they know many stories inherent in the good and bad aspects of Cassidy’s life, growing up in a Hollywood cocoon, nestled slightly north of reality and south of crazy.
When you’re a young creative talent who may be surrounded by other children of Hollywood celebrities, from this side of the 90210, it is possible that in life, there comes an inevitable fork in the road with two choices: you either embrace your heritage and go forward in the world of creative expression, ignoring people who accuse you of trading on the family name—-which is an entirely false premise virtually 95% of the time--and, you carve out your identity in entertainment.
The premise also applies outside the entertainment field, as the children of successful business dynasties, legendary sports figures, and those who’ve achieved milestones in public service can readily identify. It’s a blessing when you can learn from your parents to be true to yourself and ignore all the chatter around you. Chatter is low-frequency resonance jealousy. Encouragement is high-frequency energy. David learned that, at least from his mother.
Unquestionably, David Cassidy had been blessed with talent from childhood forward, but he was cursed with people always introducing him as actor Jack Cassidy’s and actress Evelyn Ward’s son and singer/actress Shirley Jones’ stepson, later half-brother to Shaun, Patrick, and Ryan. Fortunately, David had just enough magic in him to do his best to choose his own path and make his way into the business.
It’s ironic that the producers of The Partridge Family were shocked that David could sing, extremely well. In fact, there were early recordings “by” The Partridge Family that didn’t include David at all. The extremely talented studio singers (including Tom Bähler, John Bahler, Jackie Ward, and others) were the voices on the records. One of the best songs recorded before the program aired, which excluded Cassidy, was in the pilot, “Let The Good Times In.”
With the acting skills David Cassidy and Shirley Jones brought to the on-stage performances of the band (ignoring for now the collective lack of skills the youngest performers had at the time), teenage audiences were convinced the actors in fact were actually the ones singing on the tracks. Brilliant editing and massive retakes made it look seamless, as evidenced by this episode that includes “Together (Having a Ball).”
Once again, it’s the voices you love paired with the faces you adore and presto, it’s magic. Studio singers and musicians are who American teenagers owe a very large debt of gratitude to, for the true soundtracks of their lives, and yet, teen magazine covers “sold” the show. The Cowsills themselves were the inspiration, of course, for the show, as the producers have said, but when they went to observe the band in concert, only Susan Cowsill was considered “perfect” and her elder teenage brothers were already considered “too old.”
The television show could easily have become a parody of The Cowsills’ life on the road, the way teleplays can take a true story as inspiration and then ruin it, but the show was a success because it showed a happy family going on the road in show business and succeeding.
Very subjectively, the personality quirks of each sibling made the program unique—the wily con artist, Danny, and beleaguered Ruben Kincaid were worth 1% of the impact, with another 1% for Danny’s red hair. Teenage boys tuned in to see Susan Dey, so that was 3%. And then the success was 5% having the beloved Shirley Jones’ smiling face for credibility affixed to the project, and the other 90% was all David Cassidy’s ability to carry the show on his youthful shoulders.
When producers found out that David could sing, the same session singers joined him and together they blasted “I Think I Love You,” to the top sales spot over The Beatles’ “Let it Be” and Simon and Garfunkel’s, “Bridge over Troubled Water” in 1970. Yet, save for David Cassidy, and one track saved back for Shirley Jones’s voice, occasionally, it was all manufactured magic.
The “real” band included legendary session players: Larry Carlton and Louie Shelton on guitars, Hal Blaine on drums, Joe Osborne and Max Bennett on bass, with Larry Knechtel and Mike Melvoin on keyboards and harpsichord. Hal Blaine said, “We put on our teenage thinking caps when they said ‘bubblegum’ and we knew exactly where we were going bubblegum-wise.” Millions and millions of records sales later, there is a substantial discography.
How many present-day surgeons, lawyers, senators, business executives and public servants today aren’t reflecting in quiet solitude today, a little bit sadder, knowing their former teen idol is now gone? How many of them owned some of these albums?
How many of the same group of people purchased teen magazines faithfully and plastered photos from inside the magazines onto your pre-teen and teenage bedroom walls? No one is looking, but hands in the air now.
Across Facebook today, if you had a dollar for everyone who has shared their remorse and intense sorrow for the loss of David Cassidy from this world, you could fund California’s educational expenses for a year. It’s hit everyone hard. Yet, why is that?
