Father’s Day on the Croude
As is the custom in Croudeland, I celebrate Mom’s Day & Dad’s Day on the show with a special CD giveaway (sonic not financial).
In addition to the June airwaves being colored by special vinyl – a special tribute to my own Dad who is no longer with us. He provided me wiith my first seedplanting-guitar-love in 1960. Tony Mottola is still a shredder in my book--no one does the Neopolitan Tarentella like he does--so that track is in honor of Dad.
Back in those days we had a hybrid stereo in the living room consisting of 2 different amps, different speakers, etc. As a kid I thought that was normal. But it slowly got into my blood. When I began acquiring my own tastes in audio equipment, its no secret where that love came from. Not that I didn’t have my own fallible opinions. I remember thinking the “cassette” format had its debut & swan song in a burst of ill conceived creativity. Funny to be a kid and a die hard reel-to-reel purist. That is, until Dad brought home a new stereo Fischer cassette deck–love at first sound. Adusting the needles separately on the VU meters–it was its exotic look and technology that won me over.
He also bought me my first guitar for Christmas that year of entering high school. I wanted to be Eric Clapton overnight. That didn’t work... the guitar was really unplayable after the first fret--the string span rivaled the 59th street bridge in NY, so I shelved it. Well... not completely. I remember taking the strings off and using them as fuses to electrically detonate firecrackers with my Lionel train transformer. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. I also did other creative stuff like using a hand crank magneto Dad gave me for a birthday present to make an electric chair out of a lawn chair. Ask my sister. I made an 8mm episode of Mission: Impossible with that and left over 4th of July colored smoke bombs. Amazing I survived into my present decade of years.
But if not for that first guitar, I may have not pursued playing when I was 28 and got the bug back. This time it bit deeply and I’ve never been the same. There’s also a circuitous route in there with tubes. My Dad could fix anything tube related. From TVs to stereos. Even my first real guitar amp wihen the filter caps blew out a year from warranty. At present my fave guitar amps are all tube. I’ve learned to treasure the nuances and differences of KT66, EL84 and 6L6 power tubes in three separate amps. And related–the best stereo receiver I ever had was from a WRFK yard sale for $15. When that blew–Dad fixed.
On this Father’s Day, I’ll remember how my Italian Dad loved pasta with minimal or no sauce--lots of black pepper. Teaching me how to make a backyard barbecue with a charcoal chimney fashioned out of large tomato juice can--years before it became hip. Only eating pepper steak–nothing else–when we visited the local Chinese eatery on holidays. The feel of his medals from WWII. How he raised a son who is an Anglophile even though he couldnt stand England (infected with malaria in Africa during the war and having the disease reach full bloom in cold, rainy Albion), picking me up at high school when his job permitted so I wouldn’t have to carry my French Horn on two city buses. You get the idea. This blog could go on forever. What I took for granted as a kid so many times is now preserved in the Halls of Memory.
Got a Dad still here? Love him. If he’s gone, its still not too late. Oddly, one of the most moving lines re: fatherhood came from a fictional scenario. When Agent Scully attended her Dad’s funeral in The X Files, she was unsure of his love given her choice of vocations. When asking her mother that painful question, her mother rightly replied, “He was your father.”
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The Electric Croude airs late Saturday at 12 midnight EDT on WCVE Public Radio. Simul streaming of show on ideastations.org/radio.
Follow the host on Facebook Geo Maida. On Twitter: wcvegeorgemaida
Follow the co-host Hermie the Wistful Cricket without promises of taking him fishing.
When I arrived in my parents' lives, my dad was already 43 years old. At first glance, he seemed very much a buttoned-down guy at a time - 1963 - when 43 was considered definitely middle-aged. He was a man of few words and went to his office at Reynolds Metals each day in a dark wool suit and tie. Imagine my astonishment, in my teens, to discover startling photos such as these (tucked into an old cigar box): my dad playing a guitar - on a stage!; standing next to the airplane he took flying lessons in; on the deck of the ship he served on in WWII in the Pacific theatre; dressed in what can best be described as a zoot suit with a snazzy fedora and argyle socks; and seated in the hopped-up 1948 Mercury he had raced on weekends in the early 1950s. Who knew my dad had a life long beore I came along?! These photos and my questions helped my dad open up, and he shared the most wonderful stories with me over the years. He passed away in 2003 at age 83, and although I had him here for 40 years, it wasn't long enough. Along the way, he taught me perserverance, the reward of hard work, how to bat and how to catch, to fish and to tend a garden, and while I am not mechanically inclined, I was always in awe of this man who could fix anything from our cars to the furnace to my bike (and everything in-between). He introduced me to Chet Atkins and Miles Davis, to Carl Sagan and Shakespeare, and I feel fortunate and honored that this intelligent, courageous and quiet man was my dad. After he was gone, my mom and I found, carefully stored in a drawer, every rock I had presented him with as a child, every tie and pair of cuff links I had given him for Father's Day over the years (and he had worn all of them, regardless of how "seventies" they were in style) and every card I had made for him. I inherited his restless, questing mind, his inability to sit still for very long (except when reading) and his hopelessly near-sighted green eyes. My husband and I see my father in our son's love of baseball, his determination and inventiveness and the set of his chin. When I was a toddler, dad comforted me during thunder storms by sleeping on the rug beside my bed. Although he has been gone for nine years now, somehow, I am certain he is still close by.
This is wonderful, Karen.
thanks so much for sharing...such visual images!
G
He was an engineer/inventor-type who also loved to build, with my fumbling assistance, toys and electronic gadgetry that became my birthday presents. Some notable examples:
7th birthday: A "UFO" detector. Hey, it was the 1960's! Alien abduction was as common as alligator attacks in the Florida of my youth.
9th birthday: A belated birthday present became a Casper the Ghost Halloween costume to which my father added flashing lights and spooky sound effects.
14th birthday: A pair of stilts that I quickly abandoned due to my lack of coordination. Certain that the balance gene had skipped a generation, my dad showed off his powers of balance by falling spectacularly into our Florida room, ripping screens and breaking several terracotta planters.
16th birthday - The Heathkit television set that took 4 months and endless soldering iron burns (mine) to finish.
In addition, my father always subscribed to National Geographic which he used as a teaching tool when I was very young. I would look at the photos with him and shout "I'm goin' there someday! - do you believe me?" Dad's answer was always the same - "Yes, of course you'll go there!" 7 continents and 51 countries later, I know my father gave me a powerful wanderlust; the best gift he ever gave me.
RIP Roy Matthew Coleman, Jr. 1931 - 2001
what an incredible collection of memories, Angel !
my dad was a big fan of national geographic, too. that heathkit story rang a bell....when i was about that age, my dad helped me build a color organ--you tapped off stereo speaker leads and it divided the audio spectrum into low, mid, high...i used red floods for low, blue for mid and yellow for high. my own bedroom light show.
thanks so much for sharing this!
Well said George. I had a father who went to buy me a trumpet and came home with a Wurlitzer organ, starting me on a path that has given me a lifetime of musical enjoyment. Rock on.
thanks so much Pat! nothing finer than Music. can't imagine life without.
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