Saturday, December 01, 2007

From Whitney:

Met some interesting people Sat morning over at the old Mayfield
place, claimed they knew you.

Attached is an invitation to Bob Tanton's wedding I ran across. Bob
drew the image with a rapidograph pen that was in a holder someone
had made for him. Nanci was a girl from Georgetown, KY I met in 1972
and dated for a while. That's how she met Bob. They adopted a Vietnamese girl.



His Dad made all of Bobby's accomedations and his daughter Arie (sp?) is of Korean descent. Bobby was one of the finest pointillist I have ever seen. His acrylics are awesome also. I have one two of his paintings Frank has many.
He is missed and remembered by this po' ole' cracker every day.
His funeral was a gass!
Best
Later...
rbiii


Robert,
Thank you so much for sending that to me... Bob and Nancy were married for 16 years, until Bob died... They actually they adopted a Korean infant, and named her Ari Anne... Bob died in 1990 and was buried on Christmas Eve... My family and I are still very close to Nancy and Ari and visit with them regularly. Nancy lives in Cary, NC and works at the Museum Of Art near Raleigh,,, Ari graduated from the University of Maryland near DC and is a beautiful young woman...
As you know Bob was quite an artist... If you like I could photograph some of his work and send it to you for the blog...
Thanks again,
Frank

Hey y'all:

THE BOSS JUST SHOWED UP!!!!

AT EXACTLY 4:04 A.M.


WHEW!!!!

TIME TO TIGHTEN UP!

[it rilly duddn't matter 'cause
ALL I AM NOW
now
IS
just a BON VIVANT!]


ANYWAYZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ...

Check out Ms. Jody singing
YOUR DOG 'BOUT TO KILL MY CAT
http://www.rhapsody.com/msjody
Best Blues Song I heard Over Thanksgiving Holidayzzzzzzzzzzz!!!!

Left Tuscaloosa Thanksgiving under "CONFEDERATE GREY SKIES" as Tiger Jack used to like to say. Saw a huge Confederate Flag cover the 12 wide trailer's window
but the kewlist Confederate thing I saw on the trip wuz a car tag with a the silhouette of a naked woman on her hands & knees papered with the Confederate flag.

Best church sign on the trip:
A CLOSED HEART IS THE WORST PRISON

Jerome Hopkins was an incredible character & a superb piano player.
Check out the myspace music site for Bama Coach Dude Hennessey's wife,
CAROLE

http://www.myspace.com/carolehennesseytrio

We got this message from Carole Hennessey's grand daughter:



RE: Jerome Hopkins

that is so great that you have a tribute to jerome. this is carole hennessey's grandaughter that maintains her myspace. she got very ill recently and was hospitalized and losing all hope for life so i made the myspace page to show her how much she meant not only to me and my family but to others. as wild as this sounds it made her realize something and she had a miraculous recovery. the alabama music hall of fame calls her every year to try and induct her but she doesn't feel adequate to be honored in such a way. but she and jerome were inseperable and when he died a part of her died but at least the recordings live on. i will certainly pass the word on about your tribute - she doesn't use the computer but it will bring a smile to her face. i will hit you up with a friends request from my music pages as well as one of the songs has jerome in the mix (http://www.myspace.com/milynsmusic AND http://www.myspace.com/royalandtoulouse). thanks again for the info and i will pass it along ---


When I went to see Buie in the hospital last Sunday morning,
we were talking about something & he said,
"That's what I meant when I wrote
I'M NOT GONNA LET IT BOTHER ME TONIGHT!"

SO, WHOOP,
'DERE IT IS...


I'M NOT GONNA LET IT BOTHER ME TONIGHT
Atlanta Rhythm Section

I picked up the paper this morning
And read all the daily blues
The world is one big tragedy
I wonder what I can do

About all the pain and injustice
About all of the sorrow
We're living in a danger zone
The world could end tomorrow

But I'm not gonna let it bother me tonight
I'm not gonna let it bother me tonight
Tomorrow I might go as far as suicide
But I won't let it bother me tonight

Life on the street is a jungle
A struggle to keep up the pace
I just can't beat that old dog eat dog
The rats keep winnin' the rat race

But I'm not gonna let it bother me tonight
I'm not gonna let it bother me tonight
The world is in an uproar and I see no end in sight
But I won't let it bother me tonight

