WA2K Radio is now on the air

Good morning, WA2K radio audience. Well it seems that we have been witness to a marvelous new United Nations discussion. Apparently, listeners, I had the entire concept of goodbye and goodnight totally backwards. Bon soir would be more of a salutation than a farewell, I suppose.

Strangely, I just came across an unauthorized biography of Frank Sinatra, called My Way. I tried to read it, and found it very, very boring, but it was a song that fit the man's life.

Francis and Walter, I cannot tell you how delightful it was to read the transcript of the song.

Bob, I like your use of the phrase "....sweet sadness...". That does sum up the appeal of the song, especially in the minds of daughters concerning their fathers.

Here in my small corner of Florida, I awakened to thunder storms and lightning. The spring equinox approaches.

Oh, yes, and here's a link for McTag and John of Virginia:

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mmacktheknife.html

Interesting background on the song.

Bob - thanks. I've many songs of Charles Aznavour. If one wanted, I'll post it.

I suppose, either

G'morning, Letty! (and all listeners!)

<Thanks, Francis!>

Well, listeners, it's a most unusual day this morning:





It's a most unusual day
Feel like throwing my worries away
As an old native-born Californian would say
It's a most unusual day

There's a most unusual sky
Not a sign of a cloud passing by
And if I want to sing, throw my heart in the ring
It's a most unusual day






There are people meeting people
There is sunshine everywhere
There are people greeting people
And a feeling of Spring in the air

It's a most unusual time
I keep feeling my temperature climb
If my heart won't behave in the usual way
Well, there's only one thing to say
It's a most unusual day

There are people meeting people
There is sunshine everywhere
There are people greeting people
And a feeling of Spring in the air



I keep feeling my temperature climb, climb, climb, climb, climb, climb, climb
Till there is only one thing to say
It's a most, most, most, most, most unusual, most unusual
Most unusual da-ay-ay
Most unusual da-ay

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood
A beautiful day for a neighbor could
You be mine
Won't you be my neighbor

My Way?

These were the thinnest lyrics, en n'importe quelle langue, that I've ever seen.....taking up only about one-sixth of the available width of the screen..... How about that?

Maybe because it's French.. :wink:

Ah, edgar. Dear Mr. Rogers. His piano player was awesome, incidentally.

McTag, of course they were thin. Models must be thin in France to properly display the designer clothes on the my way runway.

I need to invite Merry Andrew to our studios and show off his Latvian language.

Well, listeners. I have ordinary stuff to do, so I'll say, later gators.

Good Morning all! It's celebrity birthday time:

1859 Kenneth Grahame, children's author (Edinburgh, Scotland; died 1932)
1902 Louise Beavers, actress (Cincinnati, OH; died 1962)
1909 Claire Trevor, actress (New York, NY; died 2000)
1921 Cyd Charisse, actress/dancer (Amarillo, TX)
1943 Lynn Redgrave, actress (London, England)
1945 Mickey Dolenz, singer and member of the Monkees (Los Angeles, CA)
1947 Carole Bayer Sager, songwriter/singer (New York, NY)
1959 Aidan Quinn, actor (Chicago, IL)
1963 Kathy Ireland, model (Santa Barbara, CA)
1976 Freddie Prinze Jr., actor (Albuquerque, NM)
1977 James Van Der Beek, actor (Cheshire, CT)

Happy Birthday to Cyd Charisse who is being honored by TCM today. Brigadoon is playing at the moment.

Just had to drop in quickly, listeners. First I would like to thank dear Raggedy for keeping us up to date on birth dates.

and I do believe that McTag and I have come full circle with Brigadoon:

For the Scot in all of us:

The Heather on the Hill



Can't we two go walkin' together, out beyond the valley of trees?
Out where there's a hillside of heather, curtsyin' gently in the breeze.
That's what I'd like to do: see the heather--but with you.
The mist of May is in the gloamin', and all the clouds are holdin' still.
So take my hand and let's go roamin' through the heather on the hill.
The mornin' dew is blinkin' yonder. There's lazy music in the rill,
And all I want to do is wander through the heather on the hill.
There may be other days as rich and rare.
There may be other springs as full and fair.
But they won't be the same--they'll come and go,
For this I know:
That when the mist is in the gloamin', and all the clouds are holdin' still,
If you're not there I won't go roamin' through the heather on the hill,
The heather on the hill.

I think it may have been Kenny Burell who did a great version of that song. Dulcet those sounds of the tenor sax.

Hello again, Cyd!

As a child, I took ballet from the same venerated ballet master who taught Cyd Charisse (among many others) to dance. Her picture was one of those hanging just above the barre where I used to practice. I still remember saying hello to her twice a week for all those years.

Thanks for the memory, raggedy!

That's great, Eva. Aaah, I envy you talented people.

Cyd married her ex-dance teacher, Nico Charisse, in 1939. Her second marriage was in 1948 to singer Tony Martin and I believe they're still married.

Francis, mon ami:

Your posts continue to delight and inform us. Charles Aznavour provided me with one of my all time favorite songs Yesterday when I was Young. Here in America it was best known sung by Roy Clark. But again it traveled here by way of France.
To me personally, the best thing to come out of France was my former wife, a Finn, who was an au pair to the children of a well known French family. She had spent a year in Marseille and a year in Paris where she met an American family who wanted her as an au pair to their children. She had been here for a month when I met her. We were married for 35 years and I wouldn't part with those memories for anything.

While Eva is recalling her tu tu and practices at the barre, here's a brief news item:

Hans Bethe, the nuclear physicist whose elegant calculations explained how stars shine and laid the foundation for development of both the atomic and hydrogen bombs, has died. He was 98. Bethe, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1967, died Sunday at his home in Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell University announced Monday. A reluctant but crucial participant in the World War II effort to develop nuclear weapons, Bethe later became one of the country's most passionate and persuasive proponents of disarmament.

Bethe called himself "The Tough Dove" <smile>

Bob, that's amazing. You ex was an au pare? I'm so glad that you have fond memories, my friend. As for Roy Clark's "Yesterday when I was young", I am stunned--another coup for France.

Bob - Those are sweet memories. As for you loving your wife so much, you're a nice man!

Ahhh, WA2K audience, there's nothing more encouraging than seeing two gentlemen pat each other on the back.

Francis, don't the French still give honorees a peck on both cheeks?

I had a call from my young friend in Virginia Beach today, and it seems that he and his friend were out sailing when several dolphins came up to their sailboat and became very friendly. As both guys were feeding the beautiful sea creatures, another boat approached. (my friend, Scotty, told me they just reeked of National Geographic). Well, indeed they were and had been tracking this particular school from Florida. They glowered at the boys and told them not to feed the dolphins. Don't think that set too well with either of the young men. This was a good story about the mammals that are so revered here and everywhere. Too bad that in the Keys, dozens washed up on the shore either dead or dying. No one knows exactly what has caused this carnage, but it seems that naval ships may have been the cause due to the sonar operations that are sometimes conducted.

and in keeping with the denizens of the deep, here is a tribute to them by Oliver Wendel Holmes, who was born on this day.
THIS is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,?-
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed,?-
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year's dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathèd horn!
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:?-

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

A beautiful way to look at the cycle of birth and death, right listeners?

Yes, we do! I've even done that when back in the US.

Well, Francis, that just shows how at ease the French are with their show of respect. I suppose it's a hangover from the Puritan ethic, but American men seem uncomfortable with that cultural practice.

I invited Merry Andrew to post the lyrics to the song, "Yesterday When I was Young", in Latvian. I sincerely hope that he does.