Rick Minerd - Life Is A Jukebox

Movin' On

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 07:06:52 GMT

My Journals have been moved to Blogger.com where they should remain available for public view as I continue editing them and writing new segment's as time allows.

Soon they will fade from this AOL site but hopefully the new "spot" will be a comfortable place to reside.

In the meantime, thanks to all of you who wrote to say nice thing's and were nice enough to ask me to keep you posted.

That I will do as always'.

See you all in Google!

imjustrick@aol.com still.

Ashes To Ashes

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 16:34:13 GMT

"Like pouring Brandy in a Dixie cup..."

Ashes to ashes it'll never be the same.

After tonight the old ball yard goes dark for good when the Columbus Clipper's play their final home game in what will forever be remembered as "Jet Stadium" by me and by many other's who wore Jet badges and were treated to "Jet Bar's" when as kid's we sat in the old wooden seat's and witnessed future Hall of Famer's play baseball in that historic Mound Street facility.

Where Cy Young christened it with the the first pitch thrown in 1932, and where guy's like John Romanoski, Joe Garigiola, Willie Stargell and Derek Jeter cut their baby teeth on baseball's as young players.

Tonight's grand finale is against the Toledo Mud Hen's, which for me is fitting because my earliest memory of going to a Jet game was against these young Detroit Tigers.

But instead of the Columbus player's representing the Pittsburgh Pirates as they were when I first became aware of baseball, they are junior Washington National's, but still Jet's to me regardless of what other's call them.

Last night my son Todd and I sat a few rows over the "Jet's" dugout along the first base line and even though there was a very good ball game going on out on the field, I spent the evening in something of a mental time warp.

Looking over the outfield fence at the cemetery where long ball hitter's of the past like Bob Bailey and Johnny Powers used to park them, and thinking inning to inning that this will all soon be something else removed from our history.

That the photo's I was taking will go into and live inside scrap-book's started more than 40 years ago.

I felt an urgency to take as many pictures as the memory card would hold because I knew this was the last time I would see the place filed with loyal baseball fan's watching a team who's uniform's are still White with Blue logo's.

Call them what you will but I was watching Columbus Jet's last night and as in summer night's of old it was like hearing the crack's of bat's being swung by guy's like Manny Sanguillen and Al Oliver, or seeing the fielding of Freddie Patek and Gene Alley.

When Todd asked me how many time's I had come to this stadium since the 1960's I told him I wasn't sure but it seem's like a million or so.

In all reality it was only a number.

How many times isn't what's important, what is important is what I took with me through life as a baseball fan, and that I became one right there when I was young enough for the game to make deep impressions on who I would grow up as.

Baseball stand's alone from the other sport's, it's a game of anticipation and of appreciation of the simplest achievement's on the field.

A good throw, a good hit or a good catch.

And unlike football or basketball it is a game played by more gentlemen than by thug like personalities.

Guy's with class.

Players' who consistently keep the game family friendly and competitive- season after season and and playing it by the same rules they played by for decades.

No time clocks, no one hot-dogging or showing off after an amazing play, just guy's with a common purpose, one that requires something seldom seen in other sports, team work.

When the Jet's move into their new dig's in the Arena District I will be able to call them the Clippers.

I won't enjoy summer night's in the stadium the same way I have since 1962 and regardless of who the parent ball club will be or how fancy the new ball yard is I doubt that it will seem any more or less exciting than the memories of Mound Street.

But missing will be the ambience of history.

And that's what's kept Jet Stadium the fascinating venue it is.

It's not the name of the home club, or the glitz of so-called progress that make's baseball exciting, it's the traditions.

76 years in the same place is time enough to build a few.

Todd is in his mid twenties and he has older sibling's who went to games there with me when they were barely out of strollers, I was not yet ten years' old when I was first taken there.

At last night's game there were fan's sitting nearby who talked about coming to games at the stadium when they were kid's in the late 1930's

A woman who looked to be in her 80's had a foul ball land near her seat and a younger guy sitting close by picked it up and handed it to her.