The common denominator behind the myriad of emotions surrounding David Cassidy’s death as it reveals itself through the rest of the day is: a fond, fast holding-on to the days of our youth. First crush, first love, first time you set a goal and tried to accomplish it—the successful achievement of all these elements requires someone on the other side looking back at you, telling you what you need and want to hear. You are loved, you are respected, you are appreciated.
In fact, this theme was internationally true, as seen in the YouTube featuring the photo of the Japanese pressing, “Doesn’t Somebody Want to Be Wanted.” Here, we hear the singing and spoken words of David Cassidy, who broke through young girls’ feelings of inadequacy, offering understanding, identification and validation, the most common of human needs.
Four years of David Cassidy’s life were invested, spent, enriched and wasted (depending on your and his perspectives) on “The Partridge Family.” The same contract you make with Hollywood to make you a star often has hidden clauses that can present difficult challenges in life, which primarily center around when you’re not in the same vehicle that made you famous.
Celebrity, the omnipresent two-edged sword of joy and sorrow simultaneously, brings with it great responsibility. Wherever you go in public, someone sees you and they have a reaction. Some fail to keep their reactions to themselves; instead, they feel they must share them. Publicists and publications offer normal people the opportunity to become famous. The more times you see a name and a face, the more people know you. Television propels that recognition to the nth degree.
The David Cassidy phenomenon would not have been possible without people who live in the same homes they’ve always lived in, raised their families, and mow the lawns around. TV producers, writers, musicians, songwriters, record producers, singers, makeup artists, set dressers, key grips, best boys, lighting gaffers—every single one of these television production professionals plays a key role in creating the image that people come to love.
With the right script, an actor can appear to be onscreen precisely what he or she is nothing like in real life. With the right song, an average musician can use their talents and turn the song into a good one. With the right song, superb musicians can create gifts of musical memories to imprint permanently on the minds and in the hearts of listeners around the world.
Music therapy is what it is because when words fail, music remembers. When words hurt, music heals. Where there is loss, music supplies texture and strength to fill in where there are holes. David Cassidy healed many hearts with his smile and his talents.
Years ago, I began reading David’s 2007 book, “Could it be Forever? David Cassidy: My Story.” I got through about the first ten chapters and tossed it down on my desk, disgusted with the litany of nameless, faceless conquests, out-of-control episodes and such detailed sorrow and pain that he endured as a famous television idol. Of course, he made a deal with the powers that be to be exactly that person. Yes, there were excesses that can be described typical for one given access to wealth and power too soon, but it's hypocritical to judge when I was one of those people who watched the show, enjoyed the music and have at least one Partridge Family album in my collection. I bought the softcover book for about $5.00 in a Half-Price Books & Records store. Today on amazon.com this exact edition is going for $100.31. What a difference a day, or 3,650 of them, makes.
Genetically, David Cassidy couldn’t win for losing. From his mother and his maternal grandfather, clearly now, we know his dementia was inherited, exacerbated and accelerated possibly by youthful lifestyle excesses, not my diagnosis to make. From his father, whose proclivities for arrogance, decadence, and jealousy at the successes of his own progeny was embarrassing to see play out.
However, that notwithstanding, four handsome, talented sons arrived, thanks to Jack and, aside from David’s struggles, Shaun, Patrick and Ryan have been grounded in success, but have (to the public eye) escaped the sad excesses that come when other people own your soul. And still, for Jack Cassidy, the world revolved around, of course, Jack Cassidy. Life’s tough and then you are best remembered for an episode of "Columbo" that was better than most of his body of work.
David Cassidy tried to escape the music rollercoaster, several times in fact. He tried acting and was good at it. With his adult image came stylish suits, and the days of teen idolhood were far behind him. On Feb. 27, 2013, the camera opened up on CBS’s “CSI” and there was David Cassidy, as Peter Coe, a professional poker player, entering an elevator, where he was awaiting an uncertain fate.
