LIFE HAPPENS

What happened to those experiences of a lifetime?

Posted Sunday, September 13, 2020 1:00 am

GARY MATHENY

 

I like quoting Bob Dylan, “times ... they are changing,” and I was reminded of that recently in a reply to an email I sent someone.

 

Times ... they are changing, very rapidly, and I must admit it is difficult at times to keep up with.

 

It seems like the lazy, hazy days of summer have become the fast track to a supersonic, hold-on-to-your seat highway to a new year.

 

As a kid growing up in the 1950s, time seemed to drag, especially if something you wanted to do or a big event was in the future.

 

My memory reminds me of statements such as, “When my next birthday gets here I want to get this," or, "When the fair comes to town I’m going to ride the ferris wheel.”

 

Mom would always say something like, “That’s great Honey, but that’s a long time away.”

 

"A long time away" are words an anxious kid never wants to hear.

 

Long-awaited events were special, anything worth having is worth working for or maybe waiting for could be injected into that quote.

 

Times were easier in the 1950s. People were friendlier and little things meant so much more than in today's world.

 

We saved for those special things that were not necessities, but considered luxuries, making them that much more special.

 

Don’t misunderstand. I enjoy being able to go online and find something, order it and use that plastic card that causes so many disagreements.

 

But something is missing in that scenario.

 

I was watching a commercial recently on the big screen — full-color smart TV that I can see from the front yard of the house, and something I heard made me think.

 

The commercial was advertising shower installations and the announcer was showing the wonderful optional shower heads.

 

One made you feel as though you were standing outside during a rain shower, yet another was a pulsating massage. 

 

Heck, growing up we took baths. I didn’t know of anyone who had a shower. 

 

To a kid a shower was just that ... a short bout of rainfall.

 

The announcer talked about the experience of your new shower.

 

Wow. I understand anything you do can be an experience, but taking a bath to me was always a necessity, especially when you started noticing girls.

 

My brother, who was probably about 10 years old, spent a couple of weeks with our grandparents in Alabama.

 

We didn’t get to see them often, usually Christmas. But our parents dropped him off for an extended visit in the summer.

 

Upon reclamation of the young man, my grandmother asked an unusual question of my mother, “How often does he have to get a bath?”

 

The reply was one every mother would make ... "every day."

 

Shocked, and I’m sure a little set back, my grandmother stated, ”He told me you made him get one once a week.”

 

Mom, I’m sure, smiled somewhat deceptively as her mind began to determine the best way to correct this misunderstanding.

 

Once back home, she announced that he would take two baths a day until he caught up.

 

Deceit never pays off.

 

I’m reminded of a recent episode of "Leave It To Beaver," where Mama Cleaver reminded the boys to take a bath before going to bed.

 

They mischievously filled the tub with water, dipped their wash rags in and then spread their towel out as they dampened them with water before hanging them up.

 

I guess we all have a few rattling skeletons we may not want out of the closet, but moms have a seventh sense and they usually know these things.

 

On my 16th birthday, my dad took me to the Department of Motor Vehicles. We didn’t use acronyms back then. We actually called them what they were. That's where I got my driver license.

 

After passing the test, I drove him to work and he allowed me to have the car for the rest of the day.

 

I experienced the joy of going to school and picking up my best girl, Brenda, and getting a Coke at McDonald's before taking her home.

 

It's a vivid and unforgettable memory to this day.

 

Most of us will remember the experience of receiving the Sears and Roebuck winter catalog and lying on the floor for hours looking at all the things we could ask Ol' Santa for when he made his trip on Christmas Eve.

 

One might be going through the kissing booth multiple times at the school festival at the age of 6, and requesting that one, older, most-beautiful-girl-in-the-world to give you the kiss ... a truly exceptional experience.

 

I have on occasion dealt with the branch of a tree or a leather strap, creating an experience I haven’t forgotten.

 

The birth of my children was an experience that was special. 

 

In today’s world, everything we do is classified as an experience. It doesn’t matter whether it’s memorable or not, it's an experience.

 

What happened to those experiences of a lifetime?

 

Experiences should be something exciting, standing out in one's mind ... not just taking a shower in a fancy shower stall.

 

However, if you’ve not had a shower in awhile, maybe it really is an experience worth noting.

 

Maybe getting the bill for the new shower could be an experience you will always remember.

 

Now that I think about it, that rain-like shower head looked nice.

 

Now what was that bathroom-remodeling company's number?

