Month: March 2022

“Don’t just chase your dreams, catch them.” — Annette White, travel writer, author, serial adventurer, and creator of the travel blog, “Bucket List Journey.”

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Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman’s hilarious movie by the same name aside, I’m not fond of the term ‘bucket list.’ My list is more about chasing dreams and making memories. I call it my someday list.

I’ve been blessed. I am thankful to have seen, done, and accomplished many things I never dreamed of experiencing. And what is life without dreams? To be sure, dreams remain on my list waiting to be checked off … someday.

That is probably why I was super excited about a someday list “double play” last Friday.

Hard to imagine, but I had never laid eyes on Shreveport’s Municipal Auditorium before last Friday night. The historical contributions to music by the Art Deco venue near downtown Shreveport has earned it a spot on the National Register of Historic Places and designation as a National Historic Landmark. Dreaming of seeing it lingered on my list for years. Mostly because it was the home of Frank Page’s KWKH Louisiana Hayride radio show that helped launch the careers of many aspiring singers. In addition to Elvis Presley, other regular performers who jump-started their notoriety there include Hank Williams, Slim Whitman, Jim Reeves, Johnny Cash, and Johnny Horton.

Not that many years after Elvis sang “That’s All Right Mama” on the “stage of stars” in the mid-50s, I was in junior high school and enjoying a variety of music including what has become known as contemporary folk music. The genre was peaking by 1960 with songs and artists like “This Land Is Your Land” by Woody Guthrie, “We’ll Sing in the Sunshine” by Gale Garnett, “Tom Dooley” by The Kingston Trio, and “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” by Bob Dylan.

Much of Bob Dylan’s most celebrated songs in the 1960s followed the beginnings of social unrest and storytelling that became anthems for the civil rights and anti-war movements. But it was his base in American folk music that spoke to me at the time. Songs like “Blowin’ In The Wind,” “Highway 61 Revisited,” and “It Ain’t Me Babe” still live in my record collection and in my memories.

That love for music at an early age planted dreams of experiencing in-person, people places and things that have shaped American music: dreams that became my someday list.

I’ve checked a few off the list over the years. Once, sitting at B.B. King’s feet when I could have literally reached up and touched his shoes. Two hours of the legendary blues master playing his guitar he called “Lucille” and singing songs like, “The Thrill is Gone.”

Or the time I stood at the edge of another stage, this time with a camera in hand and press credentials around my neck to watch Ricky Nelson perform songs like “Hello Mary Lou.” Memories of watching Chuck Berry do his signature “duck walk” across the stage while playing and singing “Johnny B. Goode.” The afternoon spent sitting and talking one-on-one to 50s and 60s crooner Fabian and Paul Revere of “Paul Revere and the Raiders” about their influence on American music.

All heady stuff for a lifetime music lover.

Last weekend, watching one of the biggest influences on American music take the same stage on which Elvis Presley and many others started was no less exhilarating.

At 80, Bob Dylan’s movement about the stage appeared frail as he was aided by those around him. But his performance, voice, and timeless music were as inspiring as they were 60 years ago.

Six decades of music and more than 125 million records (making him one of the best-selling musicians of all time) has earned Dylan the Presidential Medal of Freedom, ten Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and an Academy Award. He has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2008, the Pulitzer Prize Board awarded him a special citation for “his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power.” And in 2016, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”

Seeing Bob Dylan in person and feeling the magic of Shreveport’s Municipal Auditorium are two dreams I’ve chased for too many years. The stars aligned with an approaching equinox sun and moon when I caught them both in one night.

—Leon Aldridge

(Photo at top of the page: Shreveport’s Municipal Auditorium where Elvis Presley and many others launched a career in music in the 1950s, and where Bob Dylan added to a six-decade long career in music March 18, 2022. Photo by the author.)

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Aldridge columns are published in these Texas newspapers: The Center Light and Champion, the Mount Pleasant Tribune,  the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, and the Alpine Avalanche.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2022. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

“Do you know the meanings of these old sayings.”

— Question posed on a website that researches the origins of old sayings.

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“You should have seen him,” I heard someone say last week. “He was puttin’ on the dog Saturday night.”

Time-worn old sayings often convey precise meaning better than the best of scholarly English. So that expression needed no further explanation for me to understand. The speaker implied that someone was making a display of wealth or importance, typically showing off by dressing stylishly or flashily. I knew that because it was a favorite old saying for my grandmother.

I also knew what it meant because … let’s just say, I may or may not have been guilty of puttin’ on the dog myself once or twice.

Internet sources point to European aristocracy as the origin of the saying, during a time when people kept expensive pedigree dogs simply for show. Hence, putting on the dog meant they were seen on the street recently with a fancier pup than the mutt with which they had previously been spotted.

