Music, Stuffed Animals, and Writing- Part 1

I used to enjoy writing poems and short stories when I was younger. They weren’t that good but it was fun. A few of the stories have my stuffed animal friends and famous people like Frank Perdue and Chef Martin Yan as characters.

   Poochie Weiner (bear), Seamore Otter, and Cinnamon Koala were the ones that were always in them. I still have them and some others in a storage tote. I wish that I had kept most of these.

   Those 3 animals also had their own radio station- WPW; I had such a weird imagination and still sort of do.

   I didn’t have that many records but I used them, a couple of my Dad’s classical music tapes and some 8 tracks for that. We had this big stereo- I can see it in my head but just can’t describe it well- AM-FM, record, and 8 track players.

    I remember every 8 track that we had- The Village People, Engelbert Humperdinck (Grandma next door said that he’s good looking and she saw him in concert), Shenandoah and Oklahoma soundtracks, K-tel- Soundwaves (from Cindy), Doris Day’s Greatest Hits, Dolly Parton- Heartbreaker, one with CB related songs (from Ed), 2 Christmas Compilations and John Denver and the Muppets Christmas.

    Dad put an 8 track player in our Chevy Malibu wagon. I remember that time when we were pulling out of the Bradlees parking lot in the early 80s and the back door opened and I nearly fell out of the car. This was such a scary experience which naturally is so vivid in my mind. Why can’t the good times be this way too?

    I only had about ten 45s in the 1980s- “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me”, ” Hungry Like the Wolf”, “Gloria”,” Mickey”,” Down Under”, “Shadows of the Night”,” Africa”,” Goody Two Shoes”, ” On The Wings of Love”,  and ” True”.

   I got some other 45s in the early 90s at flea markets. I eventually got rid of many of them and my other records. I’m glad that I kept most of the DD stuff; the” Rio” and” HLTW” 45s got damaged by the heat when I was trying to sell them at flea markets.

 

 

                                                                  

                                                            Our 1976 Chevy Malibu

A Mid-70's memory

This is one of my earliest memories from the 70's. Our Chevy got crashed into and hit a telephone poll in front of our Aunt Helen's house. My brother and I were outside playing when it happened. Our parents made us go inside. I didn't have time to get my toys. I was pretty upset about that and the car. A guy was coming out of a nearby bar and the driver wasn't able to avoid hitting him and he died.

We got a new car a few weeks later. A Chevy Malibu wagon. I was hoping that Dad would get the one that had the window that you could roll down in the hatchback like a friend of the family had but he didn't. I did like our station wagon though- good memories of vacation drives in it.

The picture above the car crash one is of our basement and my stuffed animal friends.

8- Tracks

I was thinking about the 8-Tracks that my family and I used to have. We didn't have that many, maybe 10. Doris Day's Greatest Hits, The Village People, Dolly Parton's Heartbreaker, Englebert Humperdinck, Shenandoha, Oklahoma, and a goofy one with CB related songs on it. There were also 2 Christmas music mix ones- I liked Nat King Cole's Mrs Santa Claus on the one. My friend got me a K-Tel Soundwaves with hits from 1980 on it. I had a couple of K-Tel records too.

My father put an 8-Track player in our 1976 Chevy Malibu station wagon. We thought it was so cool to have this in our car at the time. Our family friends also had one in their car. I remember listening to Billy Joel in their car once and also on the stereo in their home. We had a big stereo that played records and 8-tracks.

I see 8-tracks at flea markets sometimes and laugh a little inside. Am I having a false memory or was there a clicking sound right during the middle of some of the songs and it switched over to the next section? I keep meaning to look up on the internet when 8-tracks first came out and when they offically died. Same with cassette tapes. I still have plenty of those but no 8-tracks, didn't even keep those for nostalgic purposes.