She was wearing a Columbus Red Birds jersey.

My son's Clippers and my Jets were her Red Birds.

I realized last night that I hadn't gone to as many home game's as I probably should have when I had the chance, and seeing many fan's in the stands older than me it was clear that I wasn't alone with these thoughts.

And when Clipper's General Manager Ken Schnake came out on the field to introduce current Franklin County Commissioners, Paula Brooks and Marilyn Brown and to thank them for their efforts to build the new park, I noticed the old woman with the foul ball in her hand didn't cheer.

She cheered for everything else.

I could only look at these broads and think to myself that if I weren't in such a polite setting I'd give them the finger.

But that's a football tactic, and one commonly expressed in basketball.

Baseball is better than that and fan's of it and of a pretty cool place to see it have just one more chance to feel it.

Shortly after six o'clock tonight.

Imjustrick@aol.com

Goodbye Columbus

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 07:20:06 GMT

Before the final game played in "Jet Stadium" on Monday night several former Clipper's, Jet's and Red Bird's were introduced as they came back to say goodbye to a ball park that hosted more than twenty-two million fan's since it opened 76 years' ago.

The third largest crowd in the stadium's rich history gave them standing ovation's.

Guy's like Jack Damascus, Ed Whitson, John Romonoski, Steve Blass and Howard "Hop-A-Long" Cassidy were just a few of the honoree's who shared the spotlight with our current Franklin County Commissioner's.

Interestingly the commissioner's weren't as well received.

As a matter of fact they were booed vigorously.

I suspect the bad tiding's were the fan's way of saying "thank's for nothing."

Thank's for killing off our wonderful old stadium and replacing it next season with something we not only don't need, but by the reaction of 16,000 plus fan's who showed up for a final look at the old lady, something we don't want.

The ten's of million's of dollars being squandered to build the new diamond could have been spent on Mound Street and would have made more since.

The new yard, to be called Huntington Park won't hold a crowd as large as the one that came to say goodbye to Jet Stadium.

Capacity up there in no-man's land will only be 10,000.

Shiny and new with lot's of glitz and gadget's yes, but decades away from any sense of heritage or sense of historical meaning.

Huntington Park will be a constant reminder that it exists at the cost of something more precious than mere brick's and sod.

I doubt that many who attended the last game ever to be played on Mound Street cared that the Clippers' lost the game three to nothing.

I don't believe that many people showed up to just see a game.

Instead they came for one last time to remember being brought there as kid's, or to bring their own one last time.

As General Manager Ken Schnake remarked in his opening ceremony comment's, many of us have lost parent's and grandparent's who sat in those seat's decades before we were born.

Twenty year's before I arrived on the planet someone sat where I did on Monday night looking over the same configuration I was looking at, maybe someone who meant something to my life, like a friend or a relative.

If ghosts' exist I'm sure there were many cheering at the final curtain call.

And if the spirit's of old ball player's and fan's long dead were there, I'm sure they too were booing the commissioner's.

And for a moment I was sure there was one sitting behind me when I heard the most awful, blood curdling raspberry I've ever heard when their name's were announced.

It sent chill's up my spine leaving me nearly terrified to even turn around to see where it came from.

But mustering every ounce of courage I could, I forced myself to look back.

It was my brother.

The guy I sat in front of the first time I ever saw a game in that stadium more than 45 years ago.

He was less pleased than me that the commissioner's would make such a horrible decision for us baseball fan's.

Throughout the game we exchanged our memories of not only the player's we watched there through the years', but of our personal experiences.

Like getting on a CTC bus from the south side that took us straight across on Mound Street before there was anything called I-70 cutting it in two.

Catching one on the Whittier Street line and transferring downtown.

Taking our ball gloves to game's as kid's hoping to catch foul ball's.

Being taken there on field trip's by the people who sponsored our little league teams.

And living in an era when it was okay for parent's to allow their ten and twelve year old son's to take such a journey without a Mom or a Dad holding our hands.

The feeling's of being allowed to venture out "into the world' alone, confident that the worst thing that might happen to us would be getting lost or losing our bus fare, or eating too much junk at the park.

