Archives for October 2015

​Just some thoughts:

Another season is almost upon us….Something I wrote on Nov. 1st of last year…

Tonight is a very significant date in history, November 1st. Yes, it is in my history and the history of thousands of guys who grew up attending small high schools in the state of Indiana in the 1950s’.
 
If you grew up then and attended one of the many small high schools in the state, you may remember this date. At that time there were a little over 700 high schools in the state and the majority of those schools were small, rural schools that did not have a football program. November 1st was the date the Indiana High School Athletic Association, ISHAA, would allow the basketball season to begin. I can still remember it like it was yesterday.
 
There is a line from an old Statler Brothers song that goes: “If I could just be a part of your memory the rest of your life.” Many happenings from that time, certainly including basketball, would be a part of those memories for me. November 1st, 1959 at 7:45 p.m. on a Friday night was the normal tip-off time for most school’s varsity games. On this November 1st it was the Blackhawk Chieftains vs. the Pimento Peppers. Now, stop laughing! The Chieftains are dressed in their traveling red and black uniforms, and they were led by veterans, Bobby Morse and Oscar Huntwork. (Oscar’s dad was my barber. He cut hair in the back of his small grocery store that the family operated.) The Peppers dressed in their home white with blue and orange trim; my old number was 40! I bet 99 per cent of the guys who played back then can remember their basketball uniform number. Mine, 40 on the home uniform, and 20 on the road.
 
It has been said, probably only by me, that in the late 1950s’ the best thing that could happen to a young Indiana high school boy who played basketball was three things. One, on a Friday night you’ve beaten the local school from a few miles down the road; two, your dad let you have the car for an after game date, and three, that one certain girl,  would go out with you. If all that happened on the same night, the stars were truly aligned perfectly. Well, on that night the stars were aligned perfectly for me; the Peppers won on a last second shot in overtime! Yours truly scored 17 points, and yes I also fouled out. It was the start of my last year in high school, my last basketball season. I would like to say it was the beginning of a very winning season, but it was not. All four years of my being a Pepper, victory did not come often. By the way, for those of us who lived during that time, basketball wasn’t our only memory from those Friday nights, but a very significant one.
 
 Last year on one of my basketball junkets back to Indiana, I attended an Indiana State University basketball game and ran into Oscar Huntwork. Neither he nor I looked nearly as intimidating as we once did, or thought we did, on that particular November night back in 1960.
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November 1, 2014
Keep on,
​Larry Adamson

​Just some thoughts:    

​W. S. had a nickname. It was “fluke.” He became known to many as Fluke Holland. Sometime back I had the good fortune to sit and visit with him. He was most gracious in conversation. 
  
Can you imagine a nickname like that? Story has it that the term fluke came from the game of billiards. In billiards when a player hit a shot that was considered far beyond their ability, but just lucky; the term is “that was a fluke.” A dictionary will tell us that a fluke is when something good happens unexpectedly with more luck and less skill; occurrences solely based on luck. 
  
In the early 1950s’ W. S. was a good friend of Carl Perkins’s brother. Perkins would later become the legendary Sun recording artist. One night Holland was with Perkins and his band after they had played a gig at some small setting near their hometown of Jackson, Tennessee. Perkins told Holland, “Hey next week we have a recording session booked at Sun Records in Memphis with Sam Phillip. Perkins went on to tell Holland, “We don’t have a car big enough to carry all of us down there, but you do so you are driving us; and also, we need a drummer for that session.” Now Holland had a Cadillac big enough, but he was not a musician. He had never played drums in his whole life, let alone own a set. He had a neighbor who had an old set of drums that he gave to Holland, so the next day he began to teach himself to play.   
  
About a week later finds Perkins and his band in the Sun recording studio having arrived there by Holland’s car. Holland was sitting at the drums when the session began. The less than one month drummer would go on to find himself playing drums for the next sixty years. He played on the famous Perkins recording of “Blue Suede Shoes,” and he was Johnny Cash’s drummer for nearly forty years. In the words of Holland, “Much of my whole life has been a fluke.” 
  
