Larry Grams

Reflections from the back nine

Larry Adamson

Archives for February 2015

Back Up Singer

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Just some thoughts:
 
I thought it was him from the moment he walked into Wendy’s.
 
Recently, my wife and I, along with some good friends, we were eating at one of my favorite eating establishments, Wendy’s (I do love their chili.)  My wife and a few other family members do not share my excitement for Dave’s place. If you were raised in a small town, small high school, you were raised on chili. Friday night ballgames, the band would have a fundraiser before and after the game, and we all would go to the school cafeteria to eat some of the finest chili ever and maybe a piece of homemade pie. Some folks just don’t have any refinement.
 
I saw this guy walk in, and I thought, “That’s ____.  He is an old rock-n’-roll artist.  Shoot, what’s the harm? If it’s not him and I’m wrong, I’ll just say, I’m sorry.  I walked over to him.  “Sir, excuse me, but aren’t you ____?” A big smile came over his face. “Son, for you to recognize me, you gotta go way back.” I said, “Hey, I’ve got one of your albums at home and on the cover is a picture of you and a ‘59 Corvette.” From there, we had a great conversation. I took his phone number and asked if he would like to have lunch one day the next week. He certainly did.
 
This week, I took him to lunch. It was worth the price of one hundred lunches. He shared stories with me and filled in gaps about old rock- n’- roll folks. In the late 50s’ many a hot summer nights were spent runnin’ up and down Wabash Avenue in Terre Haute, Indiana and a song by him would come on the air all the way from Nashville, Tennessee and WLAC. There was a particular song I always liked, so I asked him about that song and the singer. The song was “Shake a Hand,” and the singer was a gal named Faye Adams. “I sang back-up for that song,” he said.  “Nobody knows that, how did you know to ask about that,” he ask. When I left him that day, we made a date to meet again for lunch. I looked forward to it.
 
As I drove off, I thought how pleased and excited he became when I recognized the song and expressed how much I liked the backup sound, the voice. He was certainly pleased to tell me he was the backup singer on that recording session.
 
 Sometimes backup people need a bit of recognition. Life has a lot of back-up folks. The nurse you see at your doctor’s office, the janitor at your child’s school, the guy at the tire store and the clean- up man at your local restaurant. Backup folks are all over the place, just seldom noticed.
 
I’m sure glad I ran into my new friend that day at Wendy’s.
 
 
January 29, 2012
Keep on,
Larry Adamson 

Our Day Will Come

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Just some thoughts:                 
 
Often before a basketball game, I will go to the college cafeteria to eat dinner. There are two schools here in Nashville that I seldom miss a game and eating in their cafeteria. I recommend more folks do such as there is something about being in the atmosphere of young people, college kids.
 
The other night, I went through the line for my food. Sometimes I’ll sit over to the side, out of the way. I eat and watch. Often after I finish eating, I’ll get a cup of coffee in order to prolong my watching.
 
On this particular night, I noticed two young people sitting near me- a boy and girl. It was pretty evident by the way they were acting as if they were “boyfriend and girlfriend.”  They were not improper in any way, but you could tell they were in their own world.
 
I was not trying to listen, but I was close enough that I could hear parts of their conversation. She was pretty, but not overly attractive; he was nice looking, but I am not sure the word handsome would be associated with him. They had food and drink in front of them, but the attraction to their food was fast fading and their interest was becoming more and more into each other. As I picked up my drink, I heard him saying something to her that made me smile. Both of them had now leaned in toward each other and he had taken her hands and placed them in his on the table, and I heard him say a classic line. He called her by name and then said, “Our day is gonna come.”
 
I thought to myself how many times in the lives of most all of us have we, maybe not said that exact line, but  sure have felt it and probably said something that was very similar. Our day will come, and we believed it.
 