A time when this stadium had decades of life still in it, and would be around for what remained of our youth as well as most of our adult live's to keep us interested in America's game.

An era when everything and everyone around us seemed like they would always' be there.

Between the Columbus Dispatch and the local television channel's a lot of stories about the stadium were told over the past few day's, some by people who although now in their 80's still remember vividly being taken to the stadium by their parent's.

Some who also came back to say goodbye to something that can't say it back.

Some who were visibly shaken by tears' of emotion as they watched not the game as much as off into space.

Watching some of them I wondered what went through their mind's, who they were thinking of and what else they were remembering.

One guy I spoke to told me of his memory of seeing Franklin Roosevelt there on the night he used the stadium to launch his Presidential campaign.

He talked about seeing Ted Williams "swinging in that very batter's box."

And when John Romonoski was introduced the old man remembered thinking he was too skinny to play ball when he played for the old Red Birds.

Priceless memories that can't be bought by the million's being spent on the Huntington.

A ticket taker at the gate who is 85 years old told a TV reporter that he remembered being brought to the first game "back in '32" by his Dad.

And the best of stories' came from the park's namesake, Harold Cooper who began his baseball career there as a kid working in the clubhouse, or scraping mold off of the hot dog's. (According to him.)

Whatever Cooper did he is responsible for saving the stadium when it "died" the first time back in 1970 when the Jet's left town.

Although it sat empty and decaying until the Pirate's returned with the Clipper's in 1977, it came back to life that year more shiny and glowing than it had been since the day it opened in 1932.

1932 to 2008.

And still regarded as one of the most impressive park's in the country by not only us Columbusite's, but by the player's of all of the visiting teams who come here to challenge the hometown guy's.

It's been said that it's never been heard by any ball player that they didn't enjoy playing here.

The commissioner's deserved their received boo's for dropping the ball on this one.

That's what baseball fan's do when ball's are dropped.

Although I missed most of the history that unfolded in the place I am glad I didn't miss the last chapter.

Three to nothing.

The score of the last game, and the difference between Commissioner's Kilroy, Brown and Brook's, and the number of baseball fan's who think closing this stadium and replacing it with anything else was a good idea.

The hot talk is that these Clippers won't be back as the home team next year.

That instead of the farm hand's from the Washington National's we will have young Cleveland Indians at the new place.

But if this was the final time these guy's played as Clipper's they can leave town knowing that they were special.

The last of 76 team's to be cheered in this place.

And remembered the same way every other team is, whether they were Red Bird's, Jet's or Clipper's.

And I guess it's a fitting footnote that the last baseball manager to manage in Cooper or "Jet" Stadium is a former Pittsburgh Pirate, Tim Foli.

That's a pretty good asterisk especially for us Jet fan's.

Imjstrick@aol.com

Hold On, I'm Coming

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 15:09:51 GMT

When I walked outside this morning I was reminded that although we just came out of something of a draught, that other version of dreaded Columbus weather isn't too far off on the horizon.

I had gotten used to sitting shirtless on the patio for that first cup in the morning but on this one I needed to cover up.

There was actually a cooler than usual breeze, and I think I actually smelled a snowflake way off in the distance.

And the hard rain that fell yesterday gave not only the lawn something it needed but has also allowed me to give the air-conditioner something good for it, a break.

With the work-out it had this year I'm lucky that it only crashed once.

As I get older I'm finding that I look more and more forward to the changing seasons, especially two of them.

I'm always' glad to see winter end and for the past few summer's I'm glad to see them go away as well.

The heat, which I used to think I would welcome year round isn't as appealing as it was when I was skinnier and fuller of energy.

My brother, who is older than me still like's it, so much so that he is planning to make his winter home in Arizona his full time residence.

He think's I should consider getting away from what he call's six month's or more of weather chaos and join him out there.

"Out there" he lives in a community of fellow geezer's who have fled the colder Midwest and have adapted to temperature's that remain year-round better appreciated by lizard's and cactus than me.

I don't know how they stand it.