In the lives of most all of us I would imagine there have been a number of times things have happened in which we could not fully explain. Where we have had good luck beyond our skills or when something good happens, and it was least expected. Personally I know that has been the case in my life. Many times I experienced luck beyond my skills. 
  
Hum… I have a friend that often references such occurrences as “God things.” You know maybe some things that man thinks happened just by chance… well maybe; just maybe it might be otherwise. 
  
Maybe everything isn’t just a “fluke.” You think? 
————————————————————————————————————————- 
March 15, 2012
Keep on,
​Larry Adamson

Just some thoughts:

 was killing some time on this small college campus in rural Tennessee waiting for the start of a basketball game. With some extra time on my hands I ventured over to the small college library. I found myself wandering through the stacks and came upon a few books of poetry. Pulling a couple books from the shelves, I sat down and found this poem. I scrambled for some paper and wrote down the words. I could not find the name of the author, but I thought it said volumes about friends.

                                                                “Eternal Friendships” 
 
                                                        No friend we love can ever die;
                                                      The outward form but disappears.
                                                      I know that all my friends are nigh
                                                         Whenever I am moved to tears,
                                                 And when my strength and hope are gone,
                                                    The friends, no more, that once I knew 
                                                        Return to cheer and urge me on
                                                         Just as they always used to do
                                                       They whisper to me in the dark
                                                    Kind words of counsel and of cheer;
                                                    When hope has flickered to a spark
                                                          I feel their gentle spirits near,
                                                       And Oh, because of them I strive
                                                     With all the strength that I can call
                                                      To keep their friendship still alive
                                                          And to be worthy of them all.
                                                    Death does not end our friendship true;
                                                          We all are debtors to the dead;
                                                          There, wait on everything we do
                                                    The splendid souls who’ve gone ahead.
                                                       To them I hold that we are bound
                                                            By double pledges to be fine,
                                                      Who once has had a friend has found
                                                      The link between mortal and divine.

 ​I have since forgotten much about that game, but these words seem to stay with me.
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  February 3, 2014
  Keep on,
​  Larry Adamson

Just some thoughts: 

I went back home this past week. I do this about three or four times a year. Home I once heard it said, A fella has two homes, one where he currently lives and one where he once started livin’.”

Kinda the way I feel.

One thing I generally do when going back home is I stop at the cemetery where my parents are buried. I know that is not the practice for a lot of folks nowadays, but there is just something that draws me there; and the cemetery is just a bit off the highway. In the mad rush of the world, I think sometimes it would be good for all of us “to take a little walk through a cemetery” every so often. I will say, it is a place where you can hear yourself think and no one will try to interrupt.

While there this time, I met the caretaker. “I notice you stoppin’ here from time to time, notice your car,” he said to me. “Don’t have many folks comin’ by here drivin’ fancy vehicles like that Corvette convertible.”  I smiled. We talked a bit, and I asked him how long he had been working there. ‘Bout forty years, I reckon.” “You gonna be laid out here?” he asked. Again I smiled, this time to myself. “Hadn’t really thought about it that way, but, yes, my wife and I do have burial plots here, purchased them when my mother died and was buried here in 1999.” “Well, stay as long as you please, never crowded here at night.” He chuckled. With that he went back to his cutting grass.

 live in the cemetery, old caretaker they call me.
In the wintertime, I rake the leaves; and in the summer I cut the weeds.
And then they all go away,
But through their grief, I still can see their hate and greed and jealousy.

So here I work and I somehow hide from a world that rushes by our side,
And each night, when I rest my head, I’m contented as the peaceful dead.

Once I was a young man, dashing with the girls.
Now, no one wants an old man I lost my handsome curls.
But I want to say, when my time comes, lay me facing the rising sun,
Put me in a corner, where I buried my pup. Tell the preacher to pray, then cover me up.

