Kelly D: what???s in a name?
February 21, 2010
Who were you named after? Your grandmother? Your uncle? I was named after a cartoon opossum. Okay, not exactly. I was named after an opossum’s cartoonist. Walt Kelly, to be exact, author and artist of the Pogo strip.
Pogo ran during the 1950s and ’60s; my mom was quite a fan. I guess there was little debate about what my first name would be. For my middle name, it was between Ann and Lynn. I’m glad Lynn won. I think I remember hearing that if I had been a boy, they would have named me Paul.
My mother corresponded with Walt Kelly for a while. It was at least long enough for her to report that I had been named for him. In return, he sent us his original pen and ink artwork for the strip from my birth day, pictured above. (For those of you who know me, isn’t it fun that the character Bun Rab appeared on that day?) When I was a youth, I remember its hanging on the wall where the hall took a little jog to my bedroom. Now that I think about it, I can’t say that I remember that it’s up anywhere in my parents’ current house, to where we moved when I was 15. No doubt it’s in a box in the basement.
As for our last name, no one’s quite sure of its origins. Our bloodlines are very majorly German, with just a wee dab of Scottish and Irish (in this context do you say Scottish or Scotch?). As near as we have figured it’s Bohemian, which is the more romantic-sounding way of saying eastern Slavic. But as I understand it, the first namesake to come to America traveled from England.
Oh, the things you learn when you call your parents to quiz them for information about your blog topic. An hour later and I now know the following.
It turns out that we’re fairly sure our D last name is Welsh. Bohemian was just one of the theories bandied about. The original D namesake, John, son of Henry and Elizabeth, was English and lived from 1728 to 1808. But that’s not the interesting part. He didn’t just “travel” to America from England. No. Young Master John, it seems, was kidnaped at age fourteen from a wharf in England to work as a ship’s helper on a vessel that was sailing for the New World.
“You mean as a ‘swab’?” I asked.
“Well, you could dress it up a little more than that,” replied my mother.
The ship landed in Edgecombe County, North Carolina, where John met a girl and proceeded to father fourteen children. In 1804, they migrated to Belmont County, Ohio. I grew up in Hardin County, Ohio. I had no idea about the details of this part of family history. My Grandpa D was born in 1907, so figuring 30 years per generation, John was my great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather. Not a close enough relative to get me a British passport.
My Grandpa D’s parents were D and Emery. My Grandma D’s were Zimmerman and something else German which I didn’t note quickly enough to pass on here. As I mentioned in the tale of my cuckoo clock, my mom’s side of the family is exclusively German. But yay, I have more English in me than I’ve been under the impression all these years. Instead of one-sixteen Scotch-Irish, I am one-eighth so. But still not enough to get me a British passport.
After I had all the D facts straightened out, I went back to my name. I asked my mom if she really liked Pogo that much or if it just makes a good story to say that they named me after Walt Kelly. She said, “Oh no, I was a big fan when I was younger! I wanted to name you Kelly, so your dad chose your middle name.” The boy name would have been Bruce Allen, my dad’s middle name and my maternal grandfather’s name.
I’m just glad they didn’t name me Pogo.
Well, someone had to say it, it might as well be me.
Pogo cartoon from this source. Check out page 27 for all the comics. It was a different time.
My dad is an amazing musician
February 7, 2010
This is an article that ran in the local paper, profiling the Dixieland jazz band that my dad headed up when he was in high school. That’s my dad on clarinet and my uncle on piano, both at the left in the photo. My mom gave me this photocopy a couple of years ago; it landed on my fridge and there it has stayed. I don’t remember now if it’s an old article that she just unearthed or if it’s a recent reprint. At any rate, it’s a fun and interesting thing to have.
Stepping away from the familial connection for a moment, just look at those boys. Do kids who start comparable groups these days have uniforms? Would kids even have a jazz band, or do they just go for—oh, I don’t know—some hip hoppy, dancy thing that they could present on So You Think You Can Dance or America’s Got Talent?
Yes, I am out of it.
But apparently my dad and the fellows were not. They played such prestigious events as intermission at a square dance, the straw hat promotion day, the West Side picnic, a meeting of the Young Adult Klub. I’m not poking fun here, but how much more wholesome can you get? Do we long for those innocent days when children were named Vernon and Myron? I just might. People were nicer to each other and didn’t go barreling down the freeway in their Chevy Suburban gas hogs thinking everybody better get outta their way.
