Archives for May 2014

Just some thoughts:  

About two years ago our granddaughter Delaney was having this dentist appointment. I wrote the following  “Just Some Thoughts” on the evening of her visit to the dentist.     

HERE’S WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP

Here’s what you can do to help! When you know something un-pleasant is coming up, just tell someone and give them a list of what they can do to help. 

I had an early partner with me this morning at my coffee place, three-year-old Jake.  Jake’s sister, Delaney, had an appointment with the dentist. It’s not a normal appointment, like checking for sugar bugs, etc. She was going to have a “palate expander” placed in her mouth. She and her mommy and daddy, would all be involved in this visit, thus three-year-old Jake is with me for a while. 

I met them at 7 A.M. in the parking lot of the dentist office. With “Little Red Caboose” and “Puff the Magic Dragon” playing, Jake and I headed out. He and I spent the morning together while sister was “getting worked on.” Maybe a bit early for a cookie, but hey…cookies are good at any time of the day!   Our son-in-law shared the following story with us and with their small group from their church that meets in their home once a month: 

Tears and lumps come to a grandfather pretty quickly when seeing and reading this. You know, I think Delaney pretty well has it figured out. When we are about to experience “Difficult times,” make out a list and on the morning of tell others  here are some things you can do to help.  “Tell me you love me, give me a kiss and tell me to do a great job.”   If only we big people were as wise.  (June 28, 2012)

Keep On,

Larry Adamson

Just some thoughts:
 
What’s the best summer you ever had?
 
Another Memorial Day has passed. When I was a kid growing up in Indiana Memorial Day was what we would think of as the beginning of summer. School was out and now a whole new world would be opening up to us. Oh, those summer teenage years.
 
My wife and I spent the past month of February in Florida. Something we have been doing now for the past few years. She loves Florida and especially the ocean. I think some of this goes back to when she was growing up. As a teenager she often spent the summers with a cousin in Florida. I say the words “Linger Lodge” to her and she gets a smile. A big smile. There are even some names that come to her mind when mention of that place or the hearing of a certain oldies song. “Boy, he was a good dancer.  She has some special memories of certain ones and certain times spent there at this teenage hangout of the late 1950s’.
 
The wise philosopher from Georgia, Lewis Gizzard once wrote of a summer of his.
 
“We were all sixteen. Just finished our junior year in high school.”He said his mother experienced a momentary lapse in thinking and allowed he and a three of friends to have her 1958 blue and white Pontiac  to drive from Moreland, Georgia to Daytona Beach, Florida. What do teenagers do in the late 50’s at the beach,they look for girls and rock-n’-roll bands.
 
When one is eight years old and taken to the beach they go in the ocean, build sand castles and try to knock a golf ball in the clown’s mouth. But when you are sixteen or seventeen in keepin’ with the scriptures you “Put away childish things.”
 
Lewis says he met Kippy when the song was playing “Do You Love Me.”  He said they danced a fast dance and then thanks be to the heavens, they played a Johnny Mathis song and they danced—really slow.” He kissed her. A real kiss he said.
 
He went on to say that he and Kippy saw each other every night. “We were free, we were young and it was the most fun I think I ever had.” His description of the events.
 
What he was describing happened nearly forty years ago but he still remembered. He said now he was too old for such beach trips and the music is much too loud. But the memory of Kippy and that time they are not gone. Never.
 
Kippy well—“We promised to write but you know about summer love—today Kippy could be a grandmother.” 
 
          “Time moves like molasses when you are young but
                 it rages like a river when you’re grown.”    
 
I once sat in the audience at the Polynesian Hotel in Hawaii and listened as Don Ho’s last line–“I’ll remember you—long after summer.” Do you have a favorite summer? A doowop group from the late 50s’ once sang a song, “One Summer Night.”
 
I suppose most everyone of us has had a “Kippy” in our past. You?
 
I hope the thought of a past summer—– at least brings a smile.
 
Keep on,

Larry Adamson 

Just some thoughts:                                    
                                      OLD HIGH SCHOOL YEARBOOKS
 
This past week as I sat at my coffee place a young couple sat down not far from me. They were high school seniors about to graduate. I watched as they traded their high school yearbooks. Each took considerable time as they wrote in each others book. He finished writing first. When she finishing reading what he had written, she brushed away a tear and smiled.
 
Seeing this yearbook signing between the two took me back to something that happened to me on one of my trips back home last year. Often I find myself stopping at old junk stores, antique stores, thrift shops, old goodwill type stores. I especially look for old record albums and books. Sometime this past summer found me doing such back in my old hometown of Terre Haute, Indiana.
 
Earlier in the day, much earlier, a bit after 4 A.M. I had left my home just outside of Nashville, Tennessee.  I made arrangements to try and be in my home area by 10 A.M. to meet and play golf. I seldom listen to the radio these days, just music tapes. Mainly country music or music from the late 50s’.  Music I grew up on. It was a beautiful day as I made the five hour drive, top down on my convertible and music playing all the way. You can get in a lot of Elvis, Jerry Lee, Fats, Chuck, Ricky, Hank and Merle in such a drive. No last names needed.
 