Beyond all irony, the music in the elevator playing in the scene was Gary Puckett singing “Young Girl.” It was hard enough that David’s Peter Coe was just about to lose his life, he had to have “the competition” singing as he got killed. Some screenwriter or producer was surely having his or her own private joke. I guess you couldn’t use “Together” or “I Think I Love You” there anyway, but still…you’d think. Perhaps not. Ultimately, though, in the past many years, David Cassidy joined tours that were considered "bubblegum" and was paired with others who were concurrent teen idols, including Micky Dolenz and Mark Lindsay, the three of them sharing time on TV and in bands that were professionally augmented for varying periods of time, until the teens gained new footing breaking out and going solo from the bands that brought them first fame.
On Feb. 18, 2017, a friend saw David Cassidy’s final concert at The Canyon Club in Agoura Hills, California. As she always shares concert fun with friends on Facebook, she often live broadcasts and that night as she did, friends saw a man on stage who looked disheveled. To be present for that final concert was something unknown to all those in the audience that night. I remember the feeling of being at what would later be called one of Davy Jones’ last three concerts in 2012 before he died. Perhaps we realize our own mortality, as defined by those whose talents were shared as you grew up.
As he announced that “2017 is the last year that he was going to be playing and touring…c’mon, 49 years…the world was a different place in 1970.” Listen for yourself. Most of the audience chalked it up to Cassidy being drunk; given that he’d had several DUIs in recent times, that was an easy assumption to make. Was he drunk? Was he fighting to remember what he wanted to say? Was he both? Not our call to make.
Importantly, he told the story of how he almost quit “The Partridge Family” because the producers wanted him to do a song with a middle, spoken part, and he thought it was absolutely not the right thing to do. Turned out to be one of this biggest hits, “Doesn’t Somebody Want to Be Wanted” and again, that was the question virtually every teenage and preteen girl could respond, “Yes, we do” to.
Producers knew their audience and market; David Cassidy knew what was cool and what wasn’t. Royalty and residual checks are not sufficient balm on the wound when you’re 22 years old, playing a high school teenager, and you want to be taken seriously as an adult, but you’re 5’6” and you look 17.
Which brings us back to February 18, at the Canyon Club. Video notes from a frequent YouTube poster claimed that “immediately after the show, the Dr. Phil television show film crew interviewed David Cassidy backstage, then recorded audience attendees’ reaction to the evening’s performance.
“The Dr. Phil Show” was broadcast on March 1, 2017, an exclusive interview and if adult businesspeople all of a sudden took a late lunch hour that day to watch this show, you’d know how many people cared about David Cassidy’s well-being. As usual Dr. Phil was probing, yet gentle, as he posed his questions, for David’s tearful answers.
The most poignant message shared (paraphrasing) was that David told his son, Beau, when you see me become like my mother (Evelyn) is now, please find a way to let me go. He didn’t want his son to relive what he had to live through, watching his mother disintegrate. Of course, Beau never took that to heart.
As I’ve checked into Facebook and Twitter, throughout this morning and now into the afternoon, it’s surprising that David Cassidy is not a “trending topic” on either social media outlet. I’m no expert on personal feeds and what shows trending to each person, if there’s a major difference, what with all their mysterious algorithms and advertisements, and yet, on Facebook, what’s trending now does not include the man who sold over 30,000,000 records.
His was an unpleasant disease; his was a decline and demise that robbed him of his soul, and while one can argue that a lifestyle lived to “beyond barriers of good sense” can accelerate and destroy chances of a normal life, you can’t fight genetics. Theoretically the dementia was inevitable. The tragedy was that it came far too soon for a young man who still had years of life left to watch his son continue to grow up.
David has a daughter, Katie, who grew up in Calabasas, CA. She’s a lovely actress (raised by her mother, model Sherry Williams, and her stepfather), who is now age 30, and unmistakably has her father’s green eyes. Her given name is Katherine Evelyn Anita Cassidy, and she’s worked continuously on the CW network (Melrose Place, Supernatural, Gossip Girl, and back for her fifth year of “Arrow”). Plus, she’s been in a few music videos.
Katie once recorded “I Think I Love You.” Hey, why not? It’s all about trying to earn a living in a town that grants approval on a temporary basis and offers the opportunity to make you a star, or a pauper, in a moment’s notice. These are the two options with success and failure that she understands well already. She watched it from the front row. To win, though, is divine, and that's what keeps everyone going in life, the quest for success.
