Before I return to the subject of music, let's reflect ...
No one knows where Ken's names came from, period. There was no one in the family named Kenneth, or Gary, so it must have been a fad. They had to come up with something other than Adolph H. Wicht in 1955. He would have been the 6th.
Ken detested anything but Ken when he was younger, and despised Gary with a passion. He eventually got used to Kenny, but still referred to his middle name as "Garrish".
There was a change of heart by the time I was born: I was named after two uncles; Paul, dying in his first year, born with severe Downs' Syndrome. Mom cried about him every year. Ken's niece got her first and middle names from her.
Edward was the youngest of the 5, and her favorite. Fortunately, she never saw his dark side.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Monday, April 2, 2007
'Do You Want to Know a Secret?'
It was a rare occasion that I remembered something that Ken didn't. As a matter of fact, the very first time Ken showed a sign of depression, though I didn't realize it at the time, was the first time he couldn't remember something at will. I still don't recall (ahem) what it was exactly, but he truly panicked and was terrified that day. I assumed it was just an early sign of aging, when he was somewhere around twenty-two years old. For Ken, it was catastrophic.
One thing I did recall that he didn't was that the very first 45 recording Ken and I both received (that's the part I remembered that he didn't) was the Beatles Do You Want to Know a Secret? We were too young to realize it was a love song from Pat to us in her own way, as she was like a second mom to us. It would be the only record I would have for who knows how long, and would listen to it over and over on our primitive record player. It had a profound effect on me, as its positive message gave me hope at the ripe old age of 6, while the world had seemed to have fallen apart. It took me years before I realized it was George doing the singing. Buying a 45 once in a while was all we could hope for till Meet the Beatles came along.
Seeing the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show clinched it for us, and everyone else watching that night, though it kinda made me squirm uncomfortably, just like when we saw Elvis on the same show earlier . We were at our aunt's place in Hawthorne, NY., and it was both strange and exciting at the same time. It opened the way for us to get our first LPs. Of course, being siblings, we had to have our own copies.
It would not only be the Beatles, of course. It primed us for all of the great, and mostly positive, music that was broadcast on AM radio then, WABC and WMCA in particular. The veterans of those stations would move on to what would be called 'oldies' radio on WCBS FM in 1972 when AM and FM changed places, FM being better for music quality. AM went to talk shows and news, whereas FM had been talk and classical music, which was fading.
What excited Ken and I even more than the Beatles in those days was when dad would pick us up on alternate Fridays, after our frozen Catholic TV dinner fish sticks and french fries which we ate while watching Superman on the black and white TV. It was Xmas Eve every time.
One more eerie coincidence. The first time I went back to Ken's place after he died, the radio was still set to 101.1, but it had changed to 'Jack FM'.
One thing I did recall that he didn't was that the very first 45 recording Ken and I both received (that's the part I remembered that he didn't) was the Beatles Do You Want to Know a Secret? We were too young to realize it was a love song from Pat to us in her own way, as she was like a second mom to us. It would be the only record I would have for who knows how long, and would listen to it over and over on our primitive record player. It had a profound effect on me, as its positive message gave me hope at the ripe old age of 6, while the world had seemed to have fallen apart. It took me years before I realized it was George doing the singing. Buying a 45 once in a while was all we could hope for till Meet the Beatles came along.
Seeing the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show clinched it for us, and everyone else watching that night, though it kinda made me squirm uncomfortably, just like when we saw Elvis on the same show earlier . We were at our aunt's place in Hawthorne, NY., and it was both strange and exciting at the same time. It opened the way for us to get our first LPs. Of course, being siblings, we had to have our own copies.
It would not only be the Beatles, of course. It primed us for all of the great, and mostly positive, music that was broadcast on AM radio then, WABC and WMCA in particular. The veterans of those stations would move on to what would be called 'oldies' radio on WCBS FM in 1972 when AM and FM changed places, FM being better for music quality. AM went to talk shows and news, whereas FM had been talk and classical music, which was fading.
What excited Ken and I even more than the Beatles in those days was when dad would pick us up on alternate Fridays, after our frozen Catholic TV dinner fish sticks and french fries which we ate while watching Superman on the black and white TV. It was Xmas Eve every time.
One more eerie coincidence. The first time I went back to Ken's place after he died, the radio was still set to 101.1, but it had changed to 'Jack FM'.
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