 

———

 

(About the writer:  Gary Matheny is retired after a long career in the pharmaceutical industry.  Now a Cleveland resident, he is the author of two books, "If The Shoe Fits" and "The Bullet." He is also a talented singer and songwriter. Email him at gary.matheny@yahoo.com and follow him at his website, www.garymatheny.net.)

 

 

GARY MATHENY

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Enjoying school-time 'back in the day!'

Enjoying school-time 'back in the day!': I began my senior year of high school in late August 1970. In those days, and I am beginning to sound like my granddad when I would talk to him and he would say, “Back in the day.”Back in …

LIFE HAPPENS

As someone who loves nostalgia, my favorite memories come from music

I’m a nostalgia nut. That’s right. I’m one of those people who can hear a song on the radio and go into a trance thinking about the first time I heard it, and who I was with.

I am one of those people that can get a whiff of perfume or cologne and get lost in the memory of the smell.

I can see something and allow it to take me back in time reliving the moment in this brain that actually scares me at times.

I love recalling the past and enjoying over and over the scenes that make a memory come to life.

The amusing thing is, I bet most of you are the same way.

Growing up, actually my teenage years to be exact, were years that I really got into music. 

This is nothing new to those who follow my stories. Music was a big part of my life.

The old songs that actually had words and a meaning you could understand were paramount in the way I lived as a teenager.

I read the news today and see where musicians from my particular era are leaving us, and it saddens me because my time is slowly slipping away.

As a teenager I frequented skating rinks and skated to the music of the day.

The girls wore their skates with a foray of large pompoms adorning the toe of the sleek white roller shoes.

Young vibrant teenage boys skating in and out of the girls, showing off and greedily trying to get the attention of the lovely ladies as they held hands and skated as couples.

The music blaring from the speakers that were strategically positioned in the corners of the rink afforded the best sound for skaters as they made their way around and around the floor, speeding past everyone as they laughed and enjoyed the moment.

I remember one song very vividly as we glided around the wooden floors doing our best to impress the young beauties as they pretended to ignore us.

Jimmy Soul sang: 

“If you want to be happy for the rest of your life,

“Never make a pretty woman your wife.

“So for my personal point of view,

“Get an ugly girl to marry you.”

I think I was around the age of 11, and to make the scene with my older brothers and meet the girls was a treat that I cannot begin to explain.

Macon, in Middle Georgia, had two rinks, Durr’s Lake and Bibb Skate Arena. Both would stop the skating around 10 p.m. and either have a local band play for a sock hop, or have in an entertainer who was hungry for exposure.

One such entertainer was the late, great, James Brown. 

Yes, “The King of Soul” showed up one night at Durr’s and I stood about the distance of three feet from him as he twisted and turned, singing “I Feel Good” to an audience that flipped out over the sight of a man of his stature.

Ronnie Hammond, Atlanta Rhythm Section lead singer, played in a local group called the Celtics, and performed at sock hops around the Middle Georgia area.

I remember when Otis Redding died. What a shock to the music world, and at such a young age.

On the morning of his funeral, my mother woke me and said, “Son, today you can stay home from school to attend the funeral of Otis Redding. This will be something you will remember the rest of your life.” 

It was, and to this day I can still see in my mind the crowds, the music entertainers and the procession that I was privileged to be a part of, passing by the still and lifeless body of a man who was adored by millions.

Recently, one of music’s greats, someone who also called Middle Georgia his home, passed away — Gregg Allman. 

More than once I sat in bars with Gregg drinking beers, and though he was not a personal acquaintance or a dear friend, his death hurt deeply because he was a part of the culture and time that I lived and cherished.

They all seem to be progressing to another world. 

The Righteous Brothers, “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling,” wrote a song about Rock ’N Roll Heaven, and named several artists who have left us way too early.

What a concert that will be when we get to the place we are all striving to travel to, when those guitars and pianos start tuning up and we hear the “test, test” of the microphones, knowing that at any minute the music will break out and the memories of the past will once again come to life.

We will see ourselves holding that special person closely and dancing to the slow, melodic beat of BJ Thomas singing, “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” or moving and grooving to Wilson Pickett’s, “Mustang Sally.”

I love the sounds of Spanky and Our Gang singing, “Yes, I would like to get to know you, if I could.”

As the old Calgon commercial would say, “Calgon, take me away.” Well, music take me away, back to a time when I can relive the days that meant so much to me ... to a time of sock hops, and holding that special someone close, as we danced the night away.

Love Is All You Need

 

                                                Love Is All You Need

Peace and love, love and peace, that’s what the 60’s and 70’s was all about. 

The Peace movement started in Northern California, San Francisco in the early 60’s and spread rapidly throughout the country.