In fact, right now, playing on my record player is the song “Our Day Will Come.” An R& B group called Ruby and the Romantics had a hit on that very thought. (And for the kids, it is an album, not a cd. They used to call them albums and they played albums on a record player, at 33 1/3 speed. The record came in a jacket cover and often the jacket was just as good as the record itself.)
“Our Day Will Come”
                  
Our day will come and we’ll have everything    
We’ll share the joy falling in love can bring
No one can tell me that I’m too young to know
                                      
I love you so, love you so
Our day will come if we just wait a while
No tears for us—think love and wear a smile
Our dreams have magic because we’ll always stay
In love this way our day will come
Remember? Do you remember such thoughts and maybe once shared them with someone believing that “your” day would come? Hum…

December 17, 2011  
Keep on,
Larry Adamson

He Took Her Hand

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Just some thoughts
 
This past Friday, my wife and I attended a funeral. Something I don’t especially like doing, but, as my old barber used to say, “If you are too busy to attend weddings and funerals, you’re too busy.”
 
My wife and I wanted to pay our respects to this family and the memory of their deceased son and brother. There were about 1500 people in attendance. The funeral was for a young 18-year- old college freshman boy, who sadly, lost his life trying to help a stranded motorist. The young man and his family attend church where my wife and I attend, and they often sit near us in services.
 
Thinking there would be a large number at the service, my wife and I arrived about  forty-five  minutes prior to the service time. Very shortly after we sat down, a man and a young teenage girl excused themselves and stepped past us to take the two remaining chairs in our row. A conversation began between the man and me. I learned his family was neighbors of the family suffering the loss. The conversation was pleasant, and I learned the teenage girl with him was his daughter. Shortly into the service, he did two things that caught my attention. First, with the sadness of the service, he took out a tissue and handed it to his daughter as she began to cry. The next thing he did caused tears to come to my eyes. He reached over and placed her small hand in his, and then he took his other hand and cupped both his hands over hers. I don’t know when, or if ever, I’ve seen a father reach for a daughter’s hand so gently and meaningfully.
 
Later, I thought about that father, him reaching for his daughter’s hand and the special way he gave attention to her and her sadness, placing both his hands on hers. I thought how much “we,” the two generations, need one another and how many times we need to reach for one another’s hand. I thought about the difference in the ages of the two, but sadness and sorrow know no age. I’m sure there are certain times in all our lives that we have a need for someone to “reach out and take our hand.”
Teach your children well and feed them on your dreams
The one they picked, the one you’ll know by.
 
And you, of tender years, can’t know the fears
your elders grew by.
                             
And so please help them with your youth,
They seek the truth before they can die.
 
                                         (Crosby, Stills and Nash)
 

Regardless of what generation or what age one might be, sometimes we need to reach for another’s hand.
 
 March 13, 2012
Keep on,
Larry Adamson

Our Country’s Most Famous Athlete

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Picture

Just some thoughts:
 
OUR COUNTRY’S MOST FAMOUS ATHLETE
 
“Like to see some club jockey boy sitting on______.” (Line from the movie the  “Music Man”)
 
I had been in Green Bay, Wisconsin for a three-day-old car and rock-n’- roll show. I was traveling back home to Tennessee and I found myself passing through a small town in my home state of Indiana. (Oh, forgot to say that Little Richard closed the three-day-show. Wow.) I smiled to myself and I thought, at one time, right here in this town, lived the most famous athlete in all of the United States.
 
He was so famous that crowds of upwards to 100,000 would come to see him perform. He set world records. Former President Eisenhower once made a special effort to see him. President Harry Truman once wrote him a fan letter. President Roosevelt delayed a very important meeting with his cabinet to listen to this athlete’s performance on radio. Often, he would acknowledge his fans with a special nod of his head. He enjoyed his picture in advertisements long before the Wheaties cereal sports figures started. He out-salaried any other athlete. For a period of about thirty years his sport dominated the sporting-world. His sport was the first to organize as a business, publish a schedule and standardize rules for competition.
 
Sadly, when he passed, there were no words of praise, recognition of his life, his work and no funeral, no one to carry his body to its grave. In fact, the location of his grave was, and still is today, in question. As I drove on through this small town, I drove by the location of what was once his birthplace and his old homeplace. No marking, no plaques, nothing. As I left town, the sign said Oxford. I thought to myself how could you do that, just have the name of the town and nothing about your once famous athlete?

