WA2K Radio is now on the air

Hey, JB, welcome to the world of cyber radio. The light show was a miniature thing, and that's what made it so odd. Had it been lightning, or some other heavenly observance, I would have understood. Hey, I may have witnessed a UFO. <smile>

Try to remember, Miss Letty, where you bought the last batch of mushrooms.
It's snowing here in Virginia. Pretty heavily since daybreak. I got to work at 7 but left at 10. No customers and no employees. Roads were bad early but are ok right now. But when evening comes it will get colder and the snow may pile up. That's better than sleet, which is our big nemesis.
It's really quite pretty. "Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village, though. He will not see me stopping here to watch his woods fill up with snow,"

"....my little horse must think it queer to stop without a farmhouse near,
Between the woods and frozen lake, the darkest evening of the year..."

Now Virginia John, had I been munching mushrooms, do you think I could have remembered that line to Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening?

Some of the worst storms that I have seen in Virginia occurred in October and one in April.

Wish I had had a night vision camera or recorder, I would have been added to Art Bell's site. I think that the tiny lights must have been in the top formation of a tornado.

Ah, listeners. I recall so many things about the snow when I was a kid. Frozen mittens--burning fingers,
Making angels--snow icecream,
Black galoshes,
Red toboggans,
Off from school,
Nowhere to go.

And ere the early bedtime came
The white drift piled the window-frame,
And through the glass the clothes-line posts
Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.
The old familiar sights of ours
Took marvellous shapes; strange domes and towers
Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood,
Or garden-wall, or belt of wood;
A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed,
A fenceless drift what once was road;
The bridle-post an old man sat
With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat;
The well-curb had a Chinese roof;
And even the long sweep, high aloof,
In its slant spendor, seemed to tell
Of Pisa's leaning miracle.

Here's a bit of trivia. Rae Dawn is the daughter of Tommy Chong of Cheech & Chong fame. Tommy Chong, a Canadian, used to be a member of an old r & b singing group named Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers (okay?) who had a few big hits like "Does Your Mother Know About Me" and "I Am Your Man." (I still get misty-eyed just thinking about that cut. what a heartbreaker) Even more trivia... altho' Diana Ross has been credited for discovering Michael Jackson and The Jackson Five, it was really Bobby Taylor, during a small gig in Chicago, who caught their act and brought them to Berry Gordy and Motown. Gordy just decided that it would make a better story if Diana was said to be the one to have discovered them.

George, I literally felt a chill of delight when I read that poem. I'll bet it's yours.

eoe, you are amazing. Thanks for that background. I still see Cheech Marin with Don Johnson, and I really think he's funny. I feel mixed emotions about Michael Jackson because he was darlin' as a kid, and became a really good performer. Somehow, Jackson reminds me a bit of who Howard Hughes later became.

Letty~
I should have cited it as from "Snow-Bound" by John Greenleaf Whittier.

Well, radio fans. Don't you believe that George could have written that?

And here I am a Whittier fan, but Snowbound was sooooo long, that I had forgotten.

Let's see if I can remember In School Days:

Still sits the schoolhouse by the road,
A raggedy beggar sleeping,
Around it still the sumac grows,
And blackberry vines are creeping.

Long years ago, a winter sun,
Shown over it at setting,
Lit up its western windowpanes,
And low eaves icy fretting.

It touched the tangled, golden curls
And brown eyes full of grieving,
Of one who still her steps delayed
While all the school was leaving.

Pushing with (something) feet the snow,
To right and left she lingered,
While restlessly her tiny hands
The blued checked apron fingered.

I'm sorry that I spelt the word,
I hate to go above you,
Because, the brown eyes lower fell,
Because, you see, I love you.

Still memory to a grey-haired man,
That sweet child's face is showing,
Dear girl, the grasses on her grave,
Have forty years been growing.

He lives to learn in life's hard school,
How few who rise above him,
Lament their triumph and his loss,
Like her, because they love him.

Well, George. I did it. Aren't you proud of me?

oops, I think that I left out two stanzas.

Within (the school house) the master's desk is seen,
Deep scarred by raps official,
The warping floor, the tattered (something)
The jackknife's carved initial.

The charcoal frescoes on the walls,
The door's worn sill betraying,
The feet that creeping slow to school,
Went storming out to playing.

