Pen Pal

 “What we call memory is the intersection between imagination and fact. Memories are the stories we tell ourselves about the important events in our lives. In the telling, some details get lost, others embellished, until truth is closer to fiction.”

I was so turned off by the novel, Pen Pal by J. T. Geissinger, that I stopped reading it in August. I did not remove download from my Kindle or return to Amazon Prime. I skipped to the end, which is why I wanted to finish reading it. 

I liked the paranormal aspects, not the abrevant bedroom scenes. 

Cool Day for Hot Rods

 Cool Day For Hot Rods
Belmont Shore Car Show

With temperatures at sixty-three degrees in Long Beach, California, it was a cool day for hot rods. Hot rods and cool cars were on display at the 21st annual Belmont Shore Car Show on Sunday, September 12, 2010. Also known as street cars, hot rods are vehicles modified to maximize speed and acceleration. 

East Second Street in the Belmont Shore section of Long Beach is closed to traffic for the popular yearly event. The trendy main street shopping district is a much used direct route for people traveling to nearby Seal Beach and points south.

 Restored vehicles manufactured before 1975 were displayed on both sides of the four lane street and along the median. More vehicles were displayed on side streets that intersect E. Second Street. They were parked as far down the fourteen blocks as the alley and parking lots that run behind the stores, restaurants, and taverns. 

The Belmont Shore Car Show was hosted from 9AM until 3PM. Promptly at three, owners started heading out. Built for speed, the vehicles threaded their way very slowly through the crowds. The sports bars were as crowded as the streets. Football was showing on the multiple big screen televisions in most of them. 

I was disappointed that there were very few sandwich board signs in front of vehicles and a rare plaque card displayed on windowsills. I do not know model years and have depended upon those signs in previous years.

Looking at a beautiful sky blue '59 Impala, I was awed by the size of it. Did I actually drive one of those? My first time behind a wheel was in an Impala. My brother had two, one with fins, one without. I thought one was a 1962 model, but did not look like the 1962 Impala whose year I obtained from owner sitting behind the wheel. 

Some Highlights
1971 Harley-Davidson Service Car complete with police scanner, which I am sure was a tape playing, complete with static.

1923 Long Beach Paddy Wagon owned by the Long Beach Historic Society.

1967 Road Runner photo album showed car straight from junk yard, all rusty metal with car seat stuffing looking like rats' nests and through process of restoration to final transformation.

Hearse loading a coffin onto sidewalk. Open lid showing brown skull bones. A man had his photo taken sitting on bus bench near coffin, with arm over shoulder of mannequin. The dummy lady was sitting head down, dressed early 1900s mourning style, including hosiery with runs, veiled hat and lots of jewelry.

A pick up truck had a coffin in its bed, half lid open, Michael Jackson at rest, complete with silver glove.

Owner of 1932 Ford Hot Rod had a storyboard posted next to his pride and joy. He had the car since he was 16, entered races and drove it to California. The story board included photocopies of news clippings featuring his '32 car.

Yes there was a little, red Corvette on display and yellow, blue, maroon ones, too. Actually the little, red 1959 Corvette, sported white side wings and a white convertible top. 

A young man climbed in the Indy Formula One race car to his photograph taken. Although there was a lack of information cards, signs proclaiming "Look Inside But Do Not Touch" were plentiful. Representatives from Long Beach's Grand Prix at table next to the Indy car did not object to the photo shoot.

Monster trucks, some racing stripes and awesome graphics seemed too modern for the old vehicles sporting them. Chances are car enthusiasts saw their favorite car, but I did not see a 1962 Mercury Monterey, which was my first. If I thought the 1959 Impala was long and wide, the Cadillac’s were even longer and wider. The car show sported BelAirs, Dodge Challengers, Chargers, Falcons, T-birds, woodies sans surfboards and many more. 

Although it was a cool day for hot rods, the Belmont Shore Car Show, sponsored by Bay City Rodders classic car club, was a blast from the past. Leaning to look inside an unrestored Ford truck, I got a whiff of sunbaked vinyl, that smelled exactly like my father's trucks did, in the 1950s.

I Got Your Back

I Got Your Back: A Father and Son Keep It Real About Love, Fatherhood, Family, and Friendship by Eddie and Gerald Levert.

Reading comments on a YouTube, O'Jays video, someone wrote, "it is good to see Eddie performing again." Wondering if Eddie had been ill, I did a web search. I saw the book: I Got Your Back, so downloaded it on my Kindle.

I thought it was going to be a memoir or biography. Perhaps I should have read the subtitle, eh? I pretty much liked reading it, but was boring at some parts. They are Jehovah's Witnesses, and claim they are devoted to their religion. They did not seem to be devoted to following the Ten Commandments. Their God is their judge, not me.

But if they had been Catholic, they would have been spending a lot of Saturday nights in the Confessional booth, to be absolved of their sins ~ wine, women, song, and drugs ~ Party Down!

I only recalled one Levert song, Casanova. I saw the O'Jays in concert. I vaguely remember Eddie mentioning his son, but not if Gerald performed on stage with the group.

 

Fathers and Daughters

 From the book: I Got Your Back. Eddie, and later Gerald, Levert talk about the importance of fathers being there for their children. 

"A young girl's first connection to men is with her father, and she learns from her father how a man should treat her. If that scared union is broken or non-existent, then that young girl can be set up for one unhealthy relationships after the other. "

"...always searching for the father figure."