Speaking of money, Cassidy had a multitude of financial difficulties and trials that are lesser known than the lyrics and melodies that everyone knows by heart. He battled each trial with bravery, working any job his agent could get him, to earn the money and climb back out of bankruptcy. It’s in comprehensible to the average fan that a man whose collective work sold over a reported 30,000,000 records can be bankrupt. And yet, business insiders understand well what things cost to keep up appearances. He loved thoroughbred racing and eventually married a woman he met through mutual horse friends, and while horses brought him great joy, not only did their expense and upkeep cost a fortune, so did his ultimate divorce from that unfortunate union. He exited with about $1,000 and two suitcases to his name, in his version of that experience. Still, he remained upbeat and happy to be working.
Fans did their part, though, in buying tickets and showing up wherever David Cassidy performed over the last decade. On Sunday when it was falsely reported that David had died (ah, the Internet twerps) I picked up the book that had a fairly thick coast of dust along its side, as it was being used as one of five books used to raise the level of a desk lamp, so I began to scan the book again.
I learned that even when he was at his lowest financially, he turned down the opportunity to make $500,000 because of the source of the funds. Cassidy had integrity and relevant values, even when no one was looking to applaud the choice. He met an agent who’d been a fan and explained that “he was basically a mess” but she took him on as a client and he began to work again.
His marriages are not a matter of great interest and really none of our business, but he seemed to have had his best life when married to Sue Shifrin. Sue is a songwriter who wrote (or cowrote) several successful chart hits for Cliff Richard, Musical Youth, Patti Austin, Peabo Bryson, and the Al Jarreau song, “So Good.” Shifrin is, truly, so good. [And yes, that’s Kiki Ebsen on the keyboards and vocals among Al’s on-stage galaxy of stars.]
Sue and David created a good life together, wrote songs together, and had their son, Beau, now age 25, who was their best creation in their marriage.
Their marriage lasted 23 years, through 2014, which is about when David’s public image began resurfacing as “troubled.” And yet, he still kept trying to work, pay bills, and keep on going.
That work ethic would lead him to Feb. 18th’s Canyon Club finale. He tried to tell a story; people kept up incessant chatter. He tried to perform and with a great band behind him, he made it through several songs.
In the end, though, my friend who’d adored David Cassidy and who was at The Canyon Club, couldn’t bear to keep her videos up on Facebook and took them down the next day, crushed because things were not as they used to be, not as she hoped for, not how she remembered them.
Perhaps it would be of some comfort to know that most of David’s happiest days were when he was with Sue Shifrin. Sue writes:
…in general, we’re just supposed to be together. We’re still standing after 20 years and I can’t believe it. It’s gone so fast. I just love his spirit. I love the fact that he’s a survivor. I love the fact that no matter how hard he gets kicked, he gets up. And he’s been kicked really hard. I’ve been around it, and I’ve seen it and my heart has bled for him. But he always managed to get back up. I tell him all the time, ‘You remind me of the Terminator. You’re like the steel skelton.’ He has miraculously survived a life that has been a huge rollercoaster.
Truer words can’t be found to sum up his impact in his life of 67 years, lived out loud and large on television. David’s words follow Sue’s in his book. And they are the only thing that bring tears to my eyes today as I understand them to a level that defies boundary:
The way that Sue and I evaluate someone is, Would you climb a mountain with them? And, if you were slipping, would they reach down and say, Come on, I got you? The more willing you are to care for your family and make sacrifices for the people you love, the better you become as a human being. You become a more well-rounded person and look at life from different perspectives. I had gotten myself out of debt. I had rebuilt my soul and spirit and physical and mental health. I started on a journey as a parent that’s been an unexpected gift and joy and I now find that my family is the most important element in my life. And that includes my brothers, my nephews, my nieces, my sisters-in-law, my cousins and my mother.
My mother, sadly, is now suffering from a horrible disease that none of us is immune to—dementia. I support her, take care of her, see her as often as possible. I know how important she has been in my life. My heart breaks daily for her and for others who have endured this painful disease.
I had never visited David’s web site before, but today I went there and saw where his web team admin had posted news of his passing. I scrolled down to Aug. 9th’s post, and in his message to fans, it is written:
I am saddened by news of the death of an old friend, Glen Campbell. He will be missed. Glen, in the past decade, has been suffering from the disease that killed my mother and my grandfather, Alzheimer’s/dementia. Glen was a great musician, guitar player, singer and all-around great guy. May God rest his soul. David.
