Pork rinds, pig skins, scratchin's, cracklin's
Scratchin's was, more precisely, pork scratchings, or pork rind fried in lard with the fat attached. Like the skin on an orange, pork rind is the skin of a pig. Some called them pork skins or pig skins, others preferred pork rinds. I always thought there existed an actual distinction. By that I mean the larger, curled ones were pork rinds or pork skins, but the smaller pieces were the scratchin's, or, again another word preference, cracklin's. The commercial, bagged kind were passable, homemade they were delicious. A few stores sold them in clear cellophane bags as prepared by local farm families. An unbeatable treat. There was no quality control with those though and a few of the corner cuts were as hard as granite.
He knows my every thought, He...
The head of Christ, where he is bearded, with long hair and stilled at a three-quarter angle with his eyes and line of vision tilting slightly upward. There is a sort of glow around his head and he is wearing a simple, white garment. I will never be able to conceive of Jesus as looking any different. A copy of the familiar painting hung on a wall in my aunt Audrey's living room alcove. It appeared no different than the one hanging on our living room wall, or the one on my aunt Verna's, or aunt Margaret's, or any of the others I had seen regularly in homes and businesses.
"No, look," my cousin Linda insisted. "Its eyes follow you around the room."
"What if I go through the doorway?" I asked.
"It'll follow you there, too."
"When I'm outside the doorway?"
"No, while you're going out. As long as you're in the room, its eyes follow you."
It became apparent to me that Linda was telling the truth, that they had purchased or otherwise obtained the standard work of art but with trickery added to the eye portion to make it appear the eyes are always upon the viewer. I walked from side to side looking at the picture all the while. I finally had to admit I couldn't make the distinction but I would accept her declaration and that I understood the gist of the novelty -- that Jesus really is watching your every move.
"I don't know why you can't see it," she said.
"Maybe I'm not a true believer," I replied.
"Just joking," I assured her, afraid to leave it at that, seeing the makings of family lore hatching for future tellings. Clearly, she was either not capable of recognizing my form of humor or had chosen to ignore it in favor of darker implications.
It was obvious she thought it creepy, no, scary, as if the supernatural Jesus really was supernatural right there in her presence.
It never caught on, as far as I could tell. Not even a little bit. I don't recall anyone ever bringing another such of the pictures with the altered eyes to my attention.
...
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Danny and Sharon Owen on Mission
Brother and sister music evangelists Danny and Sharon Owen with Music Ministry and Forest Park Baptist Church in Joplin issued an 11-song Lp entitled For Those Tears on Mission Records in the mid-1970s.
Danny and Sharon did the vocals and Kathi Henry from Joplin played piano. Another Joplinite, Steve Davenport, played bass. On drums was Darrel Campbell from Mt. Vernon, Mo. Lead guitarist Chuck Jackson from Independence, Mo., chipped in on one song while Sharon played on all the rest.
A nice color shot of Danny and Sharon in vintage clothing graces the front album cover (taken by Murwin Mosler) and a casual, black and white shot of the group is on the back.
For Those Tears
Mission MR-DS 380
Ca. 1974
Tracks: For Those Tears I Died; When I Think of the Cross; 1 Corinthians 13; Bright New World; God Can See Us / I Wish We'd All Been Ready; 2 Jesus Made me Higher; How Firm a Foundation; He's Listening; Through it All; For Those Tears I Died (reprise).
Danny and Sharon did the vocals and Kathi Henry from Joplin played piano. Another Joplinite, Steve Davenport, played bass. On drums was Darrel Campbell from Mt. Vernon, Mo. Lead guitarist Chuck Jackson from Independence, Mo., chipped in on one song while Sharon played on all the rest.
A nice color shot of Danny and Sharon in vintage clothing graces the front album cover (taken by Murwin Mosler) and a casual, black and white shot of the group is on the back.
For Those Tears
Mission MR-DS 380
Ca. 1974
Tracks: For Those Tears I Died; When I Think of the Cross; 1 Corinthians 13; Bright New World; God Can See Us / I Wish We'd All Been Ready; 2 Jesus Made me Higher; How Firm a Foundation; He's Listening; Through it All; For Those Tears I Died (reprise).
Friday, August 1, 2008
Persons and Recordings: Galena, Kansas
Troy Wade
During early summer of 2008 and shortly after playing Galena Days, The Missourians announced that baritone Troy Wade had joined forces. Wade had previously worked with The Revelations. He also was once lead singer for Brothers With Purpose. He replaced veteran Missourians member Doug Luton. The quartet is based in Joplin, Mo., and first organized in 1988. Wade was well established in Galena as a member of First Baptist Church and as director of sales and marketing for Oasis Car Wash Systems, an internationally recognized name and innovative leader in the car wash industry. Wade is the younger brother of Stephen Wade, president of Oasis. Revelations member Jerry Wade co-founded the business in 1964 in Galena.