I would think my first connection to men would have been with my three older brothers. 

I was terrified of my father. I think he adored his first daughter, and probably the second one. Then three sons, and I was born. Probably did not have time to pay attention to me specifically. He somewhat doted on the next daughter. Then two more sons.

I saw him whip my older brothers with his belt. He was always yelling, although I no longer remember exactly what riled him. I was three months old when we went to Cape Cod to visit my mother's brother. I would not stop crying, so Dad stopped at a doctor's house. Mom never told me if the doc got me to stop crying.

The next morning they left for home. I think that is why my mother did not like me that much; deprived her of visit with her brother? Dad being so upset with my crying. Too bad I did not think to ask for more details of that oft' repeated story.

I guess I learned from dad that women deferred to men. Father rules, mom obeys. A women should not expect much attention from her man. Extreme, unfounded jealousy is normal male behavior? If a gal wants something done, she needs to do it herself? 

My brothers' drank a lot of alcoholic beverages, so I was not too concerned about my future hubby's drinking. I liked to drink also. I would not go out with him due to heroin use, having seen the trouble it got a brother into. I was too young, navie, to recognize the liar that would cause my life to be hell on earth for 13 years.

He claimed he did not mess with that stuff anymore. Oh, well...

The Women's March

 "She was absolutely resolved to continue putting questions to all the men who wanted to govern her without her consent." ~ Jennifer Chiaverini

from The Women's March: A Novel of the 1913 Woman Suffrage Procession. 

 
"As things change they remain the same." ~ Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr 

Some white women (mostly Southern racists, but not all) were refusing to march in the procession if Negro ladies were allowed to march with them. A colored woman doctor was not to be allowed to march with white women doctors? Why not? Those bigots wanted any black marchers to be delegated to one section at the end of the procession.  

(A memory post from my Facebook Timeline. I am deleting the memories when they come up. Do not remember if I wrote about the book here or at Goodreads. My comment was longer ~ about the women in today's world who would deny other females the right to take a morning after pill, or have a D & C after miscarriage.)

The Answer is...

...Alex Trebek ~ subtitled: Reflections of My Life.

My oldest daughter is a Jeopardy whiz kid. She might not know an answer, but she quickly uses logic to come up with the answer. She was labeled: Gifted & Talented in elementary school. So was her younger brother. Gave the middle child an inferiority complex. I would point out to her, that she might not be "Gifted & Talented," but she was above average on standardized tests, among her peers. 

The oldest & youngest, like myself, were avid readers. The middle child would not sit still to let me read her a Dr. Seuss book, and does not read for pleasure. But back, to Alex.

"You could replace me as the host of the show with anybody and it would likely be just as popular."

The show may be "just as popular," but the new hosts are not. Trebek is missed.

It took me over a week to read the book, due to not enough bright light in my apartment to read the small print, this paperback. 

I found I share many of Alex's ideas or ideals. 

Woodstock: A New Look

 Published non-exclusive, no pay, July 22, 2009 at Associated Content.

Woodstock: A New Look
Book Review

Greg Walter, author of Woodstock: A New Look, worked for Woodstock Ventures during the summer of 1969. As he worked he took photographs. After the festival and his job were over, he dumped the developed slides in a shoebox and stuck it under his bed. When his number came up, he fled the country rather than be drafted to fight in a war he felt was "Dead wrong." He did not open that shoebox again until 1999. Walter shares those photographs in his memoir.

Woodstock: A New Look is not all photographs; Walter tells a story that begins in 1968. The first photograph shows a Vietnam war protester on the ground bleeding after being hit by a Chicago policeman at the Democratic National Convention. Missing from the short narrative is any mention of the murders of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy that year.

Lisa Grant is listed as co-author of the book, but Walter does not mention her in his preface. Grant is credited with Barbara Hodge as Book Cover and Interior Designers. Whether she did any of the writing or not, I think a few of the sentences needed editing. A simple comma added in some sentences or rearranging the order of the words in others would make the reading smoother. Despite that I enjoyed reading the book. 

A picture is worth a thousand words. 

Some of the photographs in the book are included courtesy of AP IMAGES and Henry Diltz. Walter does not identify which photos are his and which were taken by other people. Most pictures do not have captions. A photo spread on pages 92 and 93 shows faces in the crowd of concert attendees. None of the people seemed to be enjoying themselves. Only one young woman has what might be a smile on her face; the rest appear to be either bored or angry. This surprised me. Woodstock and the hippie generation were all about love, peace and joy. 

Woodstock: A New Look was published in 2008 by The Writers' Collective of Cranston, Rhode Island in conjunction with the forty year anniversary of the August 15/16 event. Youngsters might enjoy learning that a concert ticket featuring many rock bands cost $7.00 in 1969 and also what wages a typical high school graduate earned during the summer of love. The 60s generation, grown up, might nod in agreement with Walter as his narrative leads up to his evading the draft. He says, "The hypocrisy of America's elders paying homage to the Ten Commandments while systematically breaking every one of them was not lost on many of us."  

The Great American Tush Award contest included in the book ended in June, 2009, so no more opportunity to claim the $5,000. prize. Although I would not purchase this book for myself it is a good book to be on library shelves. Walter had some interesting experiences prior to and after after Woodstock. A memoir about those times would interest me.  those times would interest me.