Now, Letty, that's better!

How in the sam hill can you remember all of that but not eoe???

eoe; eoe; eoe; I swear, Georgia, There is something quite wrong with spell check. It keeps reading you as ae. It's not me, honey. As a matter of fact, that sweet little girl in Whittier's poem bested him in a spelling bee.

Tell me if eoe came out right this time.

Incidentally, I missed some stuff in that poem.

The Old Folks at Home

State song of Florida, adopted in 1935 through House Concurrent Resolution no. 22.
Words and music written in 1851 by Stephen Collins Foster in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for E.P. Christy and his performing troupe, Christy's Minstrels, in New York. E.P. Christy paid Foster for the privilege of having his name appear as composer of Old Folks at Home, apparently at Foster's suggestion, an arrangement Foster later tried to reverse
First line: "Way down upon the Swanee River, far, far away"
In the original draft of the song in Foster's sketchbook, Foster used the Pedee River instead of the Suwannee
Most popular song ever published at that time; sold 100s of thousands of copies
The first international "folk song," familiar in every culture of every continent
Foster never saw the Suwannee River, never visited Florida. The river was chosen from an atlas to fit the poetic meter of the lyrics
The song started the tourist industry in Florida; beginning in 1880s, it drew millions of people from around the world seeking the symbolic river and idyllic home described in the song's words
Meanings of the words, significance of the song
(selective list, paraphrased, based on interpretations reported in the literature):
Foster's intended meaning (1850s):
No matter how far we may travel or what sadness the world imposes on us, all our hearts ache for the best memories of childhood, the security of a family and parents ("old folks"), the familiarity of a home.
Post-reconstruction era (1870s-1890s):
Blacks yearn to go back to the plantation, where they were better off. (The song was performed condescendingly and with exaggerated dialect.)
Harry T. Burleigh and Antonin Dvorak (1890s):
A "heart song" of the American people, a folk song alongside slave's spirituals.
W.E.B. DuBois (ca. 1900):
Old Folks at Home is legitimately considered an authentic song of the Negro race, who have adopted it to express their own emotions.
W.C. Handy ("Father of the Blues" in his autobiography, 1955):
Old Folks at Home, My Old Kentucky Home, and Old Black Joe helped bring about emancipation, and owe something to the "well of sorrow" that gave rise to the blues.
Civil Rights Era (1950s-1960s):
Any song ever associated with negative ethnic images should be eliminated.
Postmodern era (1980s-1990s):
Any song (even The Star Spangled Banner and America) can be interpreted both positively and negatively. Old Folks at Home has hundreds of meanings around the world.
Related songs by Foster (date of composition):
Nelly Was a Lady (1849): First known song for the mass market to insist on an African-American woman as a "lady" and to portray a married African-American couple as a faithful, loving husband and wife destroyed by slavery
My Old Kentucky Home, Good Night (1852): over several years Foster had tried to persuade professional performers to portray African-Americans with dignity; this is his first song for the professional stage published without dialect
Old Dog Tray (1853): Foster's first song for the professional stage in which race is not identifiable
Hard Times Come Again No More (1854): race is not identifiable, and those who can afford life's pleasures are asked to "sup sorrow with the poor"
Old Black Joe (1860): a secular hymn written by a white man to the beauty and dignity of a black man, first such song in American history

Interesting, edgar. John Greenleaf Whittier was a quaker and spoke out strongly against slavery, not popular in his day in time. If I remember correctly, Joel Chandler Harris wrote the B'rer Rabbit/Uncle Remus stories as a gentle attempt to unite and smooth the wrinkles of division.

Whittier's biography in brief:




John Greanleaf Whittier, the son of a Quaker farmer, was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, on 17th December, 1807. Although he received only a limited formal education, he developed a strong interest in literature.

When Whittier was only 19 he had a poem, The Exile's Departure, accepted by William Lloyd Garrison, in the Newburyport Free Press. The two men became close friends and they worked together in the campaign against slavery. His pamphlet, Justice and Expediency, made him a prominent figure in the Anti-Slavery Society.

Whittier's first book to be published was, Legends of New England in Prose and Verse (1831). This was followed by two long poems, Moll Pitcher (1832) and Mogg Megone (1836). Poems Written During the Progress of the Abolition Question appeared in 1838.

