SOLTuesday: Not a Christmas Story

            This is not a Christmas slice. I traveled this past weekend, which only was only tangentially because of Christmas. My daughter, the librarian, had a four-day weekend, having last Saturday off and Christmas Eve as well. She decided she wanted to go with her husband to New Orleans, where she had never been, and asked me if I wanted to join them. Why not? I had only been there once before, last winter, for five days, and loved it.

            So we reserved rooms at the same B&B I had stayed at, Monrose Row (which I strongly recommend; Cindy, the proprietor, makes fantastic breakfasts). I made a dinner reservation for Sunday night at Commodore’s Palace, supposedly the best restaurant in New Orleans. Christie made reservations for dinner at a Brazilian steakhouse, one of those places where they bring large skewers of many different kinds of meat to your table, and slice off whatever you want. I made reservations for a walking tour of the French Quarter, and Christie made reservations for a tour of a local whiskey distillery.

           But that isn’t the story I was going to tell. That happened today, as we were getting on the plane to come back home. Christie and her husband were sitting some rows ahead of me, so they got on first. Then I boarded and was busy putting my bag in the overhead and tucking my other bag under the seat when there was a tap on my shoulder. I thought someone wanted to get past, but when I looked up, I recognized the young man. He was a colleague from the magazine where I do free-lance work. I knew his family was in New Orleans, but what a coincidence that he was on the same flight returning to New York. And he was sitting right behind me as well.
            So we chatted about the city and our holidays, and we shared a taxi into Manhattan from the airport. It all rounded out a very lovely four-day holiday weekend.

-------------------------------------

It’s Slice of Life Tuesday over at Two Writing Teachers. Check out this encouraging and enthusiastic writing community and their slices of life every Tuesday. And add one of your own.

 

SOLTuesday: Slice of Memory

Last week I read the obituary of Helen Klaben Kahn, whose claim to fame was that after high school she moved to Alaska for adventure, and a year later, on a flight to California, the small plane carrying only her and a pilot crashed and they were marooned for 49 days before rescue. A few years later, she wrote a book, Hey, I’m Alive, which was made into a TV movie.

            I read the obit because Helen was my age, 76. But what provoked my memory is that she grew up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. I lived in Bensonhurst from ages 5 to 8, and one of my best friends was named Helen.

            What are the odds that these two Helens are the same? I could go to the New York Public Library, where city phone books are available on microfilm, to see whether someone with the last name Klaben lived on 75th or 76th Street around the corner from 20th Avenue in Brooklyn. And if she is?

            It’s too late to make contact with her. But I could write something, fictional or non, about her, and me, and Alice, my other friend. 

-------------------------------------

It’s Slice of Life Tuesday over at Two Writing Teachers. Check out this encouraging and enthusiastic writing community and their slices of life every Tuesday. And add one of your own.

 

-->
-->

SOLTuesday: Bob Dylan Concerts Past and Present

A week ago I went to a Bob Dylan concert with daughter, son-in-law, and a friend. I went mostly for Jack since I was not a big Dylan fan, but he was. His favorite songs were “It Ain’t Me, Babe” and “Don’t Think Twice,” songs I hated; they were break-up songs, so why would Jack think I’d want to hear him sing them? 

     I first heard a Dylan record in summer 1963, in a college dorm room. The raspy, atonal voice was annoying, and because I connect to songs via rhythm and melody, not lyrics, I didn’t get the appeal. Jack and I went to the Dylan concert in October 1965, when he famously did the first set in his usual folkie acoustic style, then riled most of the audience with his electric set for the second half. But it was the electric songs that woke me up: “Maggie’s Farm,” “Positively 4th Street,” “Like a Rolling Stone.” For the next 10 or so years, every change Dylan made in his style fit right in with the zeitgeist and my zeitgeist. Then he hit his religious phase, becoming a born-again Christian for a brief period, and he lost me; “Gotta Serve Somebody” was not a song I could relate to.

     Jack and I had also gone to the Blood on the Tracks concert in 1974 or 1975. Jack had a book of Dylan lyrics, titled “Lyrics 1962-1985,” and Dylan’s “Chronicles, Volume One” (if there was a volume 2, that one isn’t in the apartment).

    At last week’s concert, I cried when “It Ain’t Me, Babe” was the second song and “Highway 61” the third and “Simple Twist of Fate” the fourth (that was one of my favorites, and I cried throughout it). He didn’t sing another of my favorites, “Lay Lady Lay,” from “Nashville Skyline.” And I knew that Dylan did different arrangements for his oldies, but still, “Blowin’ in the Wind” was unrecognizable until almost the end.

    Dylan was the soundtrack of the ’60s, of my ’60s. Looking through the “Lyrics” book, there are more songs I remember and like than I thought. I’m glad I went to the concert, and felt Jack there, singing those songs to me.

-------------------------------------

It’s Slice of Life Tuesday over at Two Writing Teachers. Check out this encouraging and enthusiastic writing community and their slices of life every Tuesday. And add one of your own.