When Glen Campbell passed away, he was a social media trending topic. In fairness, today America remembers the assassination of President John F. Kennedy that happened 54 years ago and other items the algorithms are promoting. Missing in action, sadly though, is David Cassidy, among the trending topics. Somehow, though, that’s alright, too. David Cassidy never really wanted to be a trending topic. In fact, perhaps he would have disliked a fuss being made over his passing.
Instead, we choose to remember David Cassidy’s words: "Would you climb a mountain with them? And, if you were slipping, would they reach down and say, Come on, I got you?"
Rather than end with a 1970s version of David’s music, here’s “Tell Me It’s Not True” from the play “Blood Brothers,” a successful project that David convinced Shaun to take time away, as a busy screenwriter working on a film for Universal, and come perform with him. Fortunately, Shaun’s schedule permitted, and this beautiful song remains as an example of two siblings, climbing a mountain together.
Rest in peace, David Cassidy, and thanks for sharing your talents with us.
P.S. To the New York Times writers and editors, please take a moment to confirm the accuracy of your details in reporting. Seriously. You’re supposed to be a benchmark for journalism.
Last week provided a splendid reason to travel to San Antonio to briefly revisit lifelong friendships with two schoolmates in a quick up-and-back trip. As a dear friend reminded me recently, "Never miss something important that only happens once." I've been holding fast to those wise words for weeks now. Love how that's working out. With planning, everything you need to do still gets done, but you don't have to miss things and regret them later. And a phone app called WAZE would make the journey easier and do more than that in the course of a day.
Before the fantastic celebration of the arts in San Antonio had started, as Patricia Boyd Contreras and I had seen our dear friend and classmate, Dr. Carmen Tafolla, honored by the City for Distinction in the Arts (more on that later), I sat in reflection. Only three years old in its present updated, yet historic setting, I knew the Tobin Center best as the "Municipal Auditorium."
So, I sat in the Tobin parking lot for a moment...reflecting. The outside of the building bore no resemblance to the "Spanish colonial," as a Texas Monthly writer described it--the Municipal Auditorium I'd grown up seeing. And yet, it was beautiful in its new facade, thanks to HEB Grocery Stores and other donors. Inside the design is brilliant and the iridescent colors are so attractive that it's almost possible to forget what it used to look like.
In that old building I'd first heard the San Antonio Symphony, conducted at the time by Victor Alessandro. We were excited to sit in the comfy, cushy grown-up chairs, surrounded by lush carpet, and hear beautiful music played for hundreds of area schoolchildren. I recall taking new stuffed animals to the U.S. Marines' Toys for Tots concerts there, the price of admission.
It was a precious $3.00 to see The Buckinghams, Sunny and the Sunliners (Sunny Ozona), and Archie Bell and the Drells, and others. My handwritten memo on the back of my Polaroid b/w Swinger camera noted 12/14/69. Many of my pictures that night (including The Buckinghams) had faded, but seeing this one, and the fabulous seats my Mom managed to secure made me remember how magical she was all over again (I do recall her talking to one of the Marines expressing how much I loved all the performers on stage that evening, and...you'd just have to know Mama to know how that stuff happened all the time).
Another concert favorite was to hear the Grand Ol' Opry with Ferlin Husky, Little Jimmy Dickens, Miss Minnie Pearl, and Miss Skeeter Davis. That evening I got to meet Skeeter Davis in person (Mama again. Another story, another time.)
I didn't know the word "foreshadowing" at age five, but it would appear that anxiously watching the rise and fall of the red curtain would be part of a very happy future.Those early concerts began my fascination with the amazing world of live concerts by brilliant artists.
That night staring at the powerful neon lighting in the Tobin Center, I saw the past, present, and future of the lives of my friends and my own life, boundless, multiple possibilities beckoning, new challenges inviting. As girls, now women, and all those along our journey, we were told we could be anything we wanted to be. Convention never defined us, barriers were made to be broken, and we went to the school that insisted we could be more than even we had imagined we could be.
It's strange having to consult a map (or my phone) to navigate downtown San Antonio...I used to know exactly where to go by rote. For the first two decades of my life, I knew every twist and turn by landmark for downtown from anywhere. The freeways and side streets were great to navigate, before all the name changes and new routes and subroutes and boom, you're there. Because there's so much construction downtown and on IH-35, I needed options only my mapping app would provide.
