Good country music

We first moved to this area in 1975.  The Pitts family lived next door:  Bonita babysat, and Ronnie worked in Kansas City at Sears.  They had three children.
My kids would ask to go over there to play, and since Bonita had a houseful, I'd let Jimmy and Rachel go over, but I'd set a time limit:  Be back in an hour.
One time they came home after spending their allotted hour over there, and I asked six-year-old Rachel, "What have you guys been doing?"
"Singing," she answered.
"Singing?" 
She answered that yes, Donnie (who was perhaps thirteen at the time) had been playing the piano and they had been singing.
Hmmm.
Later on, we got to know the family.  They were all musically inclined.  Ronnie played guitar, Bonita sang.  Donnie played piano, and he and his sister, Ronda, sang in harmony.  The youngest boy, Kevin, is the only one I never heard singing or playing an instrument.
Bonita sang a country song I had never heard anywhere else, and she did it with style.  It was so good that, in my mind, I can still hear her singing it.  Google tells me that a guy named David Wills had a hit of the song in 1975, and I sometimes hear it nowadays in Cliff's shop, on his satellite radio.  But for years, I actually thought Bonita wrote the song.  She sang it with that kind of feeling.
Here's the song by the person who actually recorded it; I'd give a hundred dollars if I could hear Bonita singing it again, because I swear she did it better:





The kids got older, and sometimes I'd sing along with Donnie and Ronda.  I even bought an old piano once just for them.  We put it in our kitchen, so Donnie could play and we could all sing together.  One time we moved the piano outside and had the Pitts family over for a singalong in the yard!  There was one song that Ronnie did especially well:





Oh, they were a talented family.  Did I mention that they're related to country singer Sara Evans?  But it didn't stop there.


Ronda is still singing.  So is Donnie.  And Donnie's boys, the twins that Cliff considers his grandchildren even though they aren't related, are picking, grinning, and drumming.  I've shared this video before.  I know the quality leaves something to be desired, but I recorded it with a dinky little Powershot camera, so what do you expect?  Travis is on guitar, Tyler is on drums.  Their dad, Donnie, is playing keyboard.  





Quite a legacy, I'd say.  
Continue to keep Tyler in your thoughts and prayers.  So far he has refused to let cancer whip him.  If anybody can beat the "big C", he can.

On my Ipod

It occurred to me this morning that I hadn't taken any pictures of the snow, so I hurried outside and took a shot of my house.  If you think that looks cold, you're right.  It's even colder than it looks.  I walked with Cliff yesterday for the first time in over a week, but I didn't think to take my camera.  Today the high was around fourteen degrees with strong winds, and we didn't walk.  It'll be colder tomorrow, although we may walk if there's no wind.  That wind makes all the difference.   
While I busied myself around the house today I put my Ipod on shuffle and enjoyed it immensely.  Some of my tastes in music are so odd, there's not even a radio station that plays them.  
I wrote down the songs in order as they played:  Woody Guthrie, Greenback Dollar; Iris Dement, Shores of Jordan; Moe Bandy, Beauty's in the Eye of the Beholder; Billie Jo Spears, Every Day I Have to Cry Some; Moe Bandy, I Cheated Me Right Out of You; Green Day, The Static Age; Iris Dement, Easy's Gettin' Harder Every Day; John Denver, Eclipse; Doc Watson, Corina Corina; Mark Lanegan, Man in the Long Black Coat; Phil Ochs, Bound for Glory; Bobby Bare, The Winner; Janis Joplin, A Woman Left Lonely; Bobby Bare, 500 Miles; Johnny Cash, Hurt; John Prine, Grandpa was a Carpenter; Craig Morgan, I Want Us Back; Grateful Dead, Cocaine; Simon and Garfunkle, Bridge Over Troubled Water; John Prine and Iris Dement, In Spite of Ourselves; Janis Joplin, Amazing Grace; Gene Watson, Paper Rosie; Duane Eddy and the Ventures, Raunchy; Ray Charles, America; John Prine, Morning Train; Johnny Cash, The Man Comes Around.    
When Cliff comes in, I turn off my music.  He likes about 90% of it, all the 70's and 80's country; but when Iris Dement, John Prine, Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, Green Day, or Janis Joplin start singing, he rolls his eyes.  So, just to be safe, I turn it all off.  I have plenty of chances to listen to my music when he's at work or in the shop.     


Two different people commented on my snoring entry, suggesting I might have sleep apnea and need a Cpap machine.  I did a little reading on that, and I see that a huge percentage of people get those machines and then don't use them for one reason or another.  I think since Cliff is so hard of hearing and goes to sleep so rapidly, and since he is able to make me shut up until he does get to sleep, we'll manage all right.    
Somehow the idea of dying in my sleep from sleep apnea doesn't scare me; I don't know of a single person who died in their sleep (unless they had an illness, or had a heart attack).  Besides, let's face it: wouldn't we all rather go in our sleep anyway?  

Final thoughts on Green Day

Cliff and I had a discussion this morning. I told him how much I enjoyed the Green Day concert.

"Well, if I had to list ten things I would NOT want to do," said Cliff, "going to a Green Day concert would be somewhere on that list, right beside getting a root canal."

Folks, I'm telling you: the tickets cost Cliff (not me, but Cliff) a bloody fortune. He loves me, so that's OK.

I hate how irreverent the music of Green Day is. They make fun of Christians, and religion in general. I'm uncomfortable with that.

However, my God is so big that things like this do not bother Him. People have been nitpicking at Him and His Son for years. Sometimes that's how people find their truth. If your religion is so weak that it can't take some criticism, you have a problem.

So I can live with that irreverence. I don't think God ever wanted mindless puppets; if He had, Adam and Eve wouldn't have been allowed to do their dirty deeds.

I loved seeing two of my grandchildren (and a friend of theirs) singing along with the band. It was one of the highlights of my life, right along with those two years I went to Van's Warped Tour with certain grandchildren.

In the 50's when Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis were on the charts, there were lots of parents who thought they were a bad influence; rock and roll was straight from the devil. My parents never paid a lot of attention to the music I liked, so I pretty much listened to whatever music I wanted, and I don't think it hurt me a bit.

Most of my beloved folk singers, the ones I listen to daily, were labeled as communists, back in the day. Even the modern ones are far to the left of my beliefs.

Surely we don't have confine our music to the kinds that reflect our own thoughts and ideals... do we?

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

On Christ the solid Rock I stand. All other ground is sinking sand.

Oh yeah, to see my granddaughter's thoughts on the Green Day concert, click HERE.