Thursday, June 09, 2005

From the June 9 Jamestown Post-Journal

JAMESTOWN, N.Y. - Newspaper photographers just love those wreckers. And in this case it being our old elementary school, the readership is guaranteed. Think how many people went through that school. Some of our classmate's parents graduated from it when it was a high school.

It seems like it's taking a long time to knock the old barn down. It reminds me of California, where buildings get knocked down to put new ones in their place because of new earthquake standards. Can't have the old buildings falling down.

And they can't topple them when they hit them with the wrecking ball! (Kind of like the fillings in my teeth from 1960 - courtesy of Dr. Joseph Griffo. Never, never let a dentist take out your old fillings. The ones I had removed about 10 years ago have to be replaced every three or four years. The ones from Joe Griffo are solid as, well, rocks.)

This photo, a grab shot of the front page of the Jamestown Post-Journal comes via Sue Siecker who sent the whole newspaper to me as a pdf file.

I started reading other sections of the newspaper and it's not as bad a rag as it was when we were growing up and it was publishing news about our speeding tickets and other escapades.

I still have the clipping somewhere from when I got tagged for reckless driving on my Yamaha 80 motorcycle - at night. I was speeding and passed three cars on a double solid line. Too bad I didn't look behind me and see Nels Carlson in the Lakewood police car.

He was soooo made at me - not for speeding - but because he knew that he had to give me a ticket and my mother would give him hell the next time she saw him.

He did, and she did and I paid a $45 fine. It seemed like a fortune on my parttime Loblaw's bag-boy salary.

On another, more musical topic:

Marcia Carlson Hein put a notice up here on the blog trying to find Gloria by The Shadows of Knight. And Dave Carlson responded with some sage advice about copyrights. But for folks looking for that song - or the one I'm listing today at the end of the blog - Apple's ITunes has them both.

Today's song? This one you will know the tune for, I'm sure. Boy does it bring back some memories from one summer at Lakewood Beach.

Sigh...

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

The Sounds of Silence
by Simon and Garfunkel

(words and music by Paul Simon)

Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

"Fools", said I, "You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words, like silent raindrops fell
And echoed
In the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said, "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls"
And whispered in the sounds of silence

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