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Joined:
December 2004
Posts: 2150
Location: Orlando, FL | Back in the mid 80's when My oldest kids were probably 4 and 5 years old or so, Orlando actually had a couple annual Jazz festivals. We always went to the free ones. I clearly remember sitting in the sun in the grass listening to David Benoit play Linus and Lucy while my kids danced. Another fun memory was switching off which kid was on my shoulders while we watched BB King perform. Good stuff. I'll have to ask my kids if they remember that.
Another fun one - my kids always sang "five Little Monkeys" So I worked up an upbeat bluesy version that we sang all the time. The kids would shout out the "no more monkeys jumping on the bed" part and we'd all laugh. I know they remember that. My other selections of kids songs probably weren't as appropriate. They included Walking the Dog (Rufus Thomas) and Dixie Chicken (Little Feat). Oh well, it was fun. Now I'm starting back in with the grand kids. |
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Joined:
January 2006
Posts: 5881
Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | Not to take anything away from those of you with wonderful stories of your parents, but my favorite memories are more typically things that went on behind my parents' back, like the time I ruined the paint on my girlfriend's parents' car due to lack of knowledge concerning how to properly install snow chains. They were vacationing out of state so I had the entire car repainted. When they remarked how good it looked upon their return, I said it was a new space-age wax we had applied as a surprise. Or the time when we repainted the walls in the hallway of our parents' house because some guy at a party we were directed not to have heaved his slow gin fizz all over the place. There's a bunch more. |
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Joined:
March 2007
Posts: 843
Location: CA | In 1967 or thereabouts, my buddy Steve and I wanted to see the Doors at the Shrine Auditorium in L.A. Being only 16 at the time, my parents didn't want me driving into L.A. with our car, especially to see a drug-crazed rock band. But Steve's dad let him drive their car, a prized and beautiful '56 Chevy. On the way there, the offramp traffic backed up onto the freeway every time the light at the bottom turned red, and we were tail-ended by a drunk guy — a large, black, drunk guy — in a Firebird. We spent a good half hour arguing with this guy about whose fault it was (his, obviously), but the cops were mostly busy with another tail-ender a few cars behind us where someone had gone through the windshield of a VW bus (this was pre-seatbelts). Anyway, a really long story short, the car wouldn't start, so we pushed it, got it rolling down the offramp and coasted into a gas station only to find out the distributor had snapped off from the impact. Incredibly (even to this day, somehow miraculous), the guy HAD a distributor for this motor on the shelf. We left the car with him, walked/ran to the Shrine, enjoyed the whole show by the Lizard King, down to people setting small fires in the aisles during 'Light My Fire' and then hitched back to the gas station at like 9 or 10 at night. Paid for the repairs and drove the car home. Although it still ran badly, it made it. You could see Steve's Dad was simultaneously really upset that his beloved car had been essentially demolished in the back (trunk and rear fenders were crunched), but happy that we were okay and even proud that we had handled the situation on our own (this was also before cellphones, and Steve thought that if he'd called from a pay phone, his Dad would have made us come right home and miss the concert). Anyway, I thought it was really cool of his Dad to do that. He eventually traded the car in on something else and the dealer gave him exactly $20. |
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Joined:
January 2006
Posts: 5881
Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | Great story, Oddball. We're the same age and from the same area. Four years earlier, I performed in the Shrine Auditorium myself. Worst dungeon dressing rooms in the entire L.A. area. They had to have been upgraded since then. |
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Joined:
January 2006
Posts: 1487
Location: Michigan | My story was when I was 12 I was playing in a band using A $20.00 Japanese guitar that would make my fingers bleed after an hour or so.I was in the band at school taking up percussion .I had a shitty little rubber drum pad that was suppossed to keep you occupied while practicing that I hated.You cant practice rocK & Roll drums on something that doesnt make noise, so I asked my folks to please buy me a drum set so I could make it big playing music.
We didnt have very much money but on Christmas morning my dad told me to go out to garage and look in the stationwagen and get my Christmas gift.I knew that this was it and I ran out to the car and brought in a used 5 peice drum set in poor condition.
A bass drum an attached tom an attached cymbal to the bass, a snare drum and a high hat all in poor condition.I set everything up and looked at my dad and said this drum set is a peice of shit,Id be embarrassed to let anyone see me playing it.
I know ,I know I am still thinking what an assanine thing I did .I ripped the heart out of my dad on that one and to this day I think what in the world was I thinking.Remember kids can be cruel sometimes and I was then.
My mother came into my bedroom that night and told me how badly that I had hurt my Father by doing what I did.She went on to tell me that my dad was making $5.00 a week payments to a pawn shop for the last 6 months to buy that for me.
I think that I will burn in Hell for being such an ASSH*@%E to him.
I am now at the point of having to make the decision of putting my 89 year old parents into an assisted living quarters .Not a position I want to in.Mom has Altzhiemers Dementia and mentally going down fast and because of it my Dad is physicly and mentally going down real fast.
Sorry for getting to long winded on this but this OFC is theropy for me. GWB |
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Joined:
March 2007
Posts: 843
Location: CA | Wow, this thread has really got me reaching for the Kleenex. So one more, from a parent point of view:
I can't believe the prices they charge for concerts anymore. I'm pretty sure I remember that the aforementioned Doors concert was $10 per ticket. Now tickets for big name bands are in the hundreds of dollars, thus my own kids hardly ever attend concerts. But for our daughter's 18th birthday, we sent her and a girlfriend to Las Vegas, put them up for a couple of nights at a nice hotel and bought good tickets for them to see Bon Jovi. I was at work when the phone rang and when I answered all I could hear was music pounding in the background and two girls screaming at the tops of their lungs. Years later, she still says it was the best birthday present ever. |
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Joined:
March 2002
Posts: 15682
Location: SoCal | In the late 70's I took my grandmother to see the Lawrence Welk show being taped. We even got her copy of his latest book signed. This was after taking her to dinner at Bob's Bigboy.
And surprisingly, we both had a great time..... |
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Joined:
September 2003
Posts: 9301
Location: south east Michigan | Ahh wunerful, ah wunerful! |
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Joined:
October 2005
Posts: 5332
Location: Bluffton, SC | "And surprisingly, we both had a great time....."
Who's surprised...? :D |
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A music related memory
