The Wine Commonsewer™

Ashes to Ashes

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

Earlier this morning, my mother, Lorraine May, was laid to rest at Arlington. Laid to rest is an archaic phrase I suppose. Interred is more appropriate, but laid-to-rest sort of personalizes it a bit for moi. Time tends to get away from me and the realization that today was the day touched me a bit more deeply than I expected.


This is mom and her sisters in 1939. Ma's holding the dog, Buff.


And this is us in 1952

As Always, 

Born August 17, 1927 Died December 9, 2015

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

My mother died a few days ago. This is us in March of 1952, a few months after my folks had fled the brutal winters of St Paul for the promise of the Promised Land here in Southern California.

Thanks to Emily, I see this picture in a way that I hadn't ever seen before.

So sweet, a young Momma full of happiness with her baby in her sunny new home.

As Ever,

So Long, Daisy

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

From day one, Daisy was runner. I once clocked that dog at twenty-eight miles an hour. Up a steep grade. She could outrun a jack rabbit and if she was on it soon enough, she'd snag the rabbit on the fly. She wasn't quite as fast as a coyote, and lordy she did hate her some coyotes. With a passion. She and Blackie were the WWE tag team of coyote vigilantes. This valley has more coyotes than the entire state of Texas, and Daisy was always alert. She'd roust you outta stage four sleep at three AM demanding to defend the Casa and the cats. 

This is my favorite picture of Daisy, charging through an unamed creek bottom out in the hills where we often walk. Well, I walk, the dogs run.

 

Where Were You Fifty Years Ago Today?

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

There are a very few defining cultural moments that every generation shares. As a rule they almost always include the question: Where were you?........What were you doing?..... Our parents could recall in indelible clarity the events of December 7, 1941. For older Baby Boomers, whose coming of age included Viet Nam and summertime cities in flame, a watershed event was the assasination of JFK. And most everyone of us can tell you where we were and what we were doing when the news came.

TWC had math class immediately after lunch. Mrs Lush's English class. Mrs Lush, who pointed out on the first day of seventh grade that her husband was a trumpet player, not a drunk. The point was lost on me because, unbeknown to Mrs Lush, the term had become archaic when she wasn't looking.

We knew something was very wrong as we filed into the classroom. Her eyes were red and swollen and she got right to it. The president has been killed in Dallas. I was pretty sure she wasn't a Kennedy supporter, being a fundie and all, but the idea that someone had killed the president threw her around. As it did us all. Life was pre-empted for three days.

My good friend, Chuck, was a cinematography major at Long Beach State. Somehow, he got hold of bootleg copy of the Zapruder film, which was illegal to posess in those days. We watched that film, frame by frame, a zillion times in his bedroom. You can't see what, exactly, was happening on the grassy knoll, but something interested Zapruder, and there is just a sense of what it was, almost visible, like a specter and gone.

I am not a conspiracy theory true believer, but the evidence I saw in that film doesn't support a shot from the Texas School Book Depository building, which would have come from above and behind the motorcade. Graphic as it may be, JFK was shot in the head and a piece of his skull flew backwards out of the car. Backwards. Backwards over the trunk, after the car had passed Oswald's sixth floor lair. I'm not an expert on gunshots, but it stands to reason that if JFK was shot from the TBD, that piece of his skull would have flown into the front seat or onto the hood, not the exact opposite direction, onto the trunk of the limo. Backwards. Toward the TBD from which the shot was fired. See for yourself.

As a sidebar: 11-22-63 is a wonderful book, give it a read.

As Always,

TWC

Photo Cred: TWC all rights reserved

Dick Clark Signs Off

 

Tip of the glass to Denise Grace

Goodnight Davy Jones

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

Link to this Monkees video emailed to me by Kathryn Jeanine, who has gone into fourteen days of mourning.......

Kath made sure that the Monkees were an ongoing musical tradition at the (now defunct) Annual Fourth of July Bashes. At the finale, giggling girls of all ages joyously filled the fireplace room with dancing accompanied by a raucous, enthusiastic, and, at times, off-key cover of Daydream Believer. 

The tune was penned by John Stewart, who departed for Rock & Roll Heaven some years ago.

Kath said: Play it loud!

As Ever,

TWC