Later that day after golf I stopped to wander through an old junk/thrift type store in my home area. In doing such I came upon an old book case. There I found a number of old books and to my surprise, I found seven or eight old high school yearbooks from my time in high school. Couple of the books from Gertsmeyer High School, two from my wife’s old school of Garfield, one from Schulte, one from Honey Creek and two from Wiley, the high school my good friend Mike graduated and others that I knew.  Wiley High School, one book was from the class of 1959 and the other class of 1960. I knew both—well.
 
For about the next hour I found myself sitting and going through these two yearbooks from Wiley.  Looking at pictures of athletic teams and various people I knew from those years. Just sitting and thinking about people, places and happenings from those years, 1959 and 60. The last page of the 1960 yearbook really caught my attention. It was the same year I graduated high school. There was written a full page note. It began with, “Dear Bob.” The writing ended with, “I will always love you,” signed Sharon.  No last names given.  As I returned the books to the shelf where I had found them I smiled. Smiled and thought. Thought a lot.
 
Earlier in the day I had been playing some music from an artist popular in the late 50s’, Bobby Vinton. The words of one of his songs began to come back to me.
 
A long, long time ago on graduation day
You handed me your book, I signed this way
Roses are red my love, violets are blue
Sugar is sweet as so are you
 
We dated through high school and when the big day came
I wrote into your book next to my name
Roses are red my love, violets are blue
Sugar is sweet but not as sweet as you       
 
Then I went far away and you found someone new
I read your letter and I wrote back to you
Roses are red my love, violets are blue
Sugar is sweet my love, good luck may God bless you
 
Is that your little girl, she looks a lot like you
Someday some boy will write in her book too
Roses are red my love, violets are blue,
Sugar is sweet my love, but not as sweet as you
 
I wonder whatever happened to “Bob and Sharon?” I wondered if what they  once  had “Promised” ever came true. I wondered about that “Always.”
 
 Do you remember what you once wrote in someone’s yearbook or what they wrote in yours? Any promises?  Or, any promises that were made to you?
 
Keep on,
Larry Adamson

Just some thoughts:
 
TOMORROW IS MEMORIAL DAY

“In Flanders fields the poppies blow,
between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.”
 
Tomorrow is the day our country calls Memorial Day. As a young boy, I remember it also being called Decoration Day. Why? One reason was it was a day when Americans went to their cemeteries to put flowers on the graves, in memory of our loved ones.   
 
I have two special memories of this day. From early childhood, I can remember my family visiting the cemetery, and mom and dad would walk among the graves, often placing flowers and stopping, pausing to tell a story or share a memory about the one whose grave they were placing flowers on. It was there I often learned about certain family members I had not known, but learned of their importance and significance to our family. Dad would bend down and pull weeds or remove dirt, sometimes without saying a word. The second thing I remember about that day is “the race, the Indianapolis 500.” It would be on the radio, within earshot most of the day; Sid Collins, the voice of the 500.”
 
There are twenty-two American military cemeteries in eight different countries, where over 125,000 American soldiers are resting, and another 94,000 names are on the Walls of the Missing. I personally have visited eight of those cemeteries on my trips to Europe.  
 
In the closing scene of the movie, Saving Private Ryan, he, Private Ryan, is kneeling down at the grave of one of the soldiers that lost his life in “saving” his. Ryan turns to his wife and says, “I hope I was worthy.”
 
I hope on this day and many more Memorial Days to come that we honor and remember the price that was paid for us to be able to visit cemeteries and listen to radios. I hope we Americans can try and live worthy of the price it cost for us to be able to do such.
 
Keep on,
 
Larry Adamson

Just some thoughts:
 
                               “Hey let’s go skinny dippin'”
 
“Hey you got a pool, why don’t we go skinny dippin’ over at your house.”
 
Is there anything, anyone more full of themselves than a high school senior, especially a boy, than that last week of school and especially that last day of high school?
 
Now a college senior they briefly see the handwriting on the wall with their graduation. The gravy train is about to end and I am going to have to go out into the world and do something. But a high school kid about to graduate, hey, “Watch out world here I come.”They feel ready to take on the whole universe.   
 
Today as I sat outside at my coffee place evidently it was the last day of school for a group of high school seniors from a neighboring high school. The place inside and out was packed. I would judge there forty plus kids there. I just sat, watched and listened to the various conversations. That line about skinny dippin’ was one that one of the boys laid on his table sitting group. The group consisted of both male and females and it seemed to get the same degree of laughter from both parties.
 
As I sat there I thought to myself, “Oh my kids you have no idea what awaits you.” Some were talking about what colleges they would be going to, others about what they were going to wear tonight, or “Did you see how he looked at me, I’d love to go out with him.” On and on.
 
As they all began to leave I thought for a moment and I was reminded of some lines from an old McGuire Sisters song from the late 50s’. My time, the late 50s’. I thought how these lyrics would be my hope and prayer for each of them. Probably not just me but their parents and grandparents also.

May you always walk in sunshine slumber warm when night winds blow
May you always live with laughter for a smile becomes you so 
May good fortune find your doorway may the bluebird sing your song
May no trouble travel your way may no worry stay too long
May your heartaches be forgotten may no tears be spilled
May old acquaintance be remembered and your cup of kindness filled
May you always be a dreamer may your wildest dream come true
May you find someone to love as much as I love you

The last line— I would leave with these kids, our kids and our grandkids—-all of our young people—
 
          “May you always know how much—-we love you”
 
With that thought I felt a lump comin’ on in my throat…I got up to go get a second cup.