JSS: Cheap Flowers-- Cheap CDs-- Cheap Book and the "Schnozzola"

JSS-- Just Some Stuff

Monday, we took a ride to Chicago's Northwest suburbs to visit Liz's parents graves at Memory Gardens in Arlington Heights. We'd planned to do it Saturday, but the weather was too bad thanks to the TNCW from the Round Lake carnival. Along with this, we made several other stops.


1. CHEAP FLOWERS-- Ezcayu Nursery on US-12 and Quentin Road south of Lake Zurich has 48 plant flats of annuals for $10.49 (Ace Hardware in Round Lake, the world's biggest Ace Hardware store has then for $9.99 this Saturday) and 49 cent geraniums.

2. CHEAP BOOKS AND CDS-- Further down 12 (or Rand Road as locals call it) there is a Half Price Books at the corner of 12 and Dundee Road. This is a family-owned chain of mom/pop book and records stores. And, as the name would infer, they are cheap!!! I wanted to return a Smiley Lewis CD that I had accidentally bought a second copy. Unfortunately, store policy does not allow any return after 30 days, and I bought it back in March. As good as it is, I now have two copies at $4.98 apiece.

Undaunted, however, I went through their CDs and bought four double "Best of 70s" CDs for $4.98 each, a double CD "Razor-Sharp Rockabilly for $7.98, and "A Taste of Texas: Songs 'Bout Texas by Texans" for $1.00.

3. CHEAP BOOK AND THE "SCHNOZZOLA"-- I also bought the hardcover book "Where Are They Buried? How Did They Die?" by Tod Benoit for $6.98. An interesting 600 pages of history and where are they now.

Since I do a lot of music in this blog, here's what Benoit had to say about Jimmy Durante, the old "Schnozzola." There is a mystery about his sign-off "Good night, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are." After his death, it emerged that she most likely was waitress Lucy Coleman, of Calabash, NC. If you ever go to Wilmington, NC, or Myrtle Beach (the Home of Beach Music and I'm listening to Billy Smith right now on the Surf, 94.9 FM) and like seafood, you need to get yourself to Calabash. Try anything called Calabash-style. Population is around 900 with about 30 restaurants, you go figure it out.

In 1940, she ran a restaurant in the town, and Durante's group stopped there for dinner. Jimmy engaged her in talk and said, "I am going to make you famous." Soon afterwards, he began signing off his radio show with Mrs. Calabash and continued doing it until his death.

He died January 29, 1980, at age 86, after several years of ill-health and is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.

Tod Benoit then gives directions to the cemetery, and even more important, to the grave.

There will be good reading in this book.

Still More to Come from the Trip. Anybody Looking to Buy a Smiley Lewis CD? --RoadDog