YES, I AM STILL HERE peeking out my window on Main Street, and right now I’m having trouble thinking straight because there is a melody lodged firmly between my ears.
Lodged loudly.
I cannot shake it, and I am unable to move on to another tune or to blessed silence.
I’m just stuck with the music until for some reason it just goes away. When this happens sometimes the mental tune is great; sometimes it is equal to Islamic water torture at Guantanamo.
Early, early Sunday morning while out on my neighborhood stroll, I realized I was trying to walk in a military marching cadence to the theme music from an old television show.
The tune was firmly in charge before I even realized that I was in its grip even tho I can’t march anymore and I walk at a leisurely pace. It is easier to march with music.
The tune was from a television series named “The West Point Story,” Sometimes it was just called “West Point.” It was aired 1956-57 on CBS; and 1957-58 on ABC.
I was in junior high.
How on earth can such an old melodic memory suddenly — and firmly — pop up like that?
Mr. Google says that the show was “Real life stories of the cadets at the nation’s military academy.” A number of actors who would later become real stars made appearances. Steve McQueen, Clint Eastwood, among them.
There were few female roles because the service academies of the day were strictly male.
The show was pretty popular, and it apparently inspired a number of young men to join the Army. And it may have spurred some young women to say “Why can’t I march, too?”
The popularity of the show really upset the Navy, so a year later on another network a series, “Men of Annapolis,” was born. It was about — guess what — “Real life stories of the midshipmen at the nation’s naval academy.” A number of actors who would later become real stars made appearances. You wouldn’t recognize many of the names, though.
The Annapolis series was written almost completely by a guy named Gene Roddenberry. Heard of him? Star Trek? This COULD be the reason most of our nation’s astronauts have been Navy or Marines.
But the Annapolis show’s music isn’t the one that got stuck between my ears, Sunday. It was the music from ‘West Point.’ Golly, at this point I can’t even recall the music from ‘Men of Annapolis.’
The main difference in the two shows, other than the uniforms the Cadets and the Midshipmen wore to class, was their relationship with the townie girls.
See, most of the weekly plots of both shows dealt with academy’s students and their ladies.
For the West Point cadets, theirs were chaste encounters with the townie girls.
But the Midshipmen were just junior sailors, after all, and so the chaste part just got tossed over the fantail (that’s some Navy jargon and I’ll have to explain it some other time).
Taaaaaaa, ta ta taaa, taaaaaa.
I’m sure you recognize the tune by now, and I hope it gets stuck firmly between your ears, too. I will be glad to hum it for you.
Mr. Google helped me find the theme music for both shows. West Point’s music was far superior to Annapolis’s.
This is one heck of an admission because I am an old sailor. Emphasis on the ‘old.’
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TEXAS FLOODING. That tragedy reminds many of us of the flood at Camp Albert Pike a couple of summers ago.
Inexpressible sorrow at the loss of children .
At the end of the last Ice Age I was a student at the University of Arkansas. A couple of buddies and I shared a duplex apartment.
Across the ‘cul de sac’ from our apartment was one that was the residence of four lively coeds. One of the coeds was from Houston, Texas.
That next summer she got them all jobs as counselors at one of those Texas girls’ camps that was destroyed by the flooding last week.
I am party to their text messages back-and-forth about their long-ago summer job.
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THE GOOD EARTH. With the heat of this summer I’ve been scrambling to keep plants alive.
Back in late May I purchased a couple of those pre-kinked garden hoses. I’ve stopped wasting my imaginary money on the ones that promise to be kink-proof because, you know ……
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MORE THINGS I LEARNED from opening email: If your car could travel at the speed of light, would your headlights work?
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WORD GAMES. I love oxymorons. This one is for aviators: Crash Landing.
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HE SAID: “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” Thomas A. Edison, inventor
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SHE SAID: “Do what you feel in your heart to be right — for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.” Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady
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SWEET DREAMS, Baby