...
The Revelations
A group from Galena, Kan., who recorded an album at a studio in Kentucky associated with the Happy Goodman Family.
The Revelations Sing
Big G Records BG 47
Recorded at Goodman Sound, Madisonville, Ky.
The Revelations: Jerry Wade, Richard Ebert, Willis Spencer, Bill Major, Gaylon Spencer
Musicians: Jim Dumas, Ed Crook, Jim Bowles, Aaron Wilburn, Rick Goodman, Jack Smith
Tracks: I Came to Praise the Lord; I Will Serve Thee; It's Alright; Let's Just Praise the Lord; This Could Be Your Last Chance; Somebody Loves Me; Redemption Draweth Nigh; Why Me; Until You Find the Lord; The Last Sunday.
Peace Love Joy
Passin Thru
PLJ 417
Recorded and mixed at Country Side Studios, Joplin, Mo.
All songs and arrangements by Peace Love Joy
Back cover group photo taken at Old Depot, Galena, Kansas
Sound consultation: Wayne Dahlman
1980
Rick Alumbaugh, Lloyd Prins, Terry Pierson, vocals; Alumbaugh, Prins, Levi Morrow, guitars; Larry Johnston, bass; Fred Shaw, drums; Sammy Funkhouser, keyboards; Johnston, Shaw, percussion.
Tracks: Sitting on a Mountain Top; You're My Home; Pass'n Through; Needing You; You Can (But Not Me); True Love; Blue Skies; Trip to Calvary; Peace, Love, Joy; Merciful Love.
Fred Doerge
The Rev. Fred Doerge, a Joplin evangelist, was a pastor with the Spring River Baptist Association from 1957 to 1960. The Fred Doerge Evangelism Scholarship is named in honor of him at Courts Redford College of Theology and Church Vocations in Bolivar, Mo..
I Am Loved (cassette)
M 2817
Tracks: Jesus (He Means All the World to Me); Surely the Presence; What a Difference You've Made; More of You; Oasis of Love; Jesus (He Means All the World to Me) / Peace in the Midst of the Storm; Surely the Presence; I Found It; I Am Loved; The World Didn't Give it to Me; You Needed Me.
How Big is God
Sacred Melodies SLP-S-127
Tracks: How Big is God; Dwelling in Beulah Land (piano); He's My Rock, My Sword, My Shield; I Believe; Lord Is it I; Assurance March (organ); I Saw a Man; Yes He Did; Don't Spare Me; He's Everything to Me; Fill My Cup Lord; Life is Like a Mountain Railroad (organ).
Solid Gold Band
Country music group from Galena, Kan., true to the red dirt sound.
Bandera, Texas b/w I Never Had the One That I Wanted
NSD NSD 121
January 1982
Country Fiddles b/w The Sun Shines Bright in Oklahoma
NSD NSD 138
May 1982
OBC Brass Choir
(Ozark Bible College Concert Band, Joplin, Mo.)
"In the Sweet By and By" may actually beat out "Amazing Grace" as the old-time favorite in the region.
The Live Sound of Brass
Tracks: God of Our Fathers; How Great Thou Art; Send the Light; In the Sweet By and By; Sacred Suite; Christ Arose; Ivory Palaces; A Spiritual Festival; Amazing Grace; To God Be the Glory;
The Corley Bros.
Cassingle, apparently
Joplin Police Sting b/w Samson
1993
Max Brown
Former late 1950s Joplin Juco student and area performer. Father owned garage in Carthage, Mo. Had big Joplin radio hit with "China Town," a remake of The Five Keys' "Ling Ting Tong."
China Town b/w She'll be Sorry
Applause 8-1242
July 1960
During early summer of 2008 and shortly after playing Galena Days, The Missourians announced that baritone Troy Wade had joined forces. Wade had previously worked with The Revelations. He also was once lead singer for Brothers With Purpose. He replaced veteran Missourians member Doug Luton. The quartet is based in Joplin, Mo., and first organized in 1988. Wade was well established in Galena as a member of First Baptist Church and as director of sales and marketing for Oasis Car Wash Systems, an internationally recognized name and innovative leader in the car wash industry. Wade is the younger brother of Stephen Wade, president of Oasis. Revelations member Jerry Wade co-founded the business in 1964 in Galena.
...
The Revelations
A group from Galena, Kan., who recorded an album at a studio in Kentucky associated with the Happy Goodman Family.