Don’t lay flowers where my head should be, maybe God will let some grow for me.
And all the little children that I loved like my own, will they be sorry that ole John’s gone?

But who’s gonna cry when ole John dies?
Who’s gonna cry when ole John dies?”

I guess we all wonder if we will be missed. Even the ole caretaker, John, wonders. 
​================================================================================================July 10, 2010
Keep on,
​Larry Adamson

Just some thoughts:

Do you ever catch yourself just listening?  Listening for people? Listening for certain voices?
 
As time seems to be moving too quickly, on occasion I find myself listening for people, some from the past, some current.
 
I’m a fan of Billy Crystal, the actor and comedian. I read and really enjoyed Crystal’s book 700 Sundays. In the book he tells a story about a very late night call he got from his mother about a year before she passed. 
 
At the time he was living in California, and his mother was living in New York. The phone rang at what was about three in the morning in New York and after midnight in California. As most of us know, calls at such a time are not always a good call. “Mom? Mom are you okay?” were his first words to her. “Yes, yes I’m fine,” came the reply. “But Mom, it’s after three in the morning there.” “Billy, Billy I know, but I just wanted to hear your voice, that’s all. I woke up your brother, too; I just wanted to hear your voices.” He said again, “Mom, are you sure you are okay?” Crystal said there was a pause, and then his mother said, “Oh, I’ve been listening for you boys. I guess I just wanted to once again hear your voices.”
 
She was eighty-five years old at the time. Her sons were scattered across the country, but she was listening for them: the sound of a car pulling in the driveway, the jingle of keys in the front door lock: the sounds that said they were now safe at home. Crystal said that about a year later she passed, and they sold the house. Somebody else owns it now.
 
I can relate to Crystal’s mother. There are times now that I would, so badly, just like to hear certain voices.
 
How about you, anybody’s voice out there you would like to hear?
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April 19, 2009
Keep on,
​Larry Adamson

Just some thoughts: 

​At one time probably more hearts have jumped with joy or been broken by words that were said on someone’s front porch or sitting in a swing on one’s porch. 
  
Not too long ago our youngest daughter, her husband and two children moved from our neighborhood to a small hamlet/ rural community just a few miles west of where we live in Franklin, Tennessee. Across the road from their house are goats, hounds and a few other such small animals. The other night my wife and I were sitting with their two children while they were having an evening out. Their hundred year old plus house has a large front porch and on that porch is something that is not as common in houses today as yesteryear, a porch swing. 
  
That evening I sat alone in their swing for a while, although I did have some company. Joining me at my feet were their two dogs, Little Jimmy and Charlie. Pongo the cat came by occasionally but chose not to be social. As I sat there swinging back and forth at a leisurely pace I could hear the squeak of the chains of the swing, the sounds of crickets, saw lightening bugs dancing in the dark and felt a soft gentle breeze come across the porch. For me it was a scene straight out of my childhood. We had a large porch and a swing in the first house that I can remember living in. Adults often sought evening relief from the summer heat as air-conditioning was rare for many households at that time. Both sets of my grandparents and an aunt and uncle (Daisy/Frank) had large porches and swings. At one time porches and swings were gathering places for families. 
  
I thought about all that went on in the lives of people on porches and swings, especially young people. If you grew up and dated in the late 1950s’ (and earlier for that matter) surely you have some memories of porches and what often took place there. If the truth be told many a first kiss or those three magic words  (I love you)  took place on porches or in swings. It has been said that a boy becomes a man when he decides it’s more fun to steal a kiss than second base. Many a mother used the front porch light as a way of saying the words of the old doo wop group, The Spaniels, its’ time for “Good Night Sweetheart, Good Night.” 
  