And I'm not yet ready to "geeze".

That is to sit around with old dudes sharing complaint's about health, joining card club's and learning how to toll paint or hone my bingo skill's.

Not to pick on them but I'm in no hurry to "celebrate" my senior status.

I'm as old as those who choose to live in these "55 and older" communities but I've spent the past few year's in my own "55 and older" compound.

It's called my house.

Here I can watch all age groups as they pass by and for the most part I'm glad they are merely passing.

I'm no longer much of a mingler and no longer do I need to fill empty time.

I'm good with time that doesn't require me to do anything.

This summer has been hot and although I might have been one of the few that was happy with the rainless July and August I'm coming to grip's with the inevitable.

My yard is prematurely filling with leaves that have fallen from thirsty tree's and I couldn't be happier.

This has been a busy summer for me, and although I still have a few baseball game's to go to and hopefully a lot more fish to catch; and maybe another car show or two to check out, I'm ready for the change to fall.

Feeling the cooler air this morning reminded me of autumn's when I was still growing up on this block.

Living again in the house I grew up in it seem's I'm reminded of those time's by something every day.

If I were to follow my brother out west I doubt that the changing of seasons is all I would miss.

And when he tell's me, "You can have the snow and the cold" I tell him that I'll take it.

Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas are especially good time's to live where the climate can be unpredictable.

For me the holiday season begins around mid-October so regardless of what the weather decides to do this week or next I know that summer will be over soon.

And because it will be I have to get busy enjoying what's left of it.

In a few day's I'll walk through the gate's of old Jet Stadium for the last time before it's closed forever, I'll also be in Pittsburgh soon to watch my beloved Pirate's lose to the Cub's and I'm planning to fill the remainder of this seasons weekend's breaking fishing line's on snags at Hoover Dam.

Thing's I will miss soon enough.

The Last Time

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 03:14:54 GMT

It happens often, I see someone for the first time in years and I no longer recognize them and then I wonder if I have become as unfamiliar as they have.

Of course I have, we all change and it seems like once we pass the age of fifty the changes become more and more drastic.

That is we change more from 50 to 52 than we did from 15 to 35.

Or at least it seems.

Every now and then I do see someone who appears to defy this whole aging thing and they still look as they did when last I saw them, and sometimes it's been years since.

When this happens it is a good thing, especially if it is someone I happen to like.

It's a really good thing when it's a female and one who still likes to flirt.

When that happens I don't feel so self concious about getting older.

I will admit that when I see people I didn't care much for who have become something of a mess I feel a sense of evil gratification.

Studying the photo above I'm puzzled as to who all of these people are, even though I either knew most of them or worked around them.

I'm reasonably sure that the guy standing in the back row, dead center is WCOL newsman John LaPolla a guy who at one time was elevated to the position of Program director and was one of the easiest going bosses I ever worked for.

I wonder what he looks like now and how he has fared in the nearly decade and a half since I've seen him.

I wonder if he has kept the hair and glasses and if he did if he still wears them both as well as he did then.

Maybe he'll e-mail me a picture.

I think the gent standing just below him in the White coat and cool checkered pant's is fellow news guy, Phil Gardner another of my favorite news hounds.

I'm guessing that the guy wearing what looks like a similar Maitre' D- like White coat with Black pants and what looks like spats is my old friend Mike Hawkins.

By now it's coming into focus that this is the WCOL news staff sometime in the early or mid 1970's.

Going back up top and standing on the wall at the far right has to be Bob Singleton.

Bob had the coolest mustache in all of radio.

I wonder if it's grown any longer.

Fearing the worst if he still has it he might look like Wilfred Brimley.

The tall guy in the front row could be Jay Solomon but the years that have past leaves me unsure, just as I am to all of the others besides the two cop-bookends.

Officer Dick Geary on the left and Officer Bill Taylor on the right.....I think.

Not since this photo was taken has there been a more complete radio news staff in Columbus, WCOL was as famous for it's news department as it was for it's perch as the most important Rock & Roll station in the city during it's monstrous hey day.