The Revelations Sing
Big G Records BG 47
Recorded at Goodman Sound, Madisonville, Ky.
The Revelations: Jerry Wade, Richard Ebert, Willis Spencer, Bill Major, Gaylon Spencer
Musicians: Jim Dumas, Ed Crook, Jim Bowles, Aaron Wilburn, Rick Goodman, Jack Smith
Tracks: I Came to Praise the Lord; I Will Serve Thee; It's Alright; Let's Just Praise the Lord; This Could Be Your Last Chance; Somebody Loves Me; Redemption Draweth Nigh; Why Me; Until You Find the Lord; The Last Sunday.
Peace Love Joy
Passin Thru
PLJ 417
Recorded and mixed at Country Side Studios, Joplin, Mo.
All songs and arrangements by Peace Love Joy
Back cover group photo taken at Old Depot, Galena, Kansas
Sound consultation: Wayne Dahlman
1980
Rick Alumbaugh, Lloyd Prins, Terry Pierson, vocals; Alumbaugh, Prins, Levi Morrow, guitars; Larry Johnston, bass; Fred Shaw, drums; Sammy Funkhouser, keyboards; Johnston, Shaw, percussion.
Tracks: Sitting on a Mountain Top; You're My Home; Pass'n Through; Needing You; You Can (But Not Me); True Love; Blue Skies; Trip to Calvary; Peace, Love, Joy; Merciful Love.
Fred Doerge
The Rev. Fred Doerge, a Joplin evangelist, was a pastor with the Spring River Baptist Association from 1957 to 1960. The Fred Doerge Evangelism Scholarship is named in honor of him at Courts Redford College of Theology and Church Vocations in Bolivar, Mo..
I Am Loved (cassette)
M 2817
Tracks: Jesus (He Means All the World to Me); Surely the Presence; What a Difference You've Made; More of You; Oasis of Love; Jesus (He Means All the World to Me) / Peace in the Midst of the Storm; Surely the Presence; I Found It; I Am Loved; The World Didn't Give it to Me; You Needed Me.
How Big is God
Sacred Melodies SLP-S-127
Tracks: How Big is God; Dwelling in Beulah Land (piano); He's My Rock, My Sword, My Shield; I Believe; Lord Is it I; Assurance March (organ); I Saw a Man; Yes He Did; Don't Spare Me; He's Everything to Me; Fill My Cup Lord; Life is Like a Mountain Railroad (organ).
Solid Gold Band
Country music group from Galena, Kan., true to the red dirt sound.
Bandera, Texas b/w I Never Had the One That I Wanted
NSD NSD 121
January 1982
Country Fiddles b/w The Sun Shines Bright in Oklahoma
NSD NSD 138
May 1982
OBC Brass Choir
(Ozark Bible College Concert Band, Joplin, Mo.)
"In the Sweet By and By" may actually beat out "Amazing Grace" as the old-time favorite in the region.
The Live Sound of Brass
Tracks: God of Our Fathers; How Great Thou Art; Send the Light; In the Sweet By and By; Sacred Suite; Christ Arose; Ivory Palaces; A Spiritual Festival; Amazing Grace; To God Be the Glory;
The Corley Bros.
Cassingle, apparently
Joplin Police Sting b/w Samson
1993
Max Brown
Former late 1950s Joplin Juco student and area performer. Father owned garage in Carthage, Mo. Had big Joplin radio hit with "China Town," a remake of The Five Keys' "Ling Ting Tong."
China Town b/w She'll be Sorry
Applause 8-1242
July 1960
...
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Land's sake, times have changed...
Autographed postcards of major league stars for the asking
I was not aware that people collected and valued autographed postcards. My cousin Margaret had an 8x10 picture of Charlton Heston hanging on her wall. She was taken with him since the 1952 movie we had seen (several times for her) The Greatest Show on Earth at the Maywood. I thought that was amazing to have an actual photograph of a movie star. What really intrigued me was that she sent off and asked for it.
The notion that I could do something like that seemed incredible in my small world, not that I actually thought of myself as living in a small world. It was more of how everything beyond the city limits was part of the great and vast unknown. My actually doing it happened a few years later on. It was not my intention to collect autographed postcards, but it worked out that way.
After looking at a page in a baseball magazine that showed a small picture of the major league ballparks with their addresses, it came to me like a bolt out of the blue. I'll write a letter to certain players using the ballpark address and ask for a picture. It worked like a charm. I wrote to Frank Robinson, C/O Cincinnati Redlegs, Cincinnati, Ohio. To Ted Kluszewski, Gus Bell, Harvey Kuenn, Dusty Rhodes, Jackie Robinson, Red Schoendienst, Bob Lemon, Ted Williams, Ed Bailey, Enos Slaughter, Richie Ashburn, Stan Musial, and a few others.