An appreciation for meaningful but short, down-to-earth remarks was cultivated over the years by good friends and trusted associates with names like Brogoitti and Chionsini. Part of the Italian heritage seems to be a penchant for penning some of the best of this witty wisdom. Jim Chionsini capitalized on it combining it with his insight into life to come up with what he termed “Old Italian Sayings.” Some actually had their roots in Italian philosophy and some, Jim “Italian-ized” to effectively get his point across.

One old Italian saying was, “Keep good company, and you will be of their number.” The point was that successful people aren’t born that way; they become successful by associating with successful people and doing things successful people do. That saying came into play the night a few years ago when I must confess to a good time puttin’ on the dog with successful friends over in Shreveport.

The setting was a performance of the Shreveport Symphony with Henry Mancini. A fan of Mancini’s music since high school and college days, the opportunity to see in person, the composer and pianist often cited as one of the greatest composers in the history of film, winner of four Academy Awards, a Golden Globe, and twenty Grammy Awards was something I did not want to miss. After all, I once played on stage with “Doc” Severinsen from The Tonight Show. But that’s another dog story for another time.

Getting out the hometown newspaper every week is a labor of love and money: lots of love and not that much money. Therefore, the opportunity to put on the dog for one night rather than just putting him out for the night sounded like fun.

The fun got even better when my successful Shreveport friend called on his successful friend who owned a limousine company to provide our transportation. The fun factor was bumped up a notch the night of the concert when the limo company owner friend called to report that his “regular” limos were all booked for the night, and he was having to send the only one he had left: a Rolls Royce limo. If his statement was meant to imply the Rolls was an inconvenience for us, it was one to which we quickly adapted.

A light drizzle was falling when we arrived about 30 minutes before curtain time. While elegantly dressed patrons hurried to get out of the wet weather, our uniformed chauffeur parked at “VIP only.” A roped-off, covered, red carpet there led to a separate door out of the rain. The chauffeur whispered something to the doorman at that door, and we were escorted to front row seating near the stage.

Mancini and the Shreveport Symphony delighted with everything from “Chariots of Fire” to “The Pink Panther Theme” plus hit 60s tunes from “Moon River” to “The Stripper” to “Peter Gunn.” The evening brought to mind another old Italian saying, “Life should be like precious metal, weigh much in little bulk.”

I hated to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I had to ask later. “What did you whisper to the doorman to get us those seats?”

“Nothing really,” the chauffeur said, leaning to talk over his shoulder from the front seat. “I may have mentioned something about you possibly being related to the Mancini family and to take good care of you.” Then he added with a smile in his voice. “The doorman is on old friend of mine. It’s who you know that’s most important, not what you know.”

‘Who we knew’ that night was fun. And, it led to a night of doggone good fun … being seen out with a pretty fancy pup.

“Teaching kids to count is fine but teaching them what counts is best.”

— Bob Talbert (1936-1999), sportswriter, editor, and columnist at The State newspaper in Columbia, S.C.

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“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

At my day job as editor and publisher of the Center, Texas, Light and Champion newspaper, we posed that quintessential question to Shelby County first graders a couple of weeks ago. The results were published in this week’s edition. It’s our annual peek into the minds of those who will someday shape our future.

Asking a child what they want to be when they grow up is a question typically posed by those who have already achieved some degree of success with their answer. However, my son, Lee, played the game with me some years ago when he asked what I wanted to be when I grow up.

Trying to recall what I dreamed of being at his age caused me to wish I had been one to keep a diary on those kinds of thoughts. However, writing a column off-and-on for almost 40 years has been a similar exercise.

As we prepared to publish the comments of 2022’s first graders, it reminded me of that conversation with my son when he was about 12 and a column I wrote about it.

“Dad,” Lee asked with a smile, “What do you want to be when you grow up.”

“To tell the truth,” I responded, “I don’t plan to grow up if I can help it. What do you want to be?”

“I don’t know,” he smiled with a shoulder shrug, making me realize it was a question he had been asking himself. And honestly, “I don’t know,” is sometimes the best I can do for myself, even today. Forty, 50, then 60 sailed by faster than Superman’s speeding bullet—a sobering occurrence for one who vowed long ago never to grow up.

Best I can remember, it was a cowboy or a fireman and everything in between. I often daydreamed of flying airplanes. Other times about driving trucks. But every summer afternoon, when the ice cream truck turned onto Redbud Street in Mount Pleasant, I knew what I wanted to do. Visions of driving that ice cream truck captivated any and all aspirations I had about the future.

My high school buddy, Doug Davidson, got that gig once in the early 60s. Even as a teenager, I enviously watched him bring joy to the neighborhood kids in the form of fudge bars, Dixie cups, push ups, and Dreamsicles.

Capitalizing on the conversation with my son as an opportunity to offer direction on things in life that really count, I began to ramble about what I wanted to be when I grew up—if I ever did. Which I haven’t.

Nonetheless, I offered some advice that I hoped he would take to heart as he grew up—which he has. He is now 42.

