Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Holidays for Tomorrow

I am not really thrilled with the holidays for tomorrow so therefore I may go back and celebrate Barbie-in-a-Blender again. Tomorrow, Aug 12th is IBM PC Day. Now, as a family that has all Apple computers, and having a son that works at Apple, I can tell you right now that we will not be celebrating this one.
It will also be International Youth Day, which to me is a little bit of an oxymoron. When my kids were growing up, it seemed like every day was their day. Has that changed? Anyway, this holiday was developed by the United Nations and this year's theme is communication among youth of different cultures. Now I get it. That sounds good. Communication leads to understanding which leads to tolerance.
Next is Sewing Machine Day. This also will not be celebrated at our house. Although I wish I could sew (my sister is a whiz at sewing) I was not blessed with the sewing gene. I can't even sew a button on. I get threads all over the outside of the button and it looks terrible. The sewer in my home is my husband George. So I hand over my mending projects to him. And ironing projects. I don't iron either. For that matter, I don't cook. He does all the cooking. What is it that I do? I'll get back to you on that in a future blog.
The final holiday, which just fills me with nostalgia, is Vinyl Record Day. I remember fondly my collection of 45s and 33 albums. The 45s had a bright yellow adapter that fit in the middle so that you could put the record on the turntable. Scratchy sound, it was great. The 45s always had a hit on one side and an unknown song on the back. One of the 45s I owned had a song called "Parkin' Meter" on the back. The lyrics consisted of

"Parkin' meter
Parkin' meter
Put a penny in the parkin' meter."
I believe that was about it for the lyrics, along with some sound effects to sound like coins dropping.
I also owned an "Asian" record recorded by Hari Kari and His Six Saki Sippers. Why I bought it I don't know but I did have many hours of hilarious fun listening to the two songs, sung with authentic "Asian" accents: "Yes, Sir, That's My Baby", and "Yokohama Mama" (Twas in Yokohama, I met this hot mama. She served radishes, octopus, rice and fried squid)
Not sure about those lyrics. They were a little unclear.
Then there was "Sandy Went Away." Another lyric sensation.
"Sandy went away
Oh how I miss her.
Sandy went away
I long to kiss her.
Maybe some day I pray
She'll come back to me to stay, to stay,
Wo wo wo wo wo..."
This one was a special favorite of my sister's.

We lost something when we gave up our vinyl records. You haven't lived till you have put a record on the spindle and watched it drop down, with the needle arm moving over to play it. Talk about technology!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the trip down memory lane. Those 45s were great. Today's kids have no idea. And those tiny transitor radios that only picked up AM stations within 5 miles of your house.
Sharon

jkraus8464 said...

Those radios! I forgot about them. We thought they were the best. We liked taking the 45s and speeding them up so that they sounded like Alvin and the Chipmunks.