Sunday, June 27, 2021

When Tomorrow Comes

"That Lucky Old Sun (Just Rolls Around Heaven All Day)" was a 1949 popular song, like "Old Man River", its lyrics contrast the toil and intense hardship of the singer's life with the obliviousness of the natural world. The biggest hit version of the song was by Frankie Laine's. It first reached the Billboard magazine Best Seller chart on August 19, 1949.
Source: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/That_Lucky_Old_Sun
Note about the song: “That Lucky Old Sun”, as sung by Frankie Laine in 1949, might help to sum up the life this sixteen-year-old high school kid (me) was enjoying at the time. Like many teenage boys, I had this ability to misinterpret almost anything in print or the lyrics of that day's best-selling recording as a service for my own personal edification. And as a living example, music served my mystification of almost everything bouncing my way.
 
"That Lucky Old Sun" lyrics:
Up in the mornin'
Out on the job
Work like the devil for my pay
But that lucky old sun got nothin' to do
But roll around heaven all day

Rolling around Heaven All Day
        When sixteen-year-old Harvey Kalmenson awoke each and every school day, he put on his Levi’s, a clean white shirt, slipped his feet into a pair of blue suede shoes, and, of course, in order to top off his leading man existence, his pride of achievement, Dorsey High School's letterman sweater. It was the spring semester, and time for baseball. Like the song depicts, I was the "son" rising each morning—the difference being: without a care in the world!
        None of my schoolwork was ever a burden. What a life… I cared about baseball, and not much else, certainly not thinking about anything like the downer lyrics being sung by some poor bastard who happened to be struggling through life. My only struggle was a minor one at best. The school wasn’t just around the corner—I hitchhiked to get there every day, both ways; some people referred to it as “thumbing, or hitching a ride”.
        Baseball, and working my body until I was ready to drop, was the name of my game; it was my reason for living. By the time I got home at the end of an extremely rigorous day, there wasn’t time left for anything other than falling asleep. The only downer with regard to my dedication towards a career in baseball was the attitude of most of my buddies. Going out at night or on the weekends with friends wasn’t on my agenda.
        The next two years of my life zipped by. There wasn’t a bump in the road. Hitch-hiking to school had become effortless. Folks love being associated with young athletes. Our high school baseball team had become well-known; we were the Los Angeles city champions. It was my senior year; our team established a national high school baseball record for consecutive wins at thirty-four straight.
        In my final appearance as a baseball player for Dorsey High School, it was to be the high point of my term as a student-athlete. And little did I know or understand, my life’s road was about to become a somewhat bumpy road adventure. The strange thing they call mortality, I was about to experience my own.
 
….And one more thing learned along my way—actually two.
 
Question: Two things easily remembered and almost impossible to forget?
 
Answer: Winning and losing!

HK

Sunday, June 20, 2021

Father’s Day

 

Father’s Day 2021

Ladies and gentlemen,
Boys and girls
Big, little, tall or short
Whatever the hue
God determined you’d be
The masks are all gone
It’s Father’s day 2021
My guy’s not around
But to all, including me
Fill this day up with joy and glee
It’s meant for young, and even old men
The meek and the gregarious souls
Fellows like me!

Sunday, June 13, 2021

Staying Sane...

Staying Sane By Lighting Up My World
 
        Did you happen to notice the previous fifteen months in this less-than-rarified world of the days and nights in our own civilization right here in our very own little piece of the geography known to most as "La La Land"? If you have experienced the less than blissful association with the anguish caused to us all by Covid-19, then perhaps you too have lost the ability to punctuate properly the way I have!
 
Maybe I cut a bad deal somewhere along the way...
        In the old days, a man like the Godfather would have cut a deal with the powers that be—wherever and whomever they were. He didn’t concern himself with the correct punctuation. His deal offerings always seemed to work out. I loved when Marlon spoke softly and with great refinement: “I offered him a deal he couldn’t refuse.”
        Society, especially in our great state of California, is being made crazier by the minute—or is just me who can’t understand what in the world our politicians are trying to do with us business people?
 
WHAT, IN THE NAME OF HELL, ARE THEY UP TO NOW?
 
        Without exception, the folks who were designated by us to lay down the rules we follow were, by and large, put into their position by us. We voted them into office. None of them have felt the extreme severity of the financial crises we, their employers, have been relegated to endure during the course of the last fifteen months. In my less than humble opinion, it has become scientifically effectuated. Those of us who have been vaccinated or been cured of Covid-19, are safe to fully return to participating in society the way it was before the virus struck.
        For those of you who are interested in finding the truth for yourselves, examine the track record the United States citizens have been privileged to since the time of your individual birthdate. For me personally, the number of vaccines and/or curatives during my lifetime is far more than merely impressive. Google: "vaccines invented since the early thirties". It's enough to fill a book. At eighty-seven years of age, I’m considered a reasonably healthy dude. Every injection science has offered up has worked on me without a hitch, thank God. The same goes for Cathy and my two daughters.
        All of us should take a deep and deserved breath. Science has worked well for us. I, for one, plan on returning to work as quickly as possible. I’ve been successfully vaccinated. That being said, here’s the absurdity of our politicians' delinquency of pure thought and misdirection: If I can’t give it, and I can’t get it, why in the name of hell should I be wearing a mask?

…And one more thing.

        At the top of this merciless thing, I referred to as "being sane", or better stated, "in search of sanity", isn’t an implication I have reached a state of sanity. At best, I am in constant search of it, considering I have spent an enormous part of my existence attempting to stimulate a degree of truth, emanating from the abnormal number of thespians who have inadvertently from time to time sought out the abundance of my well-disguised directorial skills.
 