My grandfather—my dad’s dad—was fairly musical in an informal way. As a kid and young adult, I remember Grandpa often strumming his ukelele and singing (with a deep voice that would hold about twenty Tiny Tims), or producing a unique double-toned whistle that I could never imitate. My uncle still plays and was a piano tuner by trade. My dad is just about the most incredible musician that I know of.
Although he played the clarinet in his youth, my dad is very much a keyboardist. My parents both always played piano, and my dad was pretty adept at the pipe organ for a while, too. His first career was as a professor of music at the small liberal arts college in the town where I grew up, and he moonlighted as the Methodist church organist for a while. Then he became a piano and organ salesman, which he still is, though the organs have evolved into digital keyboards, and the pianos as well are just as likely to run on motherboards as have hammers that strings.
As a salesman with a storefront, my dad has ample opportunity to “demonstrate.” This puts his playing skills on display whether in the presence of customers or not. The talent that my dad has that I never developed is that of improvisation. He doesn’t need to read music and it seems like he can sit down and play anything.
Every now and then, he gets a piano-playing gig. When my grandmother was still living, her fellow residents would always look forward to his visits because he would sit down at the piano and provide some dinner music, just because he enjoys playing.
I began piano lessons when I was six or seven and added the flute in fifth grade. For one of my college graduations, my parents gave me a digital piano. I’m ashamed to say that it’s been unused for too many years. Maybe I will dust it off one of these days in conjunction with this mini-creative renaissance I’m having.
The roaring silence
January 21, 2010
I don’t remember ever not liking music. One of my earliest music memories is from when I was probably about four and my mom parked me in front of the console stereo (you know, the big hulking piece of furniture with AM/FM tuner and room to store some records all under a lid or sliding doors) to listen to Peter and the Wolf.
My parents held on to first that, and then a newer, console stereo. It was at least the mid-1980s, perhaps later, before they bit the bullet and got components instead.
As a kid, I was glued to the transistor radio. Initially, I listened to a small turquoise model that lived on the kitchen table. That was eventually supplanted by a larger (though still single speaker) model. This was during the time that “shoebox” portable cassette recorders were popular. I would cozy up the cassette recorder to the front of the radio and record my favorite songs. When I was a kid, I listened to CKLW on AM from Windsor, Ontario, during its Top 40 days. They tuned The Big 8 in at the swimming pool, too.
The radio/cassette pairing gave way to record albums of my own. I don’t remember doing too much recording off the radio once I got into records. That took me through high school.
Then I got my first stereo components. I still have the gigantic floor speakers. Generally gigantic, not guy audiophile gigantic. I was never much of an audiophile. I just enjoy listening. That’s sort of why I was never a good English major either. I like reading, but I don’t have to analyze every nuance to derive pleasure from it.
I returned to recording off the radio, this time FM and in stereo. I still have a lot of those tapes. I continued to buy records, but I never embraced the prerecorded cassette tape.Then compact discs came along. I rebought many of my favorite record albums on CD, though many more simply were never manufactured. It is for that reason that I must acquire one of those turntable-to-digital deals one of these days.
And, of course, I made the inevitable migration to mp3s on first my iPod and now my computer and a little bit on my iPhone. Most of my music listening is done on either my work or home computer, and these days, it’s just as likely to be a music streaming service such as Pandora or the streaming audio of a radio station, as something my lowly mp3 collection (the majority of which is, by the way, all of my CDs ripped).
The devices I have listened with the most all of these years are my good old ears.
Reliving childhood through art
January 20, 2010
This could sort of be considered the prequel to my horse notebook entry. Before I got the horse thing going, I occupied my child self with other forms of artwork. As an only child, I was always good at keeping myself busy. This was back in the days before, you know, Pong.
I spent considerable time making paper cutout pictures. I don’t really remember my favorite subject; it was probably just trees and flowers and houses—pretty easy stuff. Today in an homage to those days, I created the two things pictured here. Whatever else I did, nothing could compare with the time and effort I put into making paper chains. It probably started out as a homemade Christmas tree decoration, but by the end, it was a minor obsession. My parents were very good to let me waste paper and either Scotch tape or glue (I don’t remember which) in these endeavors. Length became everything. At a minimum, a chain had to stretch from one end of the house to the other. If it was long enough to go back again, so much the better. I have no recollection of what, if any, displaying we did of these chains. I think sometimes we might have taped them to the ceiling with graceful swags. And I always just used white office paper; today I used the leftover colored paper from my rabbit picture. I think today’s chain adds a nice bit of extra color to my kitchen window.
