Arkie Watching The Broncos OT Win Over The Commanders

 

The Silver-Haired Woman From Louisianna

   Her name was Opal, at least that's how she introduced herself. Her hair was silver yet she looked to be in her mid-thirties. I casually mentioned that she looked much too young to have silver hair and she retorted that it was her family's' curse, all the women go grey young.

   She told us that she had recently relocated to Denver from Bogalusa, Louisiana, a small town about an hour's drive north of New Orleans

   She also stated she was looking for a room to rent as she was staying in a motel just down the road, which she indicated was somewhere west on 44th with a quick flip of her hand. 

   Her accent was quirky, not quite a southern drawl and not quite Cajun. I knew a woman when I lived in Alaska who had moved to Eagle River from Saint Mary Parish, and she had the same accent.

   Note: It is Saint Mary Parish, not Saint Mary's Parish.

   It was about 45 minutes into the conversation when she suddenly got up and exclaimed that she had to go as she had a job interview in an hour.

   Which struck us as a bit odd, seeing as how she had just spent almost an hour drinking at the bar.

Rip Up The Tracks But Leave The Bridge

 

Terry Jacks 1974 Hit Single Seasons In The Sun...With The B Side That Turned My Mom Beet Red

 

Chanced upon a copy of Canadian performer Terry Jacks' 1973-74 hit single Seasons In The Sun at a garage sale today. One of the biggest selling songs of all time, it sold 14 million copies worldwide.

The song is basically the English version of Belgian Jacques Brel's 1961 release Le Moribund, with re-worked lyrics written in 1963 by the American poet Rod McKuen.  

The song is an overly sentimental, sappy as hell, chunk of mellow gold. It is also considered one of the worst songs ever recorded.

Which hasn't stopped bands ranging from the Beach Boys to Nirvana from recording cover versions.

It was the very first single I ever bought. It cost .94 cents at the Kresge store in Spring Valley, which was small fortune to my little 11 ten-year old self.

But I had to have it, as that song was just the cat's pajamas to me.

Yeah, I know. But hey, tastes evolve.

That song, however, is not the topic of this dialog. The flip side of the single is.

Try to imagine what my eleven-year old brain thought when I first read the title of the B side of the single. If you imagined it was anything close to "Man, this I gotta hear," you are absolutely correct.

So I played it.

Unfortunately, my mom was within earshot.

The song lyrics are stated more than sung. The very first line is "Put the bone in...she asked him..."

I only got to play the record once, never saw it again.

You can hear it on YouTube now, and yeah, it's as horrible as the A side.

The Wings Of Cozad

    About thirteen years ago a street artist in Los Angeles, one Colette Miller, came up with the idea for the Global Angel Wings project, which was simply angel wings painted on the wall of a building that people could stand in front of and have their picture taken with, and, you know, look all angelic like. 

   Colette considered the angel wings a means for people to somewhat become angels of the earth, and soon she was painting them everywhere - as in, all over the world, from Los Angeles to Moscow to Melbourne. 

   A couple of years after she painted her first wings, a New York based muralist, Kelsey Montague, painted some angel wings on a wall in lower Manhattan, which caught the eye of Taylor Swift. Tay-Tay had her picture taken in front of those wings and then posted the pic on her Instagram account, and, well, the wings on walls dealio really took off from that point.

   And it appears the original intention of the wings on the walls has evolved a bit - they are not just a hotspot for selfies anymore, they are now used as memorials to lost loved ones, or as tributes or commemorations to people or things of significance.

   It's also now almost impossible to visit a town/city/village/census-designated place without seeing wings, angel or not, on a wall or twenty. Even in little ol' Cozad, Nebraska, I saw wings everywhere. 

   And the variety was exceptional.

 

Happy Thanksgiving Everybody!

 

Weirdness Abounds

    While driving home tonight I caught sight, out of the corner of my right eye, of what appeared to be a man walking in the opposite direction of my travel, well off the road, along what I assume was a bike path.

   He was wearing a long sleeved button down shirt and underwear, nothing else. And he was eating an ice cream cone.

   It was 28 degrees out.

   I thought to myself that I must be seeing things as that there was no way in hell a man was out walking in nothing but a long sleeved button down shirt and underwear in 28 degree weather, and certainly he would not be eating an ice cream cone.

   But I couldn't shake the image out of my head, so I decided I needed to turn around and make another pass down the road to be certain.

   The next intersection was only a few hundred feet ahead, so I flipped on my left turn signal and moved over into the left turn lane. 

   Almost to the very second I did that I saw headlights in my rearview mirror, coming up behind me extremely fast, and then the car that was behind those lights lit up the lights that were mounted on its roof - a cop was lighting me up as I was approaching the stale red light at the intersection.

   My first thought was, "What the hell, I signaled before I got into the turn lane, and I even have my turn signal still on, what am I being pulled over for?"

   As the traffic light turned green at the intersection as soon as I slowed my approach, I began to turn onto the street perpendicular to the one I was on and move over to my right to facilitate being pulled over. Then I noticed that the police car in my rear view wasn't following me, but had instead made a U-turn.

   Breathing a sigh of relief I drove slowly up the road I had turned onto.

   Approaching a red light at the next intersection I decided that I would turn the car around and head back to the road I had been driving on, but head the opposite direction (as I was planning to before the cop lit me up), to see if the police cruiser was perhaps checking out the man I saw walking along the bike path in a long sleeved shirt and underwear while eating an ice cream cone.

   So I made my way back, and when I turned onto the road I was originally on I could see the flashing red and blues of the police car about a quarter mile down the road.

   That had to be the cop pulled over to investigate the man in just a shirt and underwear walking down the road while eating an ice cream cone.

   Remember, it was 28 degrees out, so yeah, that would be worth investigating.

   Within 25 yards of where the police cruiser was pulled over I began to slow down. Drawing nearer to the scene I could see a police officer with a flashlight scanning the side of the road where I could see not a man wearing nothing but a long sleeved button down shirt and underwear while eating an ice cream cone, but a woman, in what looked like vintage 1940's lingerie, sitting at a bus stop with a bottle of wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

   All I could think was "What the hell is she doing out dressed like that on a night like this...and where is long sleeved dress shirt underwear ice cream cone man?"

   As well as, "Are they a couple?"

   Man, weirdness abounds.