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http://www.indianahistory.org/our-collections/reference/notable-hoosiers/dan-patch#.VOUycMbftl8

Dan Patch was the athlete’s name. Dan Patch was a horse, a trotter.  Read about him.  He was something special.
 
Humm. At one time in our country’s history, the most famous athlete was a horse. With all the goings on in the world of sports today, I again vote for the horse. Lord knows we have enough
___________ in sports today.

(If you are having trouble filling in the blank, just think of another word that refers to a donkey.)
 
 
November 12, 2011
Keep on,
Larry Adamson

Cowboys Don’t Get Lucky All The Time

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Picture

Just some thoughts:    

Young lady, you and your friend look very nice, all dressed up in what appears to be your Sunday best.”   I spoke those words to a girl and her friend as we stood in line at my coffee place this morning. “But ladies, I’ve got to ask both of you a question. “What’s with the cowboy boots? I don’t mean to appear disrespectful, but I don’t associate cowboy boots with your Sunday finest.” “Well, she replied, Julie and I are graduating high school in a little while, and we made a promise to each other a long time ago that we would graduate with our boots on. You’ve heard about cowboys being buried with their boots on; well, we’re gonna graduate with ours on.” I congratulated them, told them I wished them the best and I admired their spirit.  

My order was ready, and I moved on to a table to read the paper and nurse my coffee. The two cowgirls got their order and ended up sitting at a table not far from where I was sitting. Very shortly after they did such, two young boys came in and went and sat with them at their table. I could not help but overhear the conversation between one of the girls and one of the guys.

I heard him say to her, “Come on, go with me tonight. I guarantee you will have a good time.” The young lady shook her head, not up and down, but side-to-side and said, “no.” He repeated his request a second and a third time, almost pleading one last time. “Come on, go with me.” “No, no, I told you, I am not going with you and that is final, so quit asking me.”  

As I walked past their table to leave, I thought to myself, “Young man, that little gal just took those cowboy boots of hers and stomped all over your heart, but, at your young age, you better get used to it, ‘cause it won’t be the last time.” I can attest to that.  

You know, cowboys don’t get lucky, all the time.    

May 28, 2011
Keep on,
Larry Adamson

 

Isn’t There Always A Barbara Walker?

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Picture

The picture is of me and country music performer Tom T.Hall. The picture was taken in the early 1970s’ standing next to his tour bus. It was a Saturday night as he was about to walk on stage in Riley, Indiana at the old high school gymnasium. Who would know that years later he and I would play golf together.

Just some thoughts:
 
Have you ever had a question you wish you could ask of one of your favorite singers should you have the opportunity? I have and did.
 
For many years Tom T. Hall has been one of my favorite singer/songwriters. Last year he was voted into the Country Music Hall of Fame and has written numerous country hits. Some time ago I had the opportunity to meet and talk with him. He gave me his phone number and invited me to play a round of golf with him and his good friend, Ralph Emery.
 
We did play golf and afterwards we had some time to visit. I said to him, “Can I ask you a question about the lyrics of one of your songs?” “Sure,” he replied. “There’s a song you wrote and recorded many years ago called “Homecoming”.” The song is about a country music singer and his life on the road. The song describes a visit and conversation the singer has with his father on a quick trip back home. In the song’s last verse the son says to his Dad “And by the way, if you see Barbara Walker tell her I said hello.” Hall smiled and nodded at me as if he knew my next question. “Was there really a Barbara Walker?” I asked. Hall smiled even bigger and then he said to me… “What do you think?”

Picturehttp://tomthall.net/

Well Dad, I gotta go, we got a dance to work in Cartersville tonight

Let me take your number down I’ll call you and I promise you I’ll write

Now you be good and don’t go chasin’ all those pretty women that you know

And by the way, if you see Barbara Walker, tell her I said hello

As I started to get in my car to leave, Hall turned and said to me:
 
 “Wasn’t there always a Barbara Walker somewhere in the lives of all of us?”

June 1, 2012
Keep on,
Larry Adamson

What A Fellowship

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Just some thoughts:  
 
This month of February is Black History Month.
 
