Musical Milestone

“Although my staunchly Irish Catholic family considered it a mortal sin, that day I wasn’t paying attention to the rioting in Northern Ireland’s Derry.

 

Seated at the living room table, which was cluttered with artifacts of all the vices of our day, I was consumed with my Gretsch guitar, practicing with friends.

 

 

“Just think!” Bernie reminded us. “Everybody from Hendrix and Jefferson Airplane to Joan Baez and Janis Joplin will be there this weekend!”

 

 

“Feh!” Helen bragged. “We can be just as good. After all, we have been practicing constantly for the past three full months together!

 

 

It’s time yet again for Rochelle’s weekly Friday Fictioneers.  This week, Yvette Prior supplies our photo prompt.  Please read Rochelle’s blog for all the details.

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10500 Cielo Drive

It was  August, 1969.  Jason, Bernie, and Helen were on summer vacation from Walt Whitman High School. Slightly over a year ago was the second Kennedy assassination, and they were losing lots of friends in Southeast Asia.

 

 

Eagerly awaiting the imminent release of the Beatles’ ‘Abbey Road’ album, they were listening to the white album, and hoping to go to Woodstock in a week.

 

As they were enjoying songs like ‘Blackbird’ and ‘Helter Skelter’, a sudden knock came on the door.   Pam and Larry, stunned, asked: “Have you heard what’s happened to Sharon Tate and her friends?”

 

 

This summer saw the fiftieth~milestone~anniversary of the R.F.K. assassination, and tomorrow is the forty ninth anniversary of the Manson family’s murder of Sharon Tate, Leno and Rosemary La Bianca, and their friends.  Please join us for our weekly jaunt through Rochelle’s  Friday Fictioneers.  This week, Ronda Del Boccio

supplies the photo prompt.

The Willoughby Moment

Last night, as I often do, I took a ride on New York’s subways and the L.I.R.R.  I was confronted by the usual cast of characters~the bad musician, the disgruntled black radical on his soap box, and the young woman who routinely loses control of her bodily functions in one of the cars.

 

 

“Just once,” I told the conductor, “I’d really like to see a halcyon scene like that inside these cars.”

 

 

 

 

“Sir,” he explained.  “That’s a Willoughby moment.  We pass by here daily so each passenger can enjoy a respite from all the inevitable insanity.”

 

 

Welcome back, yet again, to Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers. Read all about it, please, at her site.  This week, Sandra Crook supplies the photograph.

PROJECT SANCTUARY

I’ve just found out about an organization that helps military families.  Please donate to PROJECT SANCTUARY . You can find out all about the organization at its website.  Here is an example of what can happen to a veteran if he doesn’t get sufficient help:  VETERANS’ PROBLEMS

About Sempre Avanti

If you’re Italian, or at least of Italian ethnic extraction, please consider donating to Sempre Avanti’s  GoFundMe campaign. 

 

 

The organization, based in Cedar Grove, New Jersey, benefits Italians, in the United States and Italy.  Read more about it at this site:  Sempre Avanti .

The Bookworms

Arnold, Wendell, and Mabel were at the Jane Austen convention, for the two hundred and first anniversary of the Regency Period author’s passing.

 

 

“Remember,” Mabel told her friends, “Try to pass for really smart. We want to blend in.”

 

שלום”

Χαίρετε” , her friends intoned in unison.

 

 

“Not quite that smart,” she chided them.

 

 

They enjoyed a nice leisurely weekend listening to speeches about life in Georgian England, and finding out all about the object of their admiration.

 

 

At the end of it all, Wendell opined:  “One of these days we should at least read something of hers.”

 

 

Welcome back yet again, one and all to Rochelle Wisoff~Fields’ Friday Fictioneers, the rules of which may be found at her site.  

 

 

Ted Strutz

has kindly agreed to supply this week’s photo prompt.

Humanae Vitae: The Courage of Pope Paul VI Stood Out During a Tumultuous 1968 —

Pope Paul VI is described by most historians as a kind of tragic figure, trying to control the whirlwind of events surrounding him, but unable to do much. It is probably because of this, because it seemed that Montini often bent to the opinions of the world, because it seemed that he frequently accepted the […]

via Humanae Vitae: The Courage of Pope Paul VI Stood Out During a Tumultuous 1968 —

Humanae Vitae At Fifty

Humanae Vitae  Tomorrow will be the fiftieth anniversary of Pope (soon~to~be Saint) Paul VI’s ominously prescient 1968 Encyclical.  Because of liberalism’s ever~aggressive Culture of Death, which can be found in poisons like abortion, euthanasia, suicide, homosexuality, and other aberrations, mankind is now confronted with a Pandora’s Box of trouble.  Please donate to this worthy cause.

A Petition to Cancel ‘The View’

Take ‘The View’ Off the Air, Fire Whoopi Goldberg

 

 

‘The View’ is a thoroughly one~sided, radical show that does nothing but add to the alienation, bitterness, and resentment that currently divide people in this country. There’s absolutely no place whatsoever for this kind of blatant brainwashing in people’s lives.

Rest In Peace, Earl the Pearl

“I’ve just found out that my oldest friend, Earl, has died,” I told Paul. “We were friends in Jackson Heights until we were twelve years old. Then I moved to Lindenhurst.”

 

 

“Even today I can remember his parents’ thick Puerto Rican accents, and how his brother, Junior, used to pick on me.  It just goes to show what happens when someone makes a really lasting impression.  We never got a chance to meet again, in person, after September 11, 1971, though it might as well have been yesterday.”

 

 

I then went to Youtube to listen to Mary Hopkin’s “Those Were the Days”.

 

 

Welcome back to Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers.  On her site, you can read the rules.  Dale Rogerson has supplied this week’s photo prompt.