The Hippie, as the peace lovers were called, sang songs about peace and love, wore flowers in their hair, had love-ins and basically got stoned.

The “V” made with the first two fingers, meaning PEACE, symbolized their agenda.

More singer/songwriters, bands, and songs came from this generation of teenagers than at any other time. Everyone wanted to be a musician.

Jackie DeShannon did a great song that epitomizes the generation, “What The World Needs Now Is Love” saying, “it’s the only thing that there is just too little of.”

In the late 50’s into the 60’s, the younger generation gathered on college campuses to hear groups sing folk songs and ballads, but as the 60’s progressed those songs changed.

The war in southeast Asia was escalating and the anti-war groups were becoming ever-present in our society.

Songs about the war gave way to really good, down to earth story-telling songs.

This was my generation and the music that was played, to me was the best music ever written and produced.

Harmony, words, instruments, and the invention of stereo allowed the listener to be mesmerized in the sound.

This was definitely the generation of love. 

Recently I heard a speaker make a statement describing love, “Love is not something you feel, it’s a choice that you make.”

As I pondered that statement, deciding whether I was going to buy into that philosophy 100%, I began thinking about love.

How do you love someone or something, is saying I love you mere words or is there more to it.

I love food, but food is an object. I don’t feel for food, so I guess you can say I make a choice to love food.

I love my truck and my satellite radio, because driving and listening to the sounds of the generation I mentioned previously pleases me, but I make a choice to do that.

However, when it comes to my family, not only do I make a choice to love them but I feel the love we share.

How does someone feel love you may ask, I don’t know about you but the gut, in my case has a lot to do with it.

I met my wife in 1969, during the Hippie generation, no we were not hippies, though I loved the music as I have already eluded too.

I was a mere child of fifteen, but we connected in our soul, we both had a feeling. 

The older generation would say that what two young people our age had was mere puppy love.

Puppy love means a crush or infatuation, at first that may have been true, but it didn’t take long till we both knew and felt love.

Love to me is when you hurt or feel you can’t go on if you don’t see or be with that special someone. That my friends is how you feel love.

When my children were born,I felt the love for them the moment I saw them. My daughter was the first and the moment I saw her it was instantaneous, I can’t explain it but I knew it. 

When our second child, my son, was born, I feared I would not have enough love to support both children, but when I saw him my heart seemed to open up and I felt the love for him as well.

Both of my children would laugh when I told them that, I loved them so much my stomach hurt and now the grandchildren laugh too because I tell them the same thing.

Music is my passion and love while writing sits right up there with it. 

On December 18, 1967, my mother allowed me to stay home from school to attend the funeral of the late, great Otis Redding. The City Auditorium in Macon was full of people from the middle Georgia area as well as superstar R&B singers, coming to pay their respects.

I stood and watched as these great musicians filed past me into the auditorium to pay their respects to a man who helped shape the Motown sound.

I have had the opportunity to meet, talk with and dance on stage with some really good musicians.

In my early twenties, I have shared beers sitting beside Gregg Allman at a little restaurant in Macon, Georgia called Le Bistro. 

I had the opportunity to spend an afternoon in conversation with BJ Thomas.

I have met and spoken with many country music stars, Bill Anderson, Sonny James, and Faron Young, to name a few. 

I have gotten on stage and shared a dance step with Arthur Conley and recently CJ Jefferson of the Temptations Review.

I have danced as a young boy at sock hops to a Macon group called The Celtics, which produced Ronnie Hammond of The Atlanta Rhythm Section (ARS).

In our day we had music, real music that spoke of love and goodwill. Music that had a meaning.

My son once asked me how I could like a song that spoke about doing drugs, of course he was questioning the words to Woodstock by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. 

I simply smiled and said, “Isn't it beautiful man.”

Today a lot of the music brings on anger and resentment for society. Songs about killing and devil worship, infiltrate the minds of our young people. 

I think we should turn back time to the 60’s and listen once again to the songs about love, not hate.

Maybe we could use words like groovy or cool man, to make life a little more mellow.

When you walk down the street and meet someone, flash them a peace sign, smile and nod your head. You might even want to cheerfully utter, “Peace Man.”

I am getting a little nostalgic, I may get the trunk out of the attic and look for my Nehru jacket and put on Happy Together by The Turtles or maybe All You Need Is Love by The Beatles.

Make love not war, Peace Man!

In The Summertime When The Weather is Fine

                          In The Summertime When The Weather is Fine

It seems as though spring has left us a little short this year. 

Easter came late and most of the blooms have departed from the trees and the heat has begun to creep up.