“Whatever I wanted to be,” I began, “I hope I’ve grown up to become someone who is not pretentious: trying to be anything other than who I am. I also hope I’ve grown up to be someone who says good things about people when they deserve it. In other words, being myself and being an encourager for others.”

Noticing that I still had his attention, I slipped in another more. “I’ve tried to grow up laughing at myself as needed. Oh, most importantly, trusting God to run His universe instead trying to do it myself. Have to admit, though, that one has been difficult”.

Guessing I had by then exceeded the attention span if a 12-year-old for topics of such a serious nature, I decided to wrap it up while I was presumably still ahead.

“And hopefully, I’ve grown up devoting as much time to keeping my body and mind as healthy as I have my cars.” 

“Or, your dog,” Lee interjected wryly.

“You’re right,” I admitted. “I hope I’ve grown up enjoying life as much as Ol’ Max does. Dogs have no pretensions.” I ended my thoughts there and sat back, waiting for a response. Seconds seemed like an eternity before he said anything.

“Is that all, Dad.”

“Well, no …” I hesitated in reflection. “Just to keep everything in perspective, there will always be those days when your biggest dream is still just to drive the ice cream truck.”

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are published in these Texas newspapers: The Center Light and Champion, the Mount Pleasant Tribune,  the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, and the Alpine Avalanche.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2022. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

“Friendship is like an old guitar. The music may stop now and then, but the melody in the strings will last forever.”

—Source unknown, but it sounds like something Tom Lund would say.

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We’ve all said it at one time or another. “Isn’t it funny how one thing leads to another?”

Simple things like the cost of television dish, cable, this box, or that stick endlessly going up while the quality of programming with any of the above keeps going the opposite direction. Acting on that angst a few weeks ago, I declared myself done with it all. I dissed the dish. Cut the cable. And it’s been the first step toward better health. My blood pressure went down 10 points without television, and my outlook on life went up ten smiles a day.

Reinvesting wasted TV time in pleasures I once enjoyed, like music, led to remembering the uncanny connection between songs and old friends. Friends like Tom Lund.

I met the tall, broad-shouldered, cowboy-type musician with a contradicting Mid-Western accent while living in the Texas Hill Country. The newspaper I published did business with the advertising agency his wife, Tenlee, owned, and I forged a friendship with Tom through my fondness of Boerne’s live music venues.

Boerne was a musician’s community in the 90s. With a couple dozen restaurants and gathering places offering live music on just about any night of the week, it was also a music lovers’ community. I suspect it still is, but it’s been way too long since I’ve been there to confirm.

It was also a mixture of three differing cultures. Descendants of the city’s German settlers and bedroom community dwellers who worked in San Antonio were joined by a growing influx of newcomers. These were people moving there because they liked the small-town Hill Country way of life and the booming economy.

I never heard Tom and Tenlee say what brought them to Boerne, but a safe bet is that last category.

Tom Lund always had a smile on his face and a song to share. Most were his own, typically ballads about twists and turns in life. The kind of feelings set to music that offer a glimpse into the soul of a singer-songwriter.

His voice was as unique and as instantly recognizable as Willie Nelson’s. He didn’t sound like Willie, mind you. But just as the “Red-Headed Stranger’s” voice is recognized on the first note, you also knew Tom Lund was singing before you saw him.

Equally as unique as his voice was the story of his “right place and right time” career. Tom was a leading sales rep for a laparoscopic surgery tool company on the forefront of the device’s popularization in the 1980s. Having sold as many or more of them than anyone else in the country unknowingly put him in the position for a second career: a sought-after expert witness in medical malpractice lawsuits.

Tom’s “never met a stranger” personality led to our friendship. Listening to his songs with a sometimes cynical and often humorous perspective on lost love and the ups and downs of life’s relationships in Hill Country hangouts led to a new dimension of understanding in my music appreciation.

Going through my “vast store of music artifacts” (aka unidentified boxes of stuff in my closet) a few years ago, I ran across a cassette tape of his songs. It was a collection entitled “Lost in the Hills.” Tom performed with a friend whose name sadly became lost in the hills of time in my mind years ago. I remember only that he worked for the local vet, Dr. Lee Carriker. Tom and his veterinarian assistant partner performed together, calling themselves “Back Roads.”

Delighted with my discovery, I jotted the lyrics for a couple of my favorites, “Different Parts of Life” and “The Two Best Friends I Ever Had,” into my iPad and then spent a few minutes working out the chords. On occasion, I’ll strum old guitar strings and sing through one of them, letting the music take me down Texas Hill Country back roads 25 years ago.

I haven’t talked to Tom since I left Boerne in the late 1990s. He and Tenlee left after I did, and no one seems to recall which road out of town they took.

It’s nice, though, when one thing leads to another. Especially when a recovering television addict is led to remembering the melody of a friendship through the strings of an old guitar.

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are published in these Texas newspapers: The Center Light and Champion, the Mount Pleasant Tribune,  the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, and the Alpine Avalanche.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2022. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.