Hi, my Darling,
I am writing from home, off work until next Friday. Been relaxing this evening and I watched a movie called "The Big Short", which was really good, about the economic collapse of a few years ago. I hope you had a nice day and a good show this evening. I know you got a lot of good shots and will look forward to seeing them as always.
I don't have a lot to report, just still absorbing the energy and feelings from the concert last night. So much has happened in addition this year, with losing so many musicians and others, that it takes a while to process it all. Sometimes a concert is bigger even than the performer or the music, just because of the times of life it happens in, and sometimes such a concert can transform the time in which it occurs. Such was last night's show.
In lieu of writing about guitar solos tonight, I will offer a short anecdote (or semi-short because you know I tend to ramble on, haha) about a day trip I took in the Summer of 1966, with Dad and Uncle Earl, to Laguna Beach, which is down in Orange County, about 75 miles south of the Valley. Laguna is a very picturesque and well-known beach in Southern California.
My family was down there because we were actually staying at a beach house owned by a friend of Dad's named Phil Singer, who was also in the film business, and had once written a "jingle" for Pepsodent toothpaste that made him enough money to buy a house in Beverly Hills. That's showbiz : one hit and you're all set. Or sort of; "Uncle" Phil (another of my unrelated Uncles) used to call himself "The Poorest Man On Roxbury Drive", which is in BH, and full of very wealthy people. What Uncle Phil really did was to sell film. He worked at the time for Agfa Gevaert and bought back "short ends" (excess camera film) from the studios to resell for other uses. It was Uncle Phil who got Dad his job at MGM after Dad lost his job at Deluxe, so indirectly, Uncle Phil was somewhat responsible for me getting my job at Metrocolor many years later, when Dad got me in.
But now I am rambling, so I will curtail it. :)
In 1966, in the Summer, my family was staying at Uncle Phil's beach house in Laguna Beach. I have a memory, among others, of playing my sister Vickie's Beatles album, "Help", over and over on whatever record player was available. I loved that record and it became one of my favorites by The Beatles.
We stayed at the beach house for about two weeks, and it was just the greatest place, except for one thing.
The backyard had a gorgeous, full flower garden. And it was absolutely full of bees. Like, everywhere.
That was when I really became afraid of bees, though I think I was born with the tendency. I loved being at the beach house, but every time I went into the back yard, I was terrified. There was that sound.
Of buzzing......
Well at any rate, six year old me learned to avoid the backyard flower garden.
One day, we had a visitor. Uncle Earl Hamner came down to Laguna Beach to take Dad and I fishing, which was a favorite pastime of his. I had fished a time or two at the Reseda Park pond, and I don't think fishing was Dad's thing, per se, but we went.
That trip, to go fishing at a cove near Laguna Beach has left with me a memory and lasting impression for all my life. Because I had been at the beach house with all it's bees, and worse! - Bumblebees! (they are louder and clumsier and go "Bumble, Bumble, Bumble" like bombers...).
And now, at the cove Uncle Earl chose for us to fish at, it was even worse. In addition to being overrun with bees, there were also hornets everywhere. Yellowjackets! The scariest stinging, flying insects known to man, and also to six year olds who are terrified of them...
I was scared out of my wits, and didn't wanna fish. There were bees and hornets everywhere, flying in your face and all around.
Uncle Earl and Dad tried the old, "if you don't bother them, they won't bother you" routine, but I wasn't having any of it. I don't remember exactly what I said, but I made some excuse to go back to the car, which was parked a fair distance away.
My lasting memory is of being inside the car, with the windows all rolled up, on a hot Summer day. I don't know how long I had been in there, but probably only a few minutes. I wasn't suffocating or anything, though it was very hot. Better the heat than those awful bees, though... (and hornets!).
Those awful bees.....and hornets!.....and the way they flew all around and the noise they made.
All of a sudden, someone was rushing up to the car and opening it. Opening the door.
It was Uncle Earl. He was upset.
"Why, Adam"!, he exclaimed. "What on earth are you doing sitting in here"?
I will always remember Uncle Earl's voice. He was from West Virginia and had an accent, but it also sounded like an English accent. It had that tinge to it.
"Adam, you can't sit in here with the windows all rolled up"!
And I had thought I had it all figured out; a solution to The Bee Problem.
He got me out of the car and we went back to where Dad was, at the fishing spot. Dad brushed it off to "boys will be boys", and he was right. It wasn't a big deal. But I was still terrified of bees. Even more so now. That incident at Laguna Beach solidified my fear for years to come.
We didn't see Uncle Earl a whole lot in the later 1960s and into the 1970s, because that's when he hit big with "The Waltons". And we had a lot of family problems in those years, after Dad lost his job.
But Earl was a lifelong friend to my parents, and some years later we did see him, perhaps when I was about 12 or so.
He asked me if I was still afraid of bees. I said yes, because I was. The 1966 incident was memorable for both of us.
I became Facebook friends with Uncle Earl about four or five years ago, and when I did, he sent me an IM. He wanted to know if I would like to have lunch one day. Not having seen him but once or twice for close to 40 years, I just said, "that would be nice" but didn't pursue it, because I am a shy person and also because Earl was in his late 80s then, and I thought maybe he was just being nice by inviting me. Really, he was friends with my parents from their radio days. I only saw him mostly when I was a child.
But it was nice that he asked. He was that kind of man.
If we'd actually had lunch at his invitation, I would have hoped he would have asked me a question:
"So Adam, are you still scared of bees"?
And if he had asked me, I could have told him......"no"!
No, I am not scared of bees any more. Yippee! It's awesome not to be scared of bees! I mean, just so long as I am not near a hive. everything is cool.I am not scared of wasps, either. Yellowjackets are another, thing., however -I think everybody is scared of them. Even Grizzly Bears and Sharks are scared of Yellowjackets.....
But I would have liked to tell Uncle Earl that his advice, and Dad's, had perhaps sunk in after all those years.
"Don't bother them and they won't bother you".
Slowly but surely, it has worked! And I am not scared of bees anymore, haven't been for maybe 15 years now. I can be trimming rose bushes at Pearl's, bees buzzing here and there, no problem.
I can even walk through Placerita Canyon, where millions of bees must live, and where you can even here "that Sound" (that horrible sound) in the distance as you walk along. But as long as it remains in the distance, I am okay. Not scared of bees anymore, in general.
So that's a lasting memory I have of Uncle Earl Hamner, from that day of fishing at Laguna Beach in the Summer of 1966.
Some days, and some memories, you never forget. And certain people are with you For Life.
Thanks, Uncle Earl. //////
And thanks for reading, Sweet Baby. I Love You and will see you in the morning.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..........!!
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