The legendary Eddy Arnold may have said it best in the lyrics of this song he once sung: 

Old Porch Swing 
  
It’s hung there on the front porch since this old house was built 
It’s where the old men whittle and the women fleece their quilts 
It’s held four generations through whatever life could bring 
That ole swing, that ole porch swing 
  
It held a grieving widow when my daddy’s daddy died 
 And now it rocks my children when they close their sleepy eyes 
It’s where I popped the question with a quarter karat ring 
That ole swing, that ole porch swing 
  
 It’s been there through the sunshine it’s had it share of rain 
Been a witness to some good times and a like amount of pain 
 If it could tell its story what a violin could sing 
That ole swing, that ole porch swing 
  
It’s where brother read the letter that sent him off to war 
We knew he had to go and fight but we didn’t know what for 
When he came home he just sat there and never said a thing 
In that swing, that ole porch swing 
  
 It’s been there through the sunshine it’s had it share of rain 
Been a witness to some good times and a like amount of pain 
If it could tell its story what a violin could sing 
  
That ole swing, that ole porch swing   

That evening as the midnight hour neared and I sat in our daughter’s swing on their front porch I had two thoughts. One, if you were a teenager in the late 50s’ or early 60s’ you might remember the significance of the striking hour of midnight and also the significance of another’s front porch.  I wonder how many hearts have been thrilled or broken by what was once said to them on someone’s porch or as they sat in that ole porch swing. Hum……. 
  
Probably more hearts have either been thrilled or broken than all the stars that I could see as I looked from the porch where I sat on this evening. 
  
Maybe you once stood on someone’s porch or sat in someone’s swing. Maybe you remember what was once was said… 

August 7, 2014
Keep on,
​Larry Adamson

Just some thoughts: 

I wrote my wife a note the other day. Often I will find a song I like and make a one or two song cd for her. Then I place it in the seat of her car for her to listen to as she leaves our house on Monday mornings for her volunteer position with a local outreach. Today I wrote a note instead of a cd.  While maybe we think they know our feelings, tell them.  Rather than think they know what we think is the obvious, speak it.   
  
There are many things I have appreciated about my wife in the fifty years we will have been married come July of 2015. One of them is her acceptance of my interest in old cars. Over the past ten years I have had a 1964 Mustang coup, a 1965 Mustang convertible (red), a 1992 Corvette, a 1962 Corvette. Currently I have a 1965 Corvette convertible and a 1973 Mercedes convertible. Now that is just my old cars. Also I’ve had a number of what I consider my personal cars, all convertibles. 
  
The note… One day this past week as I was driving my Corvette back from the golf course, I got to thinking about her and my interest in old cars. Later I wrote her a note telling her how much I have appreciated her acceptance and tolerance of my interest, money spent etc. on this hobby over the years. Although it is true that in most cases I have not lost money on these vehicles and if sold today the two cars I currently have would sell for more than their purchase cost. But that is not the point; she has never been contentious or difficult about my pursuit of cars. Tis’ true that once I called her and shared the thought that I would like to make yet another car purchase; she was okay with such, but she did add, “You get the Corvette, I get new counter tops.” The lady does know how to negotiate, she got the counter tops. (Boy, I had no idea how expensive they can be). So I wrote her a note and told her the obvious and a thank you from me was in order. You know, sometimes we just take too much for granted and make assumptions that; “Well, she/ he already knows.” Maybe even with this being true, speaking the obvious is sometimes in order. 
  
She has not been difficult of my interest and that says a great deal about who she is.    

“Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife” 
(Proverbs 21:9) 

5I am thankful I have never had to live on a roof… 
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October 2, 2015
Keep on,
Larry Adamson

​Just some thoughts: How did all this happen? 
 

​The picture…Fuzzy Zoeller, Arnold Palmer, Larry Adamson, Gary Player & Calvin Peete.) 

​Have you ever wondered that? How did you get from here to there in your lifetime? Well, I certainly have. 
  
