It was the summer of 1967, the summer of love. I was a naive 12 year old living in a small, isolated town in Kansas. My only inkling of what was going on that summer was from Walter Cronkite and the CBS Evening News. My oldest sister Terri had just graduated from high school, and she was dating (and later married) a DJ from a Top 40 radio station. Chuck was the coolest guy I had ever met. He drove a slick black 2-door Fury hardtop with mag wheels and glass packs. He was witty and fun and all the girls loved him. Up until that point I had no great interest in music or radio. Terri bought all the Beatle's 45's and I thought they were great, but that was about it. So I started listening to the radio, at first to hear Chuck, but then I started scanning the dial.
In the late 1960s, the few FM stations that did exist played only classical music. AM radio was full of crackle and full of life. I found out that on a clear summer night you can hear the world on tube-powered bakelite AM radio. I discovered several Top 40 clear channel stations from all over the country, WLS in Chicago, KOMA in Oklahoma City, WOAI in San Antonio, and KAAY in Little Rock, tuning in another station when one had faded out. I made a list of my favorite songs and the groups who sang them.
Then one Saturday night I stayed up late, past midnight, and KAAY was transformed into..... Beaker Street. Slowly, a window into a whole new world of music opened. Clyde Clifford was the DJ, but he wasn't your typical fast-talking Top 40 DJ, he spoke slowly and softly over this eerie, space music that played in the background. And the music he played was definitely not Top 40, it was Underground Music from bands with strange names like Pink Floyd, Savoy Brown, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and Quicksilver Messenger Service. I learned that "Light my Fire" was not a 3 minute pop song, but a 7:05 guitar and organ opus. I was hooked, throughout that summer and for the rest of my adolescence I lived for Beaker Street. Thanks, Clyde Clifford, I learned a lot from your midnight music appreciation class.
Believe it or not, Clyde Clifford is alive & broadcasting on the web:
My Grandma Tharp was a tiny lady, less than five foot tall, with white hair, glasses, and a smile from ear to ear. She was the kindest person in the world, I believe that Grandma never uttered a cross or unkind word in her life. She lived way out in western Kansas, in the little town of Shallow Water. We would travel out there every summer to visit Grandma, Grandpa and our cousins. Grandma had a big, dark brown, arch-top acoustic guitar with thick steel strings that stung our fingers when we tried to play it. If we begged her, Grandma would strum chords and sing for her "grandbabies".
My first guitar came from the Sears catalog when I was barely a teenager. I didn't know anything about buying a guitar, only that I wanted one that looked like Glenn Campbell's. The only one in the catalog that looked something like his was a classical guitar. As luck would have it, the guitar I wanted had nylon strings which are easier on the finger tips and better for beginners. I worked at odd jobs for six months, saving every penny until I had scrapped together $30 to buy that guitar. My Mom scoffed when I asked her to order it for me, but she said that I had earned the money and could buy whatever I wanted. After waiting for what seemed like months, it finally arrived. I rushed out to retrieve the large cardboard box that the mailman had left propped up against the mailbox. I held my breath as I opened the box... it was just as pretty as the picture in the catalog and I knew that I would be playing like Glen Campbell in no time (wrong). Thirty years later, I'm still learning.
My brother Dob was the original man of a thousand faces, long before Jim Carrey made a million dollars doing the very same thing.
As teenagers growing up in small-town Kansas there wasn't alot to do, no mall, no movie theatre, no video games, no satellite TV. All we had was time and wide open spaces. But, it is amazing what bored kids with imagination can find to have fun and stay out of trouble.
All we needed for a summer's evening of entertainment was a case of beer and a flash light. After dark we'd all hang out at the "rock pile", an area off the highway where the state stored crushed rock. Back in those days an 18 year old could buy "three-two" beer in Kansas. We'd hunt down a high school senior and give him five bucks to buy us a case of Bud. After guzzling enough beers Dob would bring out the flashlight and we'd laugh our asses off over the infinite number of ways he would contort his rubber face. He could go all night without repeating himself. Now whenever I see Jim Carrey I can't help but be reminded of my brother Dob, our original man of a thousand faces.
In the early days of television, networks did not program daytime shows, so local stations had to fill the time slots. Whizzo was my favorite after school kids TV show. Whizzo jumped out from behind a curtain, tripped over items scattered around his set and sang the theme song he composed. He tried tricks that usually fizzled and then introduced cartoons. Every kid in town knew the Whizzo song:
Who's always smiling, never sad, it's Whizzo.
Who makes the boys and girls so glad, Whizzo.
He's a merry fellow with a big red shiny nose,
Dressed in crazy mixed up clothes from his head down to his toes.
He has a great big trunk of tricks, has Whizzo.
He'll sing a song or do a dance for you.
And when your sad he'll make you glad,
The very best friend you ever had,
Whizzo the clown that's who.
Click here to view a video of Whizzo
(Requires Quicktime)
My Grandma and Grandpa Streator's farm was the ultimate playground for "town kids" with imagination. We'd all scream with delight when Mom would tell us to pile in the station wagon, "we're going to grandma's house".
Grandma's farm was better than any amusement park:
The trips to the moon and all points in between still seem incredibly real to me. It's hard to believe that it was all just a little boy's runaway imagination.