Not too long ago, I got on a bus in a southern city, paid my fare, moved into the aisle and took a seat in the second row from the front. Sitting next to me was a young black lady. I would judge her to have been in her early twenties. We acknowledged one another with an exchange, and, from there, a bit of small talk.
 
As we rode along, I got to thinking about what the two of us were doing. I would really like to have asked her a question, a history question. “Do you know who Rosa Parks and Fred Gray were?” I did not ask. As the bus continued, I wondered if she would know how significant these two people were in what she and I were currently doing.

PictureRosa Parks http://www.biography.com/people/rosa-parks-9433715

At one time, in many southern cities, blacks and whites could not sit together or even be in the same area of a bus. If a bus was full, blacks had to stand and give up their seat to a white person; all that changed in December 1956.  I was fourteen at the time growing up in Indiana and had no knowledge of such happenings. The black population of Montgomery, Alabama refused, boycotted, riding the city buses for almost one year. They walked, walked everywhere. It all began with a little lady, Rosa Parks, who was represented by her black lawyer friend, Fred Gray. A young black preacher in that city, Martin Luther King, helped organize and speak to this “unjust,” and, in gatherings, encouraged the people to stay the course. In most all the meetings where these issues were addressed, there would be the singing of hymns, with the people standing and holding hands. One such hymn that was sung was an old hymn I sang as a small boy growing up in the churches I attended.

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Mass meeting at Holt Street Baptist Church during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. (From Montgomery Advertiser files)

 “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms”
 
What a fellowship, what a joy divine,
leaning of the everlasting arms.
Oh, how sweet to walk in the pilgrim way,
leaning on the everlasting arms.
Oh how bright the path grows from day to day,
leaning on the everlasting arms.
What have I to dread, what have I to fear,
leaning on the everlasting arms?
Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms.
Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms.

PictureGray with Martin Luther King Jr. Courtesy of NewSouth Books from Bus Ride to Justice by Fred D. Gray (2014).

I doubt that, any time I sang that song, I had any idea what other folks might be enduring and how they were drawing courage from that song. Now, all these years later, this young lady and I rode together without much thought of what it took for us to be doing that. Riding a bus, a white and black sitting together, came at a cost.
 
By the way, I once spe
nt a portion of a day with that lawyer, Fred Gray, who also represented Martin Luther King.
On my bookshelf sits a signed copy of Mr. Gray’s book. What a lady, what a man and what a fellowship.
 
February 25, 2011
Keep on,
Larry Adamson

Flip Of A Coin

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Just some thoughts:
 
FLIP OF A COIN
 
With a flip, he won. It would have been better if he had lost.
 
Fifty-three years ago tomorrow, February 3, 1959, three early rock-n’-rollers lost their lives, along with the pilot of their small plane. Buddy Holly, J.P. Richardson, 17-year-old Ritchie Valens and their pilot, Roger Anderson, all were killed in a plane crash shortly after 1 a.m. not far from Clear Lake, Iowa. Each year at this time, they are remembered in a three-day music festival held at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, the place they last played. In years past, I have been to this festival. It is great.
 
Also on the bill that night in 1959, as it was a typical rock-n’- roll package show was Dion Dimucci, or Dion and the Belmonts. Earlier in the evening, Holly had made arrangements to charter a plane to fly on to the next night’s show in Moorhead, Minnesota. The plane had room for three, besides the pilot. After the show, in the dressing room, a coin was flipped to see who would get the two seats along with Holly. The two winners in the coin flip were J.P. Richardson, whose stage name was the Big Bopper, and Dion. When Dion learned that flight was going to cost each of them $36, Dion opted out. “I can’t afford it,” he said. Valens, of “Oh, Donna” fame, was now the “winner” of the third seat.
 
A life lost on a flip of a coin. A life saved when a guy was broke and couldn’t afford the $36.
 
It happened fifty- three years ago tomorrow, and I remember it like it was yesterday.  I was a great Holly fan and still am to this day. I have every thing he ever recorded. You know, sometimes when you think you’re losing, you may have actually won. I wonder what Dion’s thoughts are every year on that anniversary?
I bet “Why Must I Be A Teenager In Love” is not the only question Dion has ever asked himself.
 
 
February 2, 2011
Keep on,
Larry Adamson