About nine miles south of Terre Haute, Indiana, traveling Highway 41 you will see a very small sign. One posted on the north and south sides of the highway. It gives the name of the little town where I grew up. Really it isn’t even a town, a small village, I guess. 
  
Most times when I go back home, I will turn off the highway where at one time there had been Deb’s Fillin’ Station and the Hacienda Motel and Restaurant. Neither is there today. I will then drive by the old school and my old home place; both of them are dilapidated. They are in such poor condition that it is embarrassing and hurts to see. I once drove our oldest grandson, who was a teenager at the time, through the area on one of our basketball junkets. He called his mother and asked, “Have you ever seen where Pop Pop grew up?” She had. “Well, Abe Lincoln had a better chance.” 
  
Each time I made that village circle there is a question that keeps coming back to me.”How did I get from here to there, from then to now?” Meaning from those early beginnings, how was I so fortunate to end up doing, seeing, and being what later became of me and my life? 
  
Over the years that question is often repeated in my mind… like when I was 
  
*Standing on the floor of the Roman Coliseum 
*Walking the catacombs of ancient Rome 
*Brushing my fingers in GI’s initials carved on Hitler’s desk in his Eagles Nest high in the Alps 
*Riding in Vince Gill’s tour bus and talking with him about his career 
*Hearing “You are having breakfast with me and another fella in the morning.” The other fella   
  being Jack Nicklaus 
*Walking down the first fairway at St. Andrews 
*Sitting for hours in the market place in Florence, Italy and just watching 
*Drivin’ an old Corvette on all night drives back from some car, rock-n’-roll show 
*Walking the ruins of ancient Greece where many Bible characters once walked 
*Sitting outside a pizza shop overlooking Lake Como in Italy 
*Having access to locker rooms and players at the Master’s (20+ years) 
* Standing a few feet away from Little Richard in his rare form 
*Standing in the ovens and showers at Dachau 
*Walking the beaches at Normandy 
*Being the guest of George Steinbrenner and sitting in his box at a Yankee game 
*Seeing that Tiger Woods got his US Open credentials and prize money 
*Watching the sunrise and sunset numerous times on a Florida beach 
*Standing in the gallery in Milan, Italy, looking at The Last Supper 
*Standing beneath the Eiffel Tower 
*Sitting right next to Ossie Smith in the dugout during a St.Louis Cardinals game 
  
*Walking the markets and seeing the pyramids in Cairo, Egypt 
*On a late night dinner cruise on the Nile River (wondering where’s baby Moses) 
*Waking with my wife at a bed and breakfast near the ocean in Ireland and Scotland 
*Sitting in a Nashville honky tonk and listening to great music 
*Standing by the stage many times at a Jerry Lee Lewis or a Chuck Berry show 
*Watching the sunset at Pearl Harbor 
*Owning numerous old cars – Corvettes and Mustangs 
*Standing on the decks of cruise ships at some locations I could not pronounce 
*Passing through the Panama Canal and thinking “Are we going to make it?” 
*Riding a ski lift through the rain forest of Costa Rica 
*Standing and watching Big Ben chime at midnight 
*Sitting in numerous theaters / Broadway plays 
*Having a midnight dinner in Little Italy, New York City 
  
This list is too numerous, but so many times I have had the thought…how, how? Considering how and where it all started.   

“How did I get here from there?” 
“How did I get from then to now?” 

Recently I was having lunch with my friend Marcellas. Something was said about “how lucky I was” and Marcellas corrected the statement, “No Larry you have not been lucky, you have been blessed.”  Marcella is right and I am grateful. 

January 2, 2014
Keep on,
Larry Adamson

Just some thoughts:       
 
I have been reading what I believe may be the best book that describes some of the early history of our country. When I first saw this book and started reading it, I thought, “Bet this sucker could get boring pretty quickly.” Wrong. Quickly, wrong. The book is David McCullough’s  John Adams.
 