The genuine article
January 6, 2010
Genuine Pooh is something from my childhood that I would never part with. This is not that bear; it is Green Genuine who stood in for Genuine for this photo because Genuine is at my mom’s house and wasn’t available. So I guess technically I have parted with Genuine, even though I know exactly where he is.
Genuine is an old Steiff bear that was my Grandma H’s and that she gave to me when I was a youngster. I named him Genuine because he reminded me of the original Winnie-the-Pooh illustrations. I loved that bear hard. After he had been dragged around for years, my mom got into Teddy bear collecting and we began to realize that he actually had some collectable value. Fortunately, I was older by then and didn’t mind treating him more reverently.
He wasn’t my first Teddy bear. When I was really small, I had an amorphous brown thing that I was attached to. When he became threadbare and ratty, he was replaced with what was purported to be an exact replica. My mom tried to convince me that it was just as good, but New Teddy was nothing like Old Teddy. I continued my devotion to Old Teddy, and New Teddy sat alone off to the side. I also had Big Teddy who, at the time, was almost as big as I was.
Genuine became a minor celebrity in the bear world, or rather a photo of my grandmother as a girl clutching him did. Among other places, it appeared in Peter Bull’s 1984 book A Hug of Teddy Bears. I don’t have a copy of the photo, so this poor drawing will have to do.
In doing a little research this evening to find a photo of a similar bear to Genuine, I figured he’s a 1905, 1908 or 1920 Steiff. There were similar and different looking bears for all three years, so I don’t know exactly which it would be. The two above look most like I remember Genuine, and I think he looks more like the one on the left with the pointier snout, smaller nose, and more slender limbs. Grandma was born in 1903, so maybe it was a 1908 bear as she would have been about five or six as I remember the photo.
(I haven’t seen Genuine for many, many years as he has been residing in my mom’s bear room, which, incidentally used to be my bedroom.)
Green Genuine is a souvenir from my first trip to England, which was with my mom on a group Teddy bear tour. I found him at Teddy Bears of Whitney. He was a one-of-a-kind prototype by bear artist Sue Lain (hence the odd color of mohair) and he reminded me of Genuine, so I bought him. Now that I see him next to the Steiff bears, he doesn’t really look that much like Genuine. I think we have a photo of the two bears together.
And now that I think about a photo of Genuine and Green Genuine together, I remember that my mom also bought a Second Genuine that was in better condition than Original Genuine. So there are two Genuines and one Green Genuine.
And now I have to stop, because the letters that spell G-e-n-u-i-n-e are beginning to take on a life of their own and look weird.
My horse notebook
December 24, 2009
When I was a tween and young teen, I went through a horse phase. I managed to talk my parents into riding lessons for six months. But most of what happened with regard to me and horses was in my imagination, and a lively one it was.
I developed an entire stable of horses. It was called Mescorola Park Farms and it was home to 111 horses, mostly Thoroughbreds and Arabians. There were also several Quarter horses, a few Appaloosas, and a smattering of Lipizzan, Saddlebreds, and Morgan horses. For each horse, I wrote out the pedigree and made a crayon picture. I would sit in my dad’s den, listening to the radio and recording songs, and making my horses and reading the three or four horse magazines that I subscribed to. As my original stock reproduced, I followed the conventions for each breed in naming the offspring. I was a big Queen and Elton John fan by then, so the names were also influenced by song titles. My horse phase also resulted in my only completion of a longer piece of fiction writing, a story about—you guessed it—a horse farm. I got all sentimental about my horse notebook recently due to having been thinking about my other childhood obsession, the Ford Mustang (from my earlier years); that was the story that began my current spate of blogging. I was certain of the notebook’s location my corner of my parents’ basement so I commissioned my mom to bring it along for their current visit. It’s been 30 years, but I recognize the horses like it was last week. It’s fun to be so utterly transported to another time.(Through the) kitchen window
December 22, 2009
I don’t have much of a view out my kitchen window. If I lean one way, I can look into my neighbor’s kitchen. If I lean the other way, I can sort of look into his living room. I can see to the back of the building, but that’s easier if I just go to my bedroom window.