And like so many other radio people that I have come in contact with or merely received mail from this past year or so I wonder how some of these guy's have held up.

Officer "Dick" is no longer with us having passed away several years ago at a young age, but Taylor is still out there and when last I saw him on television he still looks like he always has.

Okay, maybe not exactly but I recognized him.

Dick Geary was a guy who reported traffic conditions a few years later on WMNI and was someone I enjoyed working with there and Bill Taylor was the traffic cop on my afternoon talk-show at WCOL in the mid 1980's.

Gardner was still hanging around the news studio's at "COL at that time as well and Hawkins and Singleton were guy's I kept in touch with for several years after I left broadcasting to become the Public Information Officer for the Franklin County Sheriff's office.

The others were just people I listened to and admired or met briefly in broadcasting passing.

If anyone has any info on these folks I'd like to hear from them and I'd really like to see at least a photo that is fairly recent.

Posting new images and talking about "Where are they now" is always' fun.

On the other hand I'm okay with remembering most people as they were.

Before time and aging changed them into strangers.

Those people will forever remain frozen in memory as they were and maybe that's even better.

My box is always' open at Imjustrick@aol.com

Birthday

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:25:41 GMT

Dave

I have a friend named Mike who is something of a wikipedia when it comes to his knowledge and his memory of and about some of the people who rocked this city during it's hey day's when it was saturated with great rock bands.

Mike Weilbacher and I were in junior and senior high school when group's like the Rebounds, the Fifth Order, J.D. Blackfoot and the Dantes shared air-time and positions on WCOL's hit line survey's with folks like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and all the rest on Columbus' top rock station in the 1960's.

Unlike myself he has somehow managed to stay in touch with many of the musicians and singers in those group's, and it seems each time he and I talk I learn thing's that I never knew about them.

He seems to know who they all are and where many of them still are.

And thanks to Mike I have attended some pretty good reunion concert's that had he not had advanced information about hem I may never have known the boy's were back in town.

Yesterday was such a day.

Arguably one of the best guitarist I have ever heard, make that one of the best that's ever been heard by anyone was back to celebrate his birthday with an amazing gatheringof fan's and fellow musicians at The Hey Hey Bar and Grill a block from my home.

How rare is it that one can take a two minute walk from his house and listen to someone who has jammed and recorded with some of the best Blues and Rock artists in the world?

Dave Workman does that.

Following the successes he enjoyed as a member of Columbus' beloved Dantes back in the 1960's Dave went on to form the Dave Workman Blues Band and has soloed around the globe playing his Les Paul in the company of the world's most famous guitar riffers and Blues singers.

Back for a few day's from his home in San Francisco he shared the celebration of his 60th year on the planet with other remarkable maker's of Blues and Rock music at an all day concert in a corner bar.

A virtual who's who of Columbus music history and their fan's spent an entire day toasting Dave with bottles and glasses as some just came to listen while other's jammed together.

I couldn't tell you how many standing "O's" there were but every one of them was deserved.

There was enough talent up and down from the stage to form a record company and enough material played to record a box set of some of the best classic Blue's and Rock songs ever done.

Including a set shared by two other former Dantes band mates, lead singer Barry Hayden and guitarist Lynn Wehr who showedup to perform a few of their charted song's and some other Rolling Stone cover tunes that were as good as the stuff released more than forty years ago on London Records by the guy's who made them famous.

The ten dollar cover charge at the door never purchased more music or a better forum for the few hundred or so who showed up to welcome back one of our town's best.

Picking up a copy of a new book called, "Columbus: The Musical Crossroads" and spending some time at the concert with one of it's authors, Candice Watkins and listening to her knowledge of the city's Rock and Roll heritage further reminded me that I come from a pretty important area.

And thanks to my friend Mike I have anther copy of a CD that is a compilation of more than thirty songs recorded by some of the Columbus Rock bands of the 1960's that was put together by John Freese and placed into a nice package with interesting liner notes by Gene Richards.

It includes the likes of The Dantes, The Fifth Order, The Rebounds, J.D. Blackfoot, Owen-B, The Emeralds and others.