I have put away those heavy coats and sweaters, brought out the shorts and tees in anticipation of a nice long summer.

Recently, I remembered a song from the 1970s by a gruff looking guy named Mungo Jerry, a British rocker titled “In The Summertime":

In the summertime when the weather is hot

You can stretch right up and touch the sky

When the weather's fine

You got women, you got women on your mind

Have a drink, have a drive

Go out and see what you can find

I remember those days of summer when at an early age I was carefree, no worries, just me and the warm sunshine. 

Looking back, my troubles were few and the days were long.

In 1969, I had turned the ripe old age of 16 and thought I was grown. 

I had a 1966 black mustang with red interior (wish I still had that beauty today). I kept that car washed and shined weekly. It was showroom shined.

This was the summer before my junior year of high school and I was feeling my oats, if you know what I mean.

I played in a rock group, The Electric Hourglass, with my buddy Dennis Webb, we had fun and practiced at least once a week at Dennis’ house. Although we didn't make a lot of money playing music.

To support my dating habit, I had to stop playing music and get a job, the band gigs just weren't often enough and as everyone knows movies, popcorn and burgers cost money.

Macon, Georgia in the late 60’s, like most towns I’m sure, was full of fun loving teens. 

Drive-in movies were big in the 60’s. We had several in Macon and the lot was always full of cars. I don't think the movie was of interest because hardly anyone stayed in their car and if they did they parked on the back rows. Hmm wonder why???

We had our favorite hang-out spots and on Friday and Saturday night, usually after the movie, we would all would meet there.

There were two Shoney’s restaurants in town, on the south side andthe north side. Both had drive thru’s.

Closer into town was The Varsity and the Pig and Whistle. Each one was on a one-way street, so you cruised one and then swapped sides and cruised the other.

Girls and guys would constantly cruise through, racing their engines, hanging out the window and being, well teenagers.

Occasionally, some boys from the school on the other side of town, would come through sparking some competition and the guys would jump in their cars and go after them. This led to a lot of tires squealing and loud engines roaring.

Lots of fun and we could afford it because gas was only about $.25-30/gallon. I remember filling up my mustang with Amoco white gas, premium for around $6.00. Times they are a-changin.

When the weather starting warming and school was about to be out for the summer, we would meet at the local convince store before school and a lot of time after. 

Most teenagers smoked and I was no exception, Marlboro 100’s, of course they were only about $.25/pack too, so it was affordable.

There was this one boy who hung out with us each morning and his parents pretty much gave him everything he wanted. One morning he came to the store driving a new 1968 GTO, stock. Pretty car, but plain, nothing fancy.

Everyone oooh'd and ahh’d over the new vehicle and that was the end of it. The next morning he showed up with the back-end jacked up about 6 inches, he was walking around like a proud Banty Rooster.

When it came time for us to leave and head to school, he pulled out and got down on the gas. As the GTO slid sideway, with tires smoking, 2 x4’s went all over the road, the kid had jacked his car with wood instead of lifters.

I think sometimes the warm weather effects the mind of teenagers.

We spent a lot of time at a couple of water parks and swimming holes in the summer.

The rock quarry was one such favorite place. No-one has ever found the bottom of the quarry. It has been said to be hundreds of feet deep and all types of things in it.

The rumor was that there were stolen cars and even a crane in the water. Can’t confirm this because none knows how deep it is.

During the my career, summertime meant trade shows and conventions to nice resorts and beach villas. Disney World, Tybee Island, Hilton Head, Panama City Beach and Destin Florida to name a few. I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to share these with my family several times in the summer months.

My children always liked the fact that we took two to three vacations a year, and I liked it as well because I was on an expense account. Vacations seem more enjoyable that way.

As I have aged and the children have grown and gone, with families of their own, summertime has taken on a new meaning.

Oh, my wife and I still take a vacation, usually a cruise to the Caribbean where we bask in the tropical sun and watch the parents chasing their children on the Lido Deck, or running back to the buffet to get food for them. 

We occasionally will look at each other and smile, no words are necessary as we continue to listen to our music or read our book. 

But the joys of summertime now are in the beauty of the nature, seeing the world alive after an arduous winter of cold rain, some snow, and harsh blowing wind. 

The first pink bloom of my Rododendrum that grows beside my screened porch. The opportunity to grill on the deck while listening to Pandora and sharing our meal on the porch.

Yes, summertime takes on a different flare as you grow older, but the slow days and the warm nights leave a lot to treasure.

In the summertime when the weather is hot

You can stretch right up and touch the sky

Have a drink, have a drive

Go out and see what you can find