MEMORIAL DAY 2015

 Mama passed away in October 1998 and was buried at the National Cemetery at Quantico, Virginia.  On a summer day Daddy and I went down to visit her and he got upset that there was no lush green grass over her grave or anywhere in her sector.  Mama is buried in the last section on the left if you drive in and do the loop around the cemetery.  We saw some men digging a grave not far from us and Daddy called them over and they called their supervisor who was in charge of the grounds.  He was a very nice respectful person who explained that irrigation had not yet been plumbed into this section so the growing of grass was subject to rainfall and God's will.  He told us he was also incharge of the grounds in a very old military cemetery in Alexandria and to my mind's eye I believe he was referencing Revolutionary War era.  He also explaned to me out of Daddy's earshot that unlike the "six feet under" you always think about burials there was actually only eighteen inches above you.  I'm glad Dad didn't hear that or that would have upset him, too.  The grounds keeper managed to satisfy Daddy and I was happy for that.  Robin and I visited Mama later that year and there was a beautiful patch of thick green grass over just her grave and the rest of the area looked the same as it did when I had visited with Dad.  I thought that was so remarkable that the groundskeeper had done that.   I always thought even though we never discussed it that Dad was upset because he knew he'd be joining Mom soon enough.  Daddy passed in February 2009 and was buried with Mama.  I always wished they had been buried in the cemetery on Main Street in Fairfax City where all of my relatives on Mom's side of the family are buried.  I feel better knowing that they aren't down there at Quantico all alone now.  Daddy's younger brother Lawrence (Uncle Boo) and Aunt Audrey are buried at Quantico now as is Mama's baby brother my Uncle Carroll Simpson and Mama's first cousin Jannelle and her husband Frank Pennington.  Daddy's sister my Aunt Annabelle and Uncle Bill Vredenburg are buried at the National Cemetery at Culpepper, Virginia.  Thank you to all my relatives who served this country in wartime and peacetime and to all the women who waited for them and loved them.  Memorial Day 2015.

I REMEMBER AQUA NET

It was August 1961 just before my freshman year at Fairfax High School, Fairfax, VA which was a suburb of Washington DC.  My good friend Kathy Lamb called and invited me to go on the Buddy Dean Show, a teen dance show in Baltimore, MD similar to American Bandstand in Philadelphia and The Milt Grant Show in Washington, DC.  Kathy's dad was a  record promoter for Decca Records and got us tickets for the Buddy Dean Show.  This is the show that film producer John Waters, who grew up in Baltimore, based his film Hairspray on.

Kathy's date was Billy Hawke and my date was Danny Snider and we were all great friends.   All but Billy had been going to my neighborhood's Ardmore Teen Club Saturday night teen dances for two years.  Kathy and Danny and I were teen dance show pros having been on The Milt Grant Show with our teen club the fall of 1959.  

Kathy had very short dark curly hair and I had a long pony tail with a pompadour of bangs a la Connie Stevens as Cricket on the Hawaiian Eye tv show.  We both wore broomstick skirts which were gathered skirts with a thick black belt around the waist and white shirts with the collar turned up and rolled sleeves.  Danny and Billy wore what we would now call chinos and white shirts and thin ties with their collars turned up, too.  I can't remember our shoes but we girls because we were "dressed up" probably had on black flats (otherwise it would be tennis shoes with turned up bobby sox) and the guys wore regular guy shoes with white socks.  White socks!

The show was fun and we two couples were in the spotlight dance!

Okay, I guess you understand that Kathy and I, 14-15 years old, were the country bumpkins from the little town of Fairfax, VA. in the big city of Baltimore, MD.  Even Washington, DC was still just a little southern town then.  The kids that were regulars on this dance show were very sophisticated compared to us.  Although Jackie Kennedy had been first lady for a year and wore a bouffant hairdo this was the first time we'd seen hair teased and pouffed to gigantic proportons.  The one girl that sticks in my mind now for over fifty years was tall and very thin, dark haired, and wore a pencil thin black skirt and a black sweater tucked at the waist, again, with a big thick black belt.  Her hair was enormous.  ENORMOUS.  Teased to a height and a width I would never, ever be able to achieve and held with  hairspray.......Aqua Net!

Looks like Kathy is dancing on air!

That fall BIG HAIR came to my little town.  By the next spring even I had cut my pony tail and teased a little and highlighted with a homemade mixture of one part ammonia to two parts peroxide (or was it the other way around!)  In another year the bouffant was out and the flip was in.  A year from that long straight hair was in and curly hair was being ironed straight on our Mother's ironing boards.  As a history of hair in the 1960's I may as well finish by saying long straight or curly unprocessed Hippy Hair finished the decade....and this is without even mentioning what the Beatles did for men or what the Afro did for everyone.
 

Rod.....1983

"Saturday Night In The City Of The Dead"

In front of the Great Pyramid he stands
Passing the time of day with the camel ride guy.
When the camel ride guy's shift is over
He pulls off his galabiya,
Which covers a three piece suit,
Hops in his Mercedes and drives away.

Inside the Great Pyramid he lies down in a
Sarcophagus shell and his brother snaps his picture.

He sees a statue of an oracle
And her half smile, he says, reminds him of me.

Sailing down the Nile from Aswan, which is sailing north,
He looks off the back of the boat and the men of the crew
Are clustered in a circle smoking from a hookah.
The smell is rich and pungent and familiar.

There are drapings hung all around the top deck
Of the boat so you're not a target for snipers on the bank.

They tell you don't drink the water but the French Girl
Buys lemonade from a vendor and ends up being
Transported by chopper to a hospital ...deathly ill.

The waitress in the Mena House Hotel was beautiful
With cinnamon skin and crystal clear blue eyes.

Six weeks after he was there a bomb 
Blew up a portion of the Mena House.
It survives.