My Idea of a Great Morning

This morning was what I consider to be a perfect morning.  After getting up, I went outside and sat on my front porch.  I first sat in the rocking chair and then moved over to the wicker chair.

I had a McDonald's sausage McMuffin (I bought it yesterday) in the rocking chair and then coffee and read the Chicago Tribune in the wicker chair.

But, that's not all.

When I'm sitting out there, I enjoy looking at the clouds (and this morning we had a magnificent sunrise) and, surprisingly I don't even bring music out with me.  Why bring music when you have all those birds a'chirping away.  And we have plenty of birdies in the neighborhood.

I get to watch them and yell at the robins for eating my worms.  Birds can be quite funny when an argument begins and chasing starts.  But, perhaps that is a mating ritual.  Who knows?

Then, I have the wascally wabbit, several chippers and several squirrels to bother.  I watch folks walking their dogs and the neighbors.  I guess for awhile many morning I am the neighborhood watch or perhaps just some old snoopy codger.

Then, coffee and a newspaper.  Man, I am going to miss holding a newspaper in my hands.  Digital just doesn't do it for me.

And, I sure enjoy looking at the yard.  I put a lot of work into it and it's right pretty even if I do say so.  Flowers every where you look.

Oh, yes.  This morning I had the added enjoyment of hearing thunder off to the west and then we had a steady falling rain.  Love the sound of the raindrops and especially that smell that a rainfall brings.  That and new-mown grass are two of my favorite summer smells.

Today was a mighty fine FP as I call it.  That means Front Porch.

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By the way, all you sixties music fans, WXRT's Saturday Morning Flashback is going back to 1968 for three hours tomorrow morning, Saturday, from 9 am to noon.  It streams at www.wxrt.com.

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A Good Morning.  A Mighty Good Morning.  --RoadDog

THOSE CRA-ZEE COUNTRY SONGS:  Get Your Tongue Out of My Mouth, I'm Kissing You Goodbye.

Music of 1968: Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones

For these articles, I will only be writing a couple things mentioned in the articles about each artist.

JIMI HENDRIX:  UNBOUND BY THE RULES

"James Marshall Hendrix, the Stratocaster-burning, blues-bending left-hander who played a right-handed guitar upside down.  Hendrix came seemingly from nowhere, was discovered in New York, hustles off to London, where he became a star, and then returned to the U.S., where he introduced himself to Americans at the Monterrey Pop Festival."

THE ROLLING STONES:  GRITTY, RAW AND LOUD

"'Beggars Banquet' ...was released on Dec.6, 1968, the Rolling Stones were on fire.  Critics and fans who had skewered the band's previous album, 1967's psychedelic 'Their Satanic Majesties Request', forgave them everything.

"The band was entering its most creative period."

The next albums were "Let It Bleed",  "Sticky Fingers", "Exile On Main Street", and "Goats Head Soup."

Personally, though, I really liked "Their Satanic Majesties Request."

--RoadDog

Music of 1968-- Part 3: "Thank You For Letting Us Be Ourselves"

"Rock groups captured the feelings and thoughts of young and old around the globe.  The songs were defiant; they were joyous.  They were earsplitting and tenderly sweet.

"Some vented against Vietnam and injustice, but other rued love gone wrong and hoped for a better tomorrow.  When Sly Stone appeared on 'The Ed Sullivan Show,' he opened by telling the audience, 'Don't hate the black, don't hate the white.  If you get bitten, simply hate the bite,' and concluded with a simple 'Thank you for letting us be ourselves.'

"Rock 'n' roll helped change the  conversation in 1968.  It also changed the world."

--Road68

A PLETHORA OF TIDBITS:  (from "10 Things You Might Not Know About Nearly Everything" by Mark Jacob and Stephan Benzkiofer)

**The folks who brought us Reddi-wip whipped cream had another brainstorm in the 1960s:  Reddi-Bacon.

Music of 1968-- Part 1: A Year To Remember

From the Time Life Magazine/book "Music of 1968: Rock and Roll's Greatest Year.

I really enjoy these little magazine/books and spend more than I should on them.  Lots of great pictures, concise text an plenty of information and a surprising number of them of particular interest to me.  Most are just 100 pages long so they don't take too long to read.

Of course, I am really interested in music and especially music from 1968, which was a good high school year for at good old Palatine High School in Illinois (my junior/senior year).

Now that I am a year late, I will go through the magazine and write a little of what they said about each artist.

"1968:  A Year To Remember.

"Mick Jagger summed it up best:  "But what can a poor boy do, except to sing for a rock 'n' roll band?"

"For rock 'n' roll lovers, 1968 hit the mother lode.  Psychedelia ruled, and so did protest,  Motown and Johnny Cash's twang. The Rolling Stones blasted back onto the airwaves with "Beggars Banquet."  Heavy metal was ascendant."

Buy Me An Album.  --RoadDog

TRIVIA:  In which scandalous novel is literature professor Humbert Humbert obsessed with pre-teen Dolores Hazel?


"Lolita"