For about two years I've been estranged from Google Maps as I've enjoyed the WAZE navigation app, thanks to the recommendation of my friend Nancy. WAZErs are a friendly lot, and alert you to real-time travel conditions. Starting out from The Tobin Center, WAZE offered me three choices home, the total distance traveled and trip length, so I could choose. Much data, several choices.
From the Tobin Center, the first turns would get me to Broadway and then to...oh my gosh, I knew where I was going, and found myself just 2 blocks away from the historic Witherspoon Building at 320 E. Sixth Street. Why is that magical? It's like many other buildings downtown and it's old; therefore it's historic. The apartment at the far corner of the building in the back was my Great Aunt Emma's residence for most of the years I knew her; there had been a little residence on E. Grayson Street, I am pretty sure...at least from the 1960s...all the way until 1991, when she passed away at the age of 98. Now, this is relevant and sort of fascinating (if only to me) for a number of reasons.
Great Aunt Emma and her husband Mitchell had a son, Robert, who died very young due to polio, which was devastating. It was a time of no vaccines and hard economic times. Uncle Mitchell was a house painter by trade, and he died very young, leaving Aunt Emma with no visible means of supporting herself, and no education beyond the school of hard knocks, one of the best teachers of how to work. She was, however, a great seamstress, so that is what she did in her longtime job at the St. Anthony Hotel in SA. Today it's an historic five-star international hotel, but even in the 1960s the hotel was "all that and a bag of chips" in terms of prestige. Many private residences were held by several of S.A.'s most influential businesspersons.
Early on, working at the St. Anthony, Aunt Emma knew she couldn't afford to keep the home she'd shared with Uncle Mitchell, so she decided to rent a more affordable apartment in SA, and one of her coworkers at the hotel, Charlotte, was looking for a room to rent. Charlotte was working as a hostess in the St. Anthony's main dining room. Celebrities traveling to SA always stayed at the St. Anthony, and Charlotte got to meet all of them and they would ask for her by name. Charlotte had been recently divorced from an unhappy marriage and so, as God always seems to know what people need and when, Aunt Emma became a perfect mother figure and Charlotte the good daughter.
The two of them remained friends for their lifetimes, and Charlotte became a joyful part of our extended family, too. Except we never used the term "extended," as she was true family, especially to me. She always had time and attention to share and was always interested in whatever I had to say. By sharing expenses, they managed to do well and Aunt Emma was a faithful saver of money...in her lifetime, she never believed in banks keeping your money safe, because she'd lived through the great depression and remembered when "they had one thin dime to get them through a week"...a dime was enough for bread and milk and that was about it, back then. Aunt Emma taught Charlotte how to save, and I recall, as a child, hearing admonitions, lest anyone think of not saving something that could be reused.
Aunt Emma saved everything she could for reuse, e.g., aluminum foil. She shopped at Kresge's (the ultimate parent company of K-Mart), and bought Dak brand canned hams for $2.89 or so in the 1960s. They made four or five meals out of them. As was a member of 75+ years of Farm and Home Savings & Loan...Aunt Emma received a certificate for that notation. As a child, I didn't see how that was relevant, but Mom congratulated her savings talent and I learned then how important it was to save, for when you might not have income you were counting on having. That lesson I'd learn to value sooner than I'd realize. Today's young people walk into Target or WalMart and they're used to just picking what they want. Few have cause to learn to save allowance for weeks and wait with anxious anticipation for something worth saving, and waiting, for. That saddens me, until I see contemporary parents teaching their children that lesson, and my heart is warmed all over again. It's a miracle this photo of Aunt Emma even exists, but perhaps there was a special at Corona Studios (May 12, 1956) for this beautiful photo to be taken. No matter how it happened, it's a cherished photo.
She took no vacations nor did she travel out of town....not even on the bus. Grandma Daisy came to San Antonio for two weeks, once each year and the first week she spent in SA, staying with us, and we saw her sister, Aunt Emma, every day of that week, then we drove to Galveston for every July 4th on the beach there. Great Aunt Bird (Berta) lived there, and she was Grandma Daisy's half-sister, but Bird raised Daisy in a family of 16 kids...eight from the dad and eight from the mom blending together when the widow married the widower...these brief visits kept the 'family' together.
