lauritasita wrote on Mar 25, ’08

Yeah!!!!!! I remember all that stuff too, because you had to take me with you, hee, hee, hee!   I remember Rochelle Goldfried ! What ever happended to her ? Do you still talk to her ? She was funny ! I know her parents are gone now. I remember that dumb Skully game they used to play ’cause I saw you melting those crayons on mom’s frying pan, LOL!!!

markg1 wrote on Mar 25, ’08

Can’t go that far back in time, I was age zero in 1960.  Now 1966 that I could do.

lauritasita wrote on Mar 25, ’08

You forgot to mention cousin Brucie ! Thank God The Beatles were on their way soon, LOL!!!

belita747 wrote on Mar 25, ’08

Conveying nostalgia, yet very nice. I did like the reading and the music, too.

kwika wrote on Mar 25, ’08

Hmmmm, as the song goes “the times they are a changin”

jayaramanms wrote on Mar 25, ’08

Sailor Boy. A great poem, Sue. You have written it beautifully.Thank you for sharing.

vickieann wrote on Mar 25, ’08

I have been to NYC a few times and never loose the awe that I have for the place. Your words brought me back to when I was a small child and my father gave me a small transistor radio for my birthday. I remember it hanging on my bed post and listening to the music….ah, to go back to when life was simple.

starfishred wrote on Mar 25, ’08

super great poem wow what more can I say and music it works so well with your words-

knightstar wrote on Mar 26, ’08

My first transistor radio was a bright red one–seven or eight transistors, or whatever it had written on its case.  I came to understand that the more transistors one’s radio had, the better it was.  And, back then, the number of transistors your radio had was big bragging point.
–M

tulipsinspring wrote on Mar 26, ’08

Sue I can’t believe the way you can conjure a mental image!!!!
I love hearing your voice reading these. It adds something so special. But everything about this makes me feel as if I have just gone back in time. I came home tonight, so tired, and I visited this blog, and felt suddenly so awake. I can smell the smells of the beach where those burns happened, and actually hear the sounds coming from the transistor radio! It’s bitter winter here, but suddenly I hear the way that music carries on the air in summer, and I can smell how things smell, and feel the way the air stands still on a hot, humid night. It honestly amazes me! I have never been to the place you describe, but somehow this blog takes me there.
I’ve seen movies occasionally, which evoke that strange sensation of suddenly visiting a place from the past. But I’ve never seen a poem do it. I am not articulate enough to tell you how much I love this blog!  Thank you for adding some sunshine to my life with this wonderful blog. You are simply brilliant!
Walks off, humming “Soldier Boy.”

shankarg wrote on Mar 26, ’08

Let me honor kabir this week thanks for visiting India and being with me http://shankarg.multiply.com/journal/item/58/2008-054-Poetry-Wednesday-Kabir-I_-23-March1400hoursChennaiIndia We stood united in the holy valley of pop-tune echoes, and regarding you requiring tea i am presenting my recipe mumbai dhum chai next week if interested?

7jewel wrote on Mar 26, ’08

Susie you really manage to turn back time …fantastic work Sweet….informative and enjoyable …thank you!

philsgal7759 wrote on Mar 26, ’08

I really hope you will publish all this It is wonderful. Though i was just a baby myself I can envision myself there

millimusings wrote on Mar 26, ’08

I know all this so well Sue and even though I am Australian we shared that era and all the bouffants the beach the songs and that little tranny as we called them here.. I love your posts..brings back memories and makes for nostalgia in some ways. Hugs from Milli.

danceinsilence wrote on Mar 26, ’08

Incredible read and listen. My radio was set from 1960-1963 … days of ducktail haircuts, greased back hair, fire hydrants letting loose gushers of water for the Saturday open-pool baths, hanging out on street corners snapping fingers and do-wapping, sitting on the “stoop” kibitzing with the neighbors, little-league sandlot baseball games … this reading brought those memories back. Then the radio went from 1964-1967, all through portions of my Vietnam. Amidst the shelling, screaming, pain, the music still came back to me inbetween those years and made the mind pull back days of home. Thinking of the neighborhood, the steak shop, pool hall, the Friday night dances where you could see Del Shannon with his crossed-eyes singing, grinning. The 60’s were a time of turbulence and yet it held a passion.
Sous … thanks for the ride back.