Note: It was some fifty years hence when not yet "da harv" first discovered one or two things which were to become a constant prevalence during his lifetime in this wrongly labeled attempt at survival of those of us seemingly endowed with the uncommon attribute of creativity. In other words, I became aware of my brilliant power of observation.
1.   The theatre is a tough racket to succeed at—or in—if you can even get in in the first place.
2.   Especially when you join the less-than-elated groups of husbands and wives, who are both actors and decide to raise a family while simultaneously attempting suicide by way of mutual starvation!
 
Like they often say in our trade, “I couldn’t get arrested if I tried.”

da harv's "Balcony A"
        The point is for all who have heard me preach it, we all are endowed with God-given unalienable rights, other than what our forefathers called attention to. We have the right to be sane during the best and worst of times. Many years ago I learned from the songs, “One Alone” and “Over The Rainbow”, and what the titles could mean for me as an individual.
        It was during my time in the Army while on a one-man recon detail, high up atop a six-hundred-foot elevation in South Korea, an inadvertent skill was discovered. We all have it to some extent, I just didn’t realize it was going to become more and more of a personal sanity tool as my life progressed.
        For whatever reason, the lyrics of "One Alone" being sung by Mario Lanza, and then Judy Garland singing "Over The Rainbow" came to me. For the balance of my tour of duty, regardless of the assignment, I managed to call upon what I had been endowed with: my own personal degree of serenity stimulated by the sight and sounds of the old friends I was introduced to by the movies.
        It was early during 1953. I still practice recall. I still manage to recapture a certain degree of sanity. I did manage not to starve.
HK
"One Alone"

Sunday, June 6, 2021

All things we are...

Remaining today
Recapitulations
Results must become witnessed
 
All things yesterday,
Not knowing what we seek
Reprieve is sought,
Remaining disconsolate
 Far from our accustomed lives
Fifteen months have passed
While
Happiness for all has become
 Prior for most
In a day
Week
 Month
Without leisure
All passed
Time at abnormal speed
It became a year
Enter another, equally bleak
Bearing constant uncertainty
Pen poised in hand
Prepared to capture what is good
Without avail
Cheerful platitudes offer little relief
Leaders at odds
Praising themselves, blaming others
All are wrong, equally, they fight
Their spoken words hollow
Humanity's needs unquenched
A new summer is upon us
Where are the promised flowers
Chosen pundits falter
Yet they persist
They jabber on like empty woks
Provisions void of substance
While murkiness prevails
Of that, they do well!
I will remember them
Voting
Of that, I do well!!
 
…and one more thing to share: While smiling, done well!
 
        And though I was old enough to have lived during the Second World War, I had only reached the ripe old age of eight when it began, which presented two equally important news items for the world to know:
to serve in our military, in 1941, in just about every branch, a kid had to be at least eighteen years old. Secondly, the most important fact of my life, I never got to meet Sir Winston Churchill.
        If he was alive today, I guarantee I would find a way to say hello to him. I mean, why not? I’ve directed many so-called stars who consider themselves in the same rarified air as any of today’s world leaders. All this is not to say at age eight I had an in-depth knowledge of the magnitude of perhaps the greatest wartime leader who ever lived.
        At the time, 1941, Winston Churchill was age sixty-seven. And even with all the daily stress he lived with, he managed to make it to the then very ripe old age of ninety.
        And FYI, I recall the exploits of my favorite statesman today, because I was pleasantly surprised when a day or so ago I ran across an item about a Winston Churchill habit I had either forgotten about or was unaware of. While reading “The Bomber Mafia”, written by one of my favorite current authors Malcolm Gladwell, he called to attention a problem Prime Minister Churchill was having to settle during the factors which existed between the “Royal Air Force (RAF)”, and our United States Army Air Force*.
*That’s what it was called during WW2.
The British favored doing nighttime bombing, while the Americans on the other hand, preferred daytime. Churchill summoned the Air Force leaders from both sides, to present their points of view at a high-level meeting with him.

        Now here is the part which not only struck me as funny but was an example of who the man was in his real life, whether it be war or peacetime. As follows, Malcolm Gladwell described the meeting incident in his book: The meeting was set for generals from both sides to meet with the Prime Minister the very next morning. The American Air Force leader who was set as the designate to present was Ira Eakerextremely renowned at the time. Eaker went back to his quarters and stayed up half the night drafting a response for Churchill. Everyone knew that Churchill wouldn’t read a document longer than a page. So, the briefing had to be really brief. And convincing. And so it was.
 
        For all of us who function with a similar beam of light shining astutely down upon them, I highly recommend the storytelling of Malcolm Gladwell. Up, down, in and out, and all-around town, The Bomber Mafia helps to stimulate a feeling of wellness.
Comparisons
        Each of the days, weeks, months, and over one full year now, we have all, each and every day, had to take it on the chin whether we liked it or not. We accepted our venture together. And though masked, a smile managed its way through the bleakness and relentless pressure, unlike anything any of us had been trained to live with.
        When Sir Winston Churchill walked the streets of London, often as the bombs rained down on his streets, he had men and women at his side. They took heart. His point, often raised with glass in hand, “We will never give in. We will fight on to the end”. And oh yes, you might believe me now, when I say again, I’d find a way to meet the man who gave me so many of his words of encouragement.
...and now, it's time to take Little Winnie for his walk.

HK