What a read, and it only makes me marvel at the greatness of so many of our early founders, both men and women. I have come to have great respect for our second president, John Adams, and interestingly, also his wife, Abigail. What a lady she was. Time and time again, she exhibited great wisdom and insight.
 
So often, she and her husband were separated, as much of Adams’ work was done in foreign fields, especially France. There were times they would be apart for a year or more. She endured tremendous hardships at home in Boston. Truly, this couple had a “love affair” with one another. She had always said that she would never, never venture a trip on a ship across the ocean. “Never would I tempt such an undertaking,” she was quoted as saying. Well, she changed her mind.  John had wanted her to be with him and she him. They no longer could stand the separation from one another, so she agreed to make this frightful journey from Boston to France; a trip that would take as long as three months at sea with no guarantee of one’s safety. She was doing something she had once said, “I will never do.” Later, she said
 
“But let no person say what they would or would not do, since we are not
judges for ourselves until circumstance calls us to act.”
 
Those are Mrs. John Adams’ words. I love that quote. I think of how many times I, probably all of us, have made bold statements, “what we would never do.” Then, later, find ourselves in a similar situation and faced with the reality of the matter. We have to ask ourselves, “What are we going to do?”
 
“You will never catch me doing that.” Oh really? When one is not in that situation, it is pretty easy to say “what we would do.” Or, how many times have we made a judgment of another’s actions and say, “Boy, you would never catch me, or I’ll tell you, here’s what I would do.” Oh, yeah. Abigail Adams was so right. Sometimes the best thing for each of us to do is stay out of the judgment business, especially of others.
 
In her last letter to her husband before sailing for France, she wrote,
 
                                                   “My thoughts are fixed; my latest wish depends on thee,
                                                             guide, guardian, husband, lover and friend.”
 
“You will never catch me doing that.” Oh, really?

March 9, 2012
Keep on,
Larry Adamson

​​​Just some thoughts:

​(These two pictures recently taken at our grandson wedding in July of this year)

​Recently I was in one of Nashville’s libraries of culture, a music place, oh well, a honky tonk. 
  
I was sittin’ there minding my own business. Cokes are two bucks and you tip the band once an hour; listen to the music and watch the folks. Pure culture at its best. 
  
It’s a bit after ten p.m., about the time all the college kids come out. I was sitting next to some folks from Boston who were probably about my age. There was empty sitting space next to me when five or six young ladies walk in. They were about the age of our oldest grandchild. They asked if we minded if they took those seats. Sure, and they do. On the bandstand tonight is one of my Nashville favorites, ole Harry Fontana. He and his band are cookin’ and the kids are all dancing. 
  
One little gal in the group sat down next to me and said, “Hey, you come in here often?” “Yes, 
how about you?” I asked. “Yea, we come in all the time, we really like Harry.” About this time a guy walked up and asked her to dance. Now, he does look a bit seedy but with a bit of hesitation she accepts. They dance, and I must say the guy can dance. When they finished she came back to her seat and said to me, “Never met him before, he ain’t no ten, but he can dance.” 
  
As she sips her drink she asked me, “How old are you and why do you come in here?” I laughed and told her, “I am more than old enough to be your grandfather.” “Well my grandfather is…” and she told me his age. “I still have your grandfather beat and I told her my age.” She replied, “Oh my, yea you are older than him.” Youth and truth are often brutally so. 
  
Now ole seedy reappears to once again ask her to dance and back up she goes for another dance. This time with a bit more enthusiasm. Again, they both are good dancers and enjoyable to watch. Their dance is finished and she returned to her seat. Then she said a classic line to me, “I sure hope he asks me to dance again, but I sure hope he doesn’t ask if he can take me home.” 
  
In life there are some things we want from people and there are some things we don’t. To her credit, the young lady had this guy figured out. It reminds me of the words in the old fifties rock-n’-roll song of the Drifters… 

“She may save the last dance for him…but he can forget about takin’ her home.” 

January 31, 2013
Keep on,
​Larry Adamson