bostonsdandd wrote on Mar 26, ’08

OMG! I have chills and tears. I’m there with you every step of the way because you paint a portrait any moron would understand. It’s beautiful and inspiring and just lovely, Sans. You ARE a joy to behold!

sweetpotatoqueen wrote on Mar 26, ’08

Sue: As always you capture my attention and I am right there with you as you listen to the radio and enjoy the joy de vivre of being young and living in the moment. After seeing the enormous complex you lived it I can see how important these times with the other kids were..making a niche for the teenagers and enjoying the life in the big city. I have memories of the radio in the 60s. Interestingly, my memories go back to Montgomery Alabama ,visiting my Granny during the summers and the constant presence of gospel music on the radio. We walked to the Dairy Queen at dusk among the lightening bugs. Great post & great time of reminiscing here today! Thank you!

sanssouciblogs wrote on Mar 26, ’08

I have been to NYC a few times and never loose the awe that I have for the place. Your words brought me back to when I was a small child and my father gave me a small transistor radio for my birthday. I remember it hanging on my bed post and listening to the music….ah, to go back to when life was simple.

Vickie, how far we have come electronically but how awesome it was then to have a radio~such simplicity!

sanssouciblogs wrote on Mar 26, ’08

My first transistor radio was a bright red one–seven or eight transistors, or whatever it had written on its case.  I came to understand that the more transistors one’s radio had, the better it was.  And, back then, the number of transistors your radio had was big bragging point.
–M

Gimme back my little red radio, you!

sanssouciblogs wrote on Mar 26, ’08

Sue I can’t believe the way you can conjure a mental image!!!!
I love hearing your voice reading these. It adds something so special. But everything about this makes me feel as if I have just gone back in time. I came home tonight, so tired, and I visited this blog, and felt suddenly so awake. I can smell the smells of the beach where those burns happened, and actually hear the sounds coming from the transistor radio! It’s bitter winter here, but suddenly I hear the way that music carries on the air in summer, and I can smell how things smell, and feel the way the air stands still on a hot, humid night. It honestly amazes me! I have never been to the place you describe, but somehow this blog takes me there.
I’ve seen movies occasionally, which evoke that strange sensation of suddenly visiting a place from the past. But I’ve never seen a poem do it. I am not articulate enough to tell you how much I love this blog!  Thank you for adding some sunshine to my life with this wonderful blog. You are simply brilliant!
Walks off, humming “Soldier Boy.”

Thanks Ms. Tulips! You always make my day!

sanssouciblogs wrote on Mar 26, ’08

Incredible read and listen. My radio was set from 1960-1963 … days of ducktail haircuts, greased back hair, fire hydrants letting loose gushers of water for the Saturday open-pool baths, hanging out on street corners snapping fingers and do-wapping, sitting on the “stoop” kibitzing with the neighbors, little-league sandlot baseball games … this reading brought those memories back. Then the radio went from 1964-1967, all through portions of my Vietnam. Amidst the shelling, screaming, pain, the music still came back to me inbetween those years and made the mind pull back days of home. Thinking of the neighborhood, the steak shop, pool hall, the Friday night dances where you could see Del Shannon with his crossed-eyes singing, grinning. The 60’s were a time of turbulence and yet it held a passion.
Sous … thanks for the ride back.

I was there, right next to ya!  the best place to hear doo-wop was in the school stairwells. Del Shannon? Loved him! In my basement I still have 3 boxes of 45’s in pristine condition.  I took orange nail polish and dripped my name all over one.  They were 69 cents, and every penny I had went into those records.  I remember the day I bought Ricky Nelson’s “Poor Little Fool” it was in the summer–like a Woolworth’s on First Avenue and about 16th Street.  Across the street I stood in a crowd when JFK rode by, his hair flaming red, before his election.

sanssouciblogs wrote on Mar 26, ’08

OMG! I have chills and tears. I’m there with you every step of the way because you paint a portrait any moron would understand. It’s beautiful and inspiring and just lovely, Sans. You ARE a joy to behold!

having work appreciated it a joy! Thanks, Lori!