Whittier edited the Pennsylvania Freeman (1838-40) and wrote several anti-slavery poems included The Yankee Girl, The Slavery-Ships, The Hunters of Men, Massachusetts to Virginia and Ichabod. His poems on slavery were collected as Voices of Freedom (1846). Whittier's concern for the suffering of others was well illustrated in his book, Songs of Labour (1850).

Whittier was a regular contributor to the Atlantic Monthly. Other volumes of verse include the Chapel of the Hermits (1853), Panorama (1860), In War Time (1864), Snow-Bound (1866), Tent on the Beach (1867), Among the Hills (1869), Miriam and Other Poems (1871), Hazel-Blossoms (1875), The Vision of Echard (1878), Saint Gregory's Guest (1886) and At Sundown (1890). John Greenleaf Whittier died on 7th September, 1892.

Incidentally, I am NOT using spell check

My word. The web misspelled Whittier's middle name.

Greenleaf

Now for a silly question:

What day in March is called command day?

Please don't tie up the phones, listeners.

a few years back an aids benefit cd came out called red hot and blue

it featured covers of cole porter songs by current artists

some were very good, david byrne sang don't fence me in, iggy pop and debiie harry did a version of well did you evah, and the pogues did a rousing rendition of miss otis regrets/just one of those things

but for me the best song on the disc was annie lennox performing everytime we say goodbye

it's simple and spare and just about perfect

Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye

Everytime we say goodbye, I die a little,
Everytime we say goodbye, I wonder why a little,
Why the Gods above me, who must be in the know.
Think so little of me, they allow you to go.
When you're near, there's such an air of spring about it,
I can hear a lark somewhere, begin to sing about it,
There's no love song finer, but how strange the change from major to
minor,
Everytime we say goodbye.

When you're near, there's such an air of spring about it,
I can hear a lark somewhere, begin to sing about it,
There's no love song finer, but how strange the change from major to
minor,
Everytime we say goodbye.

dj, You just touched a nerve with that one. The rhythm can be quite difficult to sing, but I adore it. Sitting here and typing, hearing that melody in my head. Thank you, dj.

DJ:

Every Time We Say Goodbye was a popular tear jerker during WWII, actually in 1944. I don't think anyone here will remember Hildegard, but she had an enormous hit with it ,as she did with "All of a Sudden My Heart Sings". Nana Mouskouri does a very slow rendition of Everytime We Say Goodbye on CD, and I really like it. I'll have to try to hear Annie Lennox doing it. I doubt if anyone can listen to that song without thinking of someone and shedding a wee tear.

here's the full track listing, it's really a very good cd if you can find it

Red Hot + Blue

Red Hot + Blue, featuring contemporary pop performers reinterpreting the great songs of Cole Porter, sold over a million copies worldwide and was Stereo Review's 1990 Album-of-the-Year. It was one of the first major AIDS benefits in the music business and helped launch the current popular genre of tribute albums.
Neneh Cherry --
I've Got You Under My Skin
The Neville Brothers --
In The Still Of The Night
Sinead O'Connor --
You Do Something To Me
Salif Keita --
Begin The Beguine
Fine Young Cannibals --
Love For Sale
Debbie Harry + Iggy Pop --
Well Did You Evah
The Pogues + Kirsty Maccoll --
Miss Otis Regrets / Just One Of Those Things
David Byrne --
Don't Fence Me In
Tom Waits --
It's All Right With Me
Annie Lennox --
Ev'rytime We Say Goodbye
U2 --
Night And Day
Les Negresses Vertes --
I Love Paris
k.d. lang --
So In Love
Thompson Twins --
Who Wants To Be A Millionare?
Erasure --
Too Darn Hot
The Jungle Brothers --
I Get A Kick
Lisa Stansfield --
Down In The Depths
Jimmy Somerville --
From This Moment On
Jody Watley --
After You Who?
Aztec Camera --
Do I Love You?

Raggedy, "All of a Sudden My Heart Sings", is the only song that I know which moves through the notes of an octave in succession.

dj, That is one helluva great song list. I know most of them, my friend.

Well, WA2K radio fans, I must be off and try and see one of my tv shows tonight.

with love from Letty.