All in all I had a good weekend.

Imjustrick@aol.com

Nobody Does It Better

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:14:27 GMT

Forget about your Hemi's and your GTO's....remember?

Those were the opening word's of a Columbia Special Product's venture for Chevrolet with the introduction of the SS 396 Chevelle, a song recorded by Paul Revere And The Raiders and given away in Chevy showrooms back in 1966.

Clearing my throat as I rewrite a classic hot-rod song..."forget about the mid size Chevy too."

I wouldn't take a Hemi powered ride if you threw in two GTO's and three Chevelle's if the other prize offered were a 1966 Ford Fairlaine with a pretty 427 under it's hood.

The '66 Fairlane wasn't the last beautiful car ever built, as a matter of fact the Ford Motor Company still build's cool stuff, but it is the one that symbolizes all that the 1960's meant to many car guy's.

As the American car maker's continue to bring back retro names like Camaro, Challenger and Charger we're seeing a rebirth in interest of the '60's era muscle machines.

So if FoMoCo would spend less time and energy in building those goofy looking SUV's like the Edge and the Flex, and more on rebuilding the Fairlane and bringing back one that looks like the sleeping beauty pictured above, perhaps they could end this talk of financial meltdown.

Who wouldn't rush to their local Ford store and drool over a 2009 Fairlaine if it were to return in some ghostly image of it's previous self?

Go ahead, scroll back up, makes ya kind of hot just thinking about it doesn't it?

Of course it does, and that throbbing and quivering, and the knot tightening in your throat should be expected, not feared.

These were the emotions and bodily feeling's many of us experienced in 1966 when we first caught a glimpse of what became known to Ford guy's as "The GTO Killer."

Of the many hot-rod's I have owned and allowed to transfer through the title files of the BMV to someone else only one was the Holy Grail of hot-rodding.

A '66 GT.

Never a purveyor of illicit narcotics I can only assume that someone slipped a very strong "Mickey" into something I either ate or drank on that dismal, dark day in 1981 when I let it go for $300.00.

Retarded?... you ask?

Not anymore, but on that day yes.

It was a mistake that rank's very high on my personal list of dumb things done.

So here I am in the middle of another midlife crisis, contemplating the purchase of yet another vehicle to satisfy something of a seven year itch.

I go through this about every seven or so and I've limited my list to only a couple of fantasies and imagination.

Actually there is no limit to my imagination, as shocking as that may hit you.

So if I were in the market to spoil myself with yet another fast Ford, and if I were willing to find the fund's, probably somewhere in the million dollar plus range, actually there's one not far from me for about $27,000.00, this might be my passion.

Being greedy isn't easy, I want them all.

Fairlaine's, Falcon's, Galaxies, T-Bird's, Comet's, Marauders, Mustang's and Cougar's.

God knew what he was doing when he worked in Dearborn.

Not that I know much about the subject but I've long believed that he didn't rest on the seventh day, he drew car's.

Imjustrick@aol.com

The Homecoming

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:18:47 GMT

Few, if any lifelong Southsiders have not made the annual return trek back to "our" school for what many know simply as "The Festival."

Every summer in early August many current and former residents' of the area see each other for the first time since the previous August when they show up on that weekend to troll the playground of St. Mary's School searching for familiar faces at the annual Homecoming Festival..

And for most, if not all of them it is a nostalgic experience that hopefully will mentally take them back to the bricked area's they played on as kids.

To see old friends and remember good things with them, or to see former foes and remember, or swear they remember similar good things with them as well.

Aside from the billion's of dollars spent transforming German Village from a working Blue-collar neighborhood that was once heavily populated with entire families complete with multiple kid's in nearly every house into the Yuppie Paradise it is now, the old 'hood still looks the same.

The festival itself is the same.

Thanks to the careful preservation efforts of the area through the years it's all still familiar, even to those who travel across country to come home for this particular weekend.

What seemingly is not familiar is many of the people.

Some of the "kid's"we grew up with look as if time and life has taken most of the remnants of youth they are hoping to find in others, or for others to see in them.