sanssouciblogs wrote on Mar 26, ’08

Another related poem which you might enjoy: I just added the reading so you can just sit back and listen http://sanssouciblogs.multiply.com/journal/item/11/11._Poetry_1959

danceinsilence wrote on Mar 26, ’08

Strange now that you mention Kennedy … he came to my hometown (Chester, PA) while campaigning, and his car passed right in front of my mother and I. My father had it all on film (the old brownie windup). Kennedy reached out and shook my mother’s hand, but it was later, when the movie was developed and we watched it on the old pullup movie screen on the tin tripod, did I notice for the first time i was taller than my mother LOL. Thanks for shaking that moment in time back. It was August, 1960.
Another brief moment, but it came during the convention in November, 1955. I saw this guy talking on television, and I said to my father, “It’s the President, daddy.” He said, “No that’s some guy named Kennedy.” JFK was speaking before the delegates and was about to introduce Adlai Ewing Stevenson. Who would have known then just about how right I almost was then.

sanssouciblogs wrote on Mar 26, ’08

Strange now that you mention Kennedy … he came to my hometown (Chester, PA) while campaigning, and his car passed right in front of my mother and I. My father had it all on film (the old brownie windup). Kennedy reached out and shook my mother’s hand, but it was later, when the movie was developed and we watched it on the old pullup movie screen on the tin tripod, did I notice for the first time i was taller than my mother LOL. Thanks for shaking that moment in time back. It was August, 1960.
Another brief moment, but it came during the convention in November, 1955. I saw this guy talking on television, and I said to my father, “It’s the President, daddy.” He said, “No that’s some guy named Kennedy.” JFK was speaking before the delegates and was about to introduce Adlai Ewing Stevenson. Who would have known then just about how right I almost was then.

The great thing about interactive blogs is that we do jar each other’s memories. That was a clairvoyant comment indeed–or, like any kid would think–you see a guy in a suit on tv and he’s gotta be the prez!

opossumd wrote on Mar 26, ’08, edited on Mar 26, ’08

It was so amazing hearing your voice, Sue. You made the poem alive, your voice is so full of teenage surprise, of energy and emotion. You took me back-forty five years, you made me re-live my tenderest moments. It was magic. Also the music you have chosen awakens atmospheres that had been dormant for too long. For me exotic known names were those of Gene Pitney, Paul Anka, Neil Sedaka, the Platters, Pat Boone (oh, I could swoon listening to Speeding Gonzales…) so cool compared with home-brewed Celentano, Bobby Solo, Rita Pavone, Mina… Thank you, thank you, thank you, mwah!

sanssouciblogs wrote on Mar 26, ’08

It was so amazing hearing your voice, Sue. You made the poem alive, your voice is so full of teenage surprise, of energy and emotion. You took me back-forty five years, you made me re-live my tenderest moments. It was magic. Also the music you have chosen awakens atmospheres that had been dormant for too long. For me exotic known names were those of Gene Pitney, Paul Anka, Neil Sedaka, the Platters, Pat Boone (oh, I could swoon listening to Speeding Gonzales…) so cool compared with home-brewed Celentano, Bobby Solo, Rita Pavone, Mina… Thank you, thank you, thank you, mwah!

Gene Pitney, Paul Anka, Neil Sedaka, the Platters, Pat Boone Dani, my sis, Ahhhhh, yes!!! Glad you had fun!

suggar202 wrote on Mar 27, ’08

i am seeing this in my mind long before i was born.

astranavigo wrote on Mar 27, ’08

When the body transitions and emotions try to catch up, there is music to bridge the way.  All the way to the Viet Nam War.

Speechless….

papahere wrote on Mar 27, ’08

Sue…Enjoyed listing to your recording of a very sentimental poem….your technical skills always seem to be a step ahead of everyone else…I went to PS 19(on 14th St) which was built during the Civil war…the 19th school built in New York and looked like a fort…lived near 2nd Ave close to the Stuyvesant Church and cemetery. ~ Papa

fluffyj wrote on Mar 29, ’08

I know Blue Moon.  My mother used to play it on the organ and the three of us, mom, my sister, and I, would stand there and sing it over and over again.

asolotraveler wrote on Apr 9, ’08

where did you get this transporter?  this teleporter?  when i was young in a small town in nw ohio i listened to CKLW broadcasting from ontario canada – just across from detroit – they played SO MUCH motown it was orgasmic…. i learned to listen at night to the far away stations – yes even wabc or whatever the big voice of nyc was then… such a delight… thanks for taking me far back in time