Great Aunt Emma wasn't long on conversation but she was kind....Charlotte was more talkative and fun to be around, but Aunt Emma had lots and lots of stories about their growing up. I remember a few, a very few, but could kick myself for not paying closer attention. When you're 8 and 9 though...you don't think in those terms anyway.
In the day and time of the 1960s, their rent for that one-bedroom apartment was about $50-$75/month. If you had a down payment for a house, maybe a mortgage payment could run $70-$90/month for a small home, $400/month for a mansion perhaps. Hard to know much about pricing when you're in elementary school. Charlotte had the bedroom and Aunt Emma had her big poster bed, armoir, dressing table and sewing machine, all in the back half of the very large living room.
It seemed such a vast living area...and today's rent there, for the same place, I see online, is $895/month. It had (I hope this is a correct memory) 37 cast iron steps and Aunt Emma marched up and down those steps two and three times a day...which is how she stayed in shape. She walked to the bus stop and took the bus to the St. Anthony, as did Charlotte. It was not ever a safe neighborhood by any standards, really. But when you pray for safety, which they did, safety was there.
The Witherspoon Building was home above the Pep Boys garage underneath...the garage saw a lot of traffic during the daytime but shut down about 6 pm. You could park in the lot directly behind the building. I do remember as a kid learning to be aware of who was around when you went to get in the car, and to first walk all around the car before getting in it, lest someone try to enter from the opposite side and drag you and the car off with them. Yet, it didn't deter Mom (and me, in tow) from visiting Aunt Emma. Mom and Charlotte were both concerned when someone grabbed Aunt Emma's purse and took off one day...and they looked for another place to live.
They moved across about 5 miles to "The Rex Apartments" that were not necessarily in a better neighborhood, but it was landscaped beautifully. That lasted 5 days and they moved back to the same building that was being managed by their friend, Mary, widow of Ed, who'd been a night typesetter at the San Antonio Light newspaper. Mary welcomed them back with open arms and there they stayed. All three of them looked out for each other.
Aunt Emma never let you carry her purse, which weighed a good 30 lbs (slight exaggeration, only slight), and insisted on carrying it up and down those stairs...Mom feared constantly that the weight of the purse would send her careening down the stairs but it never did...these days if you asked me to take those stairs once a day, I'd have to think twice about the potential of tripping...but she never did worry....the best attitude.
Final thoughts...when Aunt Emma was a younger woman, early bride, Mom and Aunt Virginia would ride the Frisco Railroad (free) each summer to spend several weeks in both San Antonio and with Aunt Emma. Mom said she was lighthearted, funny, loving and kind. It was those times, I am convinced, that were some of the most special of the very hard life and times Mom's generation had, growing up in St. Louis. Ultimately, Mom would move permanently to SA, where she took a job in civil service, with a government office located on the base at Ft. Sam Houston, very close to where Aunt Emma's original house was.
It's hard to tell what a person is like by one semi-serious photo pose, but among the pioneers of our generation of strong women...you never saw her pity herself and how little she had to live on....she had faith in God, even if she didn't attend church each week, and that's the perfect example of how being in a church each week doesn't make you religious any more than being in a garage every night makes you a car...it's how you live your life and if you trust someone or something outside yourself to have gotten you here as who looks in on you at times when you don't even think you have a right to ask for help. All those thoughts came rushing back into my mind simply by driving down that street (that my Waze GPS programmed me to take) on my way back home from SA...the first hometown I ever knew.
Eventually, I arrived back home, spending those 210 minutes in deep reflection, being alert enough to avoid two standstill traffic jams along I-35 (thank you many, many exit ramps in SA), but the joyful events of the day--seeing a longtime friend after too long, and seeing another longtime friend of ours honored by the most creative and talented artists, academics and dignitaries in San Antonio, had me on the proverbial Cloud 9. WAZE got me home safely, but it took me via a small detour of five decades of my life. I had to forgo the usual Buc-ee's stop with my new route, darn the luck, and I left with no Bill Miller iced tea refills in my car, yet I had a perfect view of my childhood, thanks to a heavenly intervention of memory, and a technological invention called WAZE. Thanks for the memories, WAZE. I owe you one.