At least I have a kitchen window. The kitchen that I previously used for 11 years had no window. It wasn’t even on an outside wall. It was a little galley kitchen in the interior building hallway wall. My view now isn’t all that great, but at least it goes beyond my wall. I love to cook and spend a lot of time on Saturdays and Sundays flitting around my bigger but still not huge cooking area. If I open the mini-blinds, it seems somewhat more roomy, especially if it’s daytime. Growing up, I have the fondest memories of our house that was two doors down from the Methodist church. But when we moved to our house on Willeke Avenue, I know my mom was really excited to be going to a kitchen that looked out the front of the house. That’s where the interesting things happened, apparently. Now, my parents’ kitchen looks out the back of the house. But I know my mom enjoys that view, too, as she encourages the local wildlife to visit the yard, even squirrels. @thedigitalghost, her central Wisconsin squirrels are even fatter than most Northern squirrels. Fergus would be beside himself. No, I don’t have the greatest view out my kitchen window, but the mortgage makes it and the kitchen all mine! Omigosh, did I just find a positive about having bought a place?Hill of beans
November 29, 2009
If my mom didn???t like it, she didn???t make it to eat, and vice versa. And we had an eat-everything-on-your-plate policy, in which I had no say. Consequently, I wasted hours of my young life at the dinner table choking down the last few bites of chicken liver or the last two canned green beans.
That???s also the reason why I never experienced the euphoria of tasting steamed asparagus with a little bit of butter until I was 30. I asked my mom why she never made it and she said because she didn???t like the texture. One stringy piece and it was all ruined for her. She has a thing about food textures. We didn???t have peas either, except the ones that came in the frozen pot pies. I was allowed to pick those out and leave them. Beans were another thing my mom just didn???t like so we never had. Even in chili, there wasn???t a kidney bean to be found. Again, I was 30 before I embraced beans as a food group. I???m very glad I did. I could easily subsist on beans, cheese, and sauce. The mind boggles at all the variations. Another thing I???m glad I did was give myself permission not to eat everything if I don???t want to. That was very liberating. I also haven???t eaten a chicken liver for 30 years.Oh, bother!
November 19, 2009
Music memories
November 8, 2009
What songs do you like? What songs, when you hear them, magically transport you to another place and time? There are a lot more, but here’s what I remember without effort.
Out and about: Paul McCartney and Wings “Uncle Albert”: My dad and me waiting in the car in the parking lot outside the Sears store in the Lima (Ohio) Mall, waiting for my mom to pick up our catalog order. Commodores “I’m Easy”: My parents and I driving in Lima and I wouldn’t let them change the radio until that song was over. Almann Brothers “Ramblin’ Man”: My parents and I were out for pizza, again in Lima. We always just drank water because paying for soda pop was too extravagant, but on this one occasion they gave me the nickel or dime to play this song on the jukebox because it was my favorite at the time. Cher “Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves,” Carpenters “Top of the World”: The Ada (Ohio) swimming pool, where I spent most of every summer as a kid. In my dad’s den listening to the radio and poised at any moment to record my favorite songs from the external speaker of the radio to the portable cassette player. Usually, I was working on the pedigrees and crayon pictures of the horses in my imaginary stable: “Bennie and the Jets” and really, many of the Elton John songs of that time. I liked Elton John a lot. Ringo Starr “Photograph”: It was summer and the window was open. I was recording this song when my dad walked past with the lawn mower. If I put my hand flat on the top of the radio, the volume would amplify. This happened during the chime solo in the middle of the song. Segue on the cassette tape: Davie Bowie “Fame” into Bee Gees “Jive Talkin’” Queen “Bohemian Rhapsody”: I didn’t really pay attention to this song, but I began to notice that every time after it was on, there was a commercial for Galileo wine. To this day, I go back to the den during the opera section. High school: The Cars’ debut album: Having the epiphany while driving with Bob S that the vocal production reminded me very much of what Roy Thomas Baker was doing with Queen (who by then was my undisputed favorite). I was right. Journey “Daydream”: My high school had a little close-circuit in-house radio station that I worked at. Whenever I played this song, one of the other kids always gave me a hard time because the one riff made it sound like the turntable was going wonky. As a club-going young adult: Billy Squier “Everybody Wants You,” Romantics “What I Like about You”: Dancing in the Point Club (Stevens Point, Wisconsin) with Steve R who drove down from Wausau with his two friends to go out. We both loved jumping straight up at the appropriate moments in those songs. Phil Collins and Philip Bailey “Easy Lover”: Singing harmony with John M. Wham! “Careless Whisper”: Dancing with Paul G. Thomas Dolby “She Blinded Me (with Science)”: SCIENCE!-ing at the right times with John G the DJ. Really, very many early- to mid-80s hits take me right back to the Point Club. College: Def Leppard “Photograph”: In the dorm, the girl across the hall and I would open our doors and synchronize our turntables to the Pyromania album. INXS “The One Thing”: Same dorm without the synchronization. Faith No More “Epic”: The campus bowling alley at the University of Wisconsin and the crew I bowled with.
Kelly’s Unnecessary Blog 