One sad sidebar to this celebration is the realization that we're getting old.

Aside from the games that are there for people of every age to play, one of my favorite's is a head game that I've devised.

That is, when someone who hasn't seen me in years approaches and thinks they recognize me asks, "Are you......?"...I like to answer, "No, you must have me mistaken for someone else."

Curiosity as to who they are if I don't immediately recognize them halt's the game after a moment or two and I admit that I am who they thought I was, feeling a little humbled that I must look old to them and nothing like I did when we did know each other.

But like them I too am curious, and I do want to know things about their lives such as what they've been up to since last we spoke.

Another sad common thread to many conversations is asking each other, "Are your parent's still alive?"

It seems we all ask each other that because we all knew each other's Mom's and Dad's.

Too often the answer is no, yet many of us can remember as if it were only yesterday seeing them with us on these same grounds for the same reasons we are there now, and even if it's been decades since those memories don't seem so distant.

I found the photo above of a group of St. Mary's kids on the Church web site.

It was taken in 1960 and at the moment it was snapped I was probably somewhere within a few blocks of it doing something with the younger brother's of these people.

I didn't attend school at St. Mary's but most of my friends during the so-called wonder years of life did.

Therefore I, like many like others who attended public schools in the area consider myself an Alumni of the Parish.

Where we went to school back then mattered no more than it does now.

It's where we grew up and who we knew that still does.

This year I didn't find as many people I had hoped to see but that doesn't mean they weren't there.

It doesn't even mean that I didn't physically bump into them or stare them down without a clue that I was in the company of someone who at one time in my life was as familiar to me as the image that looks back from mirrors.

Getting old sucks, and seeing what it's doing to some other's around me is enough for me to be thankful that I never got a tattoo, to swear off ever again wearing short's in public and to never consider owning an Hawaiian shirt, let alone wear one untucked.

Flags advertising the ravages of old age.

Imjustrick@aol.com

Hot Rod Lincoln

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 17:05:47 GMT

When I start feeling nostalgic about past loves and wondering whatever became of them, where they are now, who they might be with and if they still look as good as they did when they were "mine" I find myself feeling just terrible for letting them slip away.

I mean if I really loved them why would I have done that?

It's sad that we don't know what we have until what we thought was "ours" is gone.

Through the years I have "owned" nearly 70 vehicles, most of them Ford products, some of them little one's that go very fast, and I have allowed all but *three of them to slip through my fingers into someone else's.

*The three I currently have.

One such lost love was an Orange, 1973 Mercury Capri that few of us could have imagined would some day become a collector car.

I did love that little hot-rod from the Licoln-Mercury division of FoMoCo and it was a hot-rod in every sense of the word.

All of my Ford's were fast Ford's and the little Merc could run with the best of them.

Ford advertised it as "The sexy Italian" for it's Italian sports car stance when it sold new, but I advertised mine as "need's work" when I sold it back in the mid 1980's for two hundred dollars.

I lost money when I got rid of it because I paid $300.00 for it at a used car dealership on West Broad Street a year before I sold it, and as if that weren't a crushing enough financial hit try buying a '73 Capri today.

That is if you can find one.

And if you can find one that looks as "sexy" as the one shown above be prepared to shovel a load of cash to it's owner.

I want one but I'm finding that today's Capri owner's are a stingy lot.

Greedy too, they just don't want to give them up.

Nor would I if I had one.

That's why I have vowed to avoid "loving" anything besides my dog ever again.

I "like" my 1976 Cobra ll Mustang a lot, "love" might be too strong of a word here, but I would grieve terribly if I had to part with her/him/it, I've never focused on gender, it's not about that.

It's about sharing your life and the road with something that brings undying pleasure.

Something that for a car guy like myself requires a cool Ford product beneath me.

To slip into something hot and feel the passion that only a car without air conditioning can provide.

My Capri had no A/C and no door latch on the driver's side, a sturdy rope kept it tied shut but that didn't matter, the car was still hot.