In the past, Grandma Martin had explained the meaning for using C/O (for "in care of") on letters and I was proud of myself for not only remembering it but finding a use for it on my own.
Some ballplayers even took the time in a note to thank me for writing. Nearly all were postcards, not the bigger photographs I had anticipated. I liked the postcard style better. They had a certain charm. Ashburn's was in glossy color and Musial did send an 8x10. A few never responded and for those that did nearly all placed their signature.
It was a wintertime pleasure each day wondering what the mail would bring. I wondered, since it was the off-season, if someone with the team -- since I had sent it to the team's address -- read the letters and addressed and mailed the postcards for the players. Nope. To find out I knew I had only to look at a postmark or two. I had one in particular in mind. Where Ed Bailey was born was a town name that stuck with me. How did I know where he was born? I knew all about all of them from my baseball cards. I turned the postcard over and there it was: "Strawberry Plains, Tenn."
Unfortunately for me the story has an unhappy ending. I stacked the postcards and bound them with a rubber band. They remained stored in a trunk for years. The trunk was in a shed and when I opened it a little more than twenty years later, some dampness had crept in and the sticky emulsion caused them to all stick together like honey between newspaper pages. Trying to salvage what I could, I was able to tear off a corner containing Jackie Robinson's autograph. Not bad at that.
Never can tell when you might need that pinch poke
Grandma's small, black change purse she called "a pinch poke." It stayed in her full size purse. A poke was a bag or a sack. A poke sack, while seemingly redundant in term, was a common item. Buying a pig in a poke meant you didn't know what you were getting. Her pinch poke in addition to some coins also contained a few buttons and safety pins, things you might need in a pinch.
-30-
I was not aware that people collected and valued autographed postcards. My cousin Margaret had an 8x10 picture of Charlton Heston hanging on her wall. She was taken with him since the 1952 movie we had seen (several times for her) The Greatest Show on Earth at the Maywood. I thought that was amazing to have an actual photograph of a movie star. What really intrigued me was that she sent off and asked for it.
The notion that I could do something like that seemed incredible in my small world, not that I actually thought of myself as living in a small world. It was more of how everything beyond the city limits was part of the great and vast unknown. My actually doing it happened a few years later on. It was not my intention to collect autographed postcards, but it worked out that way.
After looking at a page in a baseball magazine that showed a small picture of the major league ballparks with their addresses, it came to me like a bolt out of the blue. I'll write a letter to certain players using the ballpark address and ask for a picture. It worked like a charm. I wrote to Frank Robinson, C/O Cincinnati Redlegs, Cincinnati, Ohio. To Ted Kluszewski, Gus Bell, Harvey Kuenn, Dusty Rhodes, Jackie Robinson, Red Schoendienst, Bob Lemon, Ted Williams, Ed Bailey, Enos Slaughter, Richie Ashburn, Stan Musial, and a few others.
In the past, Grandma Martin had explained the meaning for using C/O (for "in care of") on letters and I was proud of myself for not only remembering it but finding a use for it on my own.
Some ballplayers even took the time in a note to thank me for writing. Nearly all were postcards, not the bigger photographs I had anticipated. I liked the postcard style better. They had a certain charm. Ashburn's was in glossy color and Musial did send an 8x10. A few never responded and for those that did nearly all placed their signature.
It was a wintertime pleasure each day wondering what the mail would bring. I wondered, since it was the off-season, if someone with the team -- since I had sent it to the team's address -- read the letters and addressed and mailed the postcards for the players. Nope. To find out I knew I had only to look at a postmark or two. I had one in particular in mind. Where Ed Bailey was born was a town name that stuck with me. How did I know where he was born? I knew all about all of them from my baseball cards. I turned the postcard over and there it was: "Strawberry Plains, Tenn."
Unfortunately for me the story has an unhappy ending. I stacked the postcards and bound them with a rubber band. They remained stored in a trunk for years. The trunk was in a shed and when I opened it a little more than twenty years later, some dampness had crept in and the sticky emulsion caused them to all stick together like honey between newspaper pages. Trying to salvage what I could, I was able to tear off a corner containing Jackie Robinson's autograph. Not bad at that.
Never can tell when you might need that pinch poke
Grandma's small, black change purse she called "a pinch poke." It stayed in her full size purse. A poke was a bag or a sack. A poke sack, while seemingly redundant in term, was a common item. Buying a pig in a poke meant you didn't know what you were getting. Her pinch poke in addition to some coins also contained a few buttons and safety pins, things you might need in a pinch.
-30-
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