So hot that sometimes it overheated, usually while I was navigating through heavy traffic but I somehow always' managed to get where I wanted to go, even if it meant paying a towtruck driver.

None of those annoying little nuances of the car mattered.

It was a Merc, and not your father's Mercury, this one smoked.

Literally, and in a cute sort of way.

If it had any faults at all I wasn't complaining, I did love that car and I miss it.

The car, the people who were around me when I had it and another dog not unlike the amazing one who took her place.

This essay was inspired after I poked my head outside this morning to get my newspaper and saw the first 1973 Mercury Capri I've seen in years passing my house.

It's funny how the mind travels sometimes.

Mine through time and memory mostly.

But at least the brain still functions, a little off center sometimes some might say, but thank's to car restorers and other's who care enough about preserving pieces of the past I will have more opportunities like this one to share thing's in danger of being lost or forgotten.

Memories of good things.

Like lost "loves."

Imjustrick@aol.com

Good Ole' Boys Like Me

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 20:26:43 GMT

It's hard to believe that it's been more than two and a half decades since this Album came out on Barefoot Records, or that the last time I talked to the artist he was just a teenager.

Had Kenny Pugh taken my advise back in the early 1980's and changed his last name to something like Rogers, or Price, or Loggins or even Bunkport who knows how high his singing career might have soared.

He kept his family name and still he was able to accomplish something big by recording with some of the better known locals in the country music community while still a kid, barely out of high school and working at WMNI.

People like Kevin Mabry and his band, Liberty Street, Holiday Parker, Peggy Riffle and Rainbow Canyon-the guy's who gave us the classic song, "Franklin County Woman" and several of Kenny's other musical friends.

The LP was very good and the local country music stations didn't let it sit in record racks ignored.

I still think if he had taken a glitzier show-biz name he may have become George Strait before that other guy did.

Compared to many of us at the North American Broadcasting Company back then the kid was a saint.

Drugs, alcohol and sex with strangers wasn't on Kenny's list of things to consider, he was never asked to be a poster boy for the tougher edge of radio and especially the honky tonkers of country music.

Where I sifted through the pages of Playboy and Hustler magazines between the records he read his Bible and on more than one occasion he would wave his finger back and forth at me as if to suggest I was naughty.

I've often thought of my former colleague and friend. Where he went after his "Country Gentleman" day's at Columbus' then number one country music station, if he had retained his love of radio and music, or if he had gone off into a different direction as so many of us did.

Yesterday I heard from him and I have learned that he still writes music and sings songs and he still has a deep faith in his Lord and Savior and has spent most of the time since we last saw each other working for the United States Federal Government.

Kenny Pugh may be the mail man your dog barks at.

Wait a minute, wait a minute Mr. Postman........sorry.

Several chapters back in this journal I wrote of the Blizzard of '78 and how Kenny Pugh and I spent some of that time, shacked up together in a hotel room at the Great Southern Hotel where the WMNI studios occupied the penthouse.

I felt like I was baby sitting him.

The fact is we were trapped there because the storm had brought Columbus to a halt, nothing or no one could get in or out of work so we were forced to be roomies for a night.

As it turns out Kenny Pugh hangs out these day's a mere two blocks from my home at a church he describes as "amazing."

I might have even passed him on the street several times not knowing that it was him, or him not recognizing me.

Small world.

The church he describes as amazing is located in the building that once housed my friend and personal doctor, and is also in the same building that once upon a time was my favorite malt-shop, combination drug store and general merchandise, Sloans Drugs.

I have been inside and out of Kenny's church hundreds of times during my life-long stay here on the Southside.

Not to pray but to eat junk food, buy drugs and during my youth many model cars.

I have watched the transformation of that building from commerce to faith and brotherhood as one by one the businesses moved out and the church rose from the ashes, and I have wondered, "Who are these people and what are they doing to my landmark?"

The Great Southern Hotel is less than two miles away from that corner, I'm just a few blocks away, so to paraphrase an old Johnny Rivers classic, Welcome back Kenny to the poor side of town.

Imjustrick@aol.com