I'm not gonna let it bother me tonight
Tomorrow I might go as far as suicide
But I won't let it bother me tonight

Lord, Lord, Lord
We got nothing but trouble
I've done all I can do today
So bartender pour me a double, right now

But I'm not gonna let it bother me tonight
I'm not gonna let it bother me tonight
The world is in an uproar and I see no end in sight
But I won't let it bother me tonight

I'm not gonna let it bother me tonight
No I'm not gonna let it bother me tonight
Tomorrow I might go as far as suicide
But I will not let it bother me tonight

"Ice man's a nice man"

http://www.myspace.com/carolehennesseytrio

courtesy of http://www.sfrc.ufl.edu/4h/Slash_pine/slaspine.htm

I now have a Slash Pine Cone & needles on the dash of the Exploder.
Of course, we don't have many Slash Pine in Tuscaloosa
but I got my suspicions about where a couple might be located.

Anywayzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...
Slash Pine is the deal 'round JAY-KNEE-VER...

ROCK102.5 in Dothan is badder than anything in T-town or B'ham.
They oughta be proud of they bad selves...
http://www.rock1025.com/


Going back to Dusy Street during Thanksgiving & seeing the 8 Mexicans hangin' out with the bleach blond crack whore on Mrs. Page's front porch right across from Young Jr.
rilly hurt my feelings.

Bon Vivant...
I like that http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bon_vivant

This Godwin cat has a place below Troy called Art Wurks http://larrygodwin.com/SculptureISlice/SculptureIPg.html
but now there this big SADDLE CREEK RANCH but I haven't been able to find out about them over the internet.

Rita Coolidge still sounds so good...
http://ritacoolidge.com/index.shtml

IS IT COLD ENOUGH FOR YA, BABY?

If ya ever feel like
ripping a conspiracy theorist a new one,
PUT 'EM ON THIS HERE! http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/1007/1007camcultrev.htm

Anything you can do to get road & street signs , please do it.
The street signs on the West End are absolutely pitiful
&
I saw a new sign for COOPER CREEK on Sanitary Dairy Road through the Rube Lewis property.
That wuz so kewl.
I never knew that little gully was called COOPER CREEK.

Now that I'm starting to learn more about the early history of the restaurant business in Dothan, I wanna know more about Swift bringing that prime midwest beef in refrigerated rail cars to town.
http://www.bookrags.com/biography/gustavus-franklin-swift/
That changed the scene like nobody's business.
Help we write
THE HISTORY OF MEAT IN DOTHAN!
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-1482%28198922%2963%3A3%3C15%3A%22WA%27BB%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Q&size=LARGE&origin=JSTOR-enlargePage

I ALWAYZZZZZZZZZZZZ
reset my trip meter in Utopia
between Montgomery & Troy.

Do you ever get that idea that all us Southerners are like those Comcast turtles...
http://www.theslowskys.com/home/

BEST LYRICS LATELY...
from Sugarland:

I ain't settling for just getting by
I've had enough so so for the rest of my life
Tired of shooting too low, so raise the bar high
I ain't settling no, no, no, no, no, no

So raise the bar high

There were NO COPS on the road on Thanksgiving.
It were so kewl.
They gave out 15,ooo tickets the days before
& then quit before Robert Register came down the road!!!!


image by Buddy Henry

Furtrader,
A couple of sights that you may have interest in on
www.rootsweb.com/~alhousto/Cemeteries/cemeteries.htm

this sight has links to different cemeteries in Houston county(Ramah) also Houston county now has a plot map and taxed value of lands in the county
www.houstoncounty.org
Hope you enjoy these sights.
Bud


Buzzards everywhere during Thanksgiving.
I even saw some roosting on top of a house
as I rode along the BELLY OF BAMA on Junction Road.

Lee always buys me books at yard sales & one of the best lately has been EBONY's Black History books.
Here's a kewl quote:

Lerone Bennett Jr., in BEFORE THE MAYFLOWER, has described what freedom meant to many blacks:

Negro soldiers and civilians had something to cheer about. With the defeat of Lee and the surrender of Joseph Johnston, the freedom of words, of the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment, became a freedom involving concrete realities.

To the ex-slaves, freedom was a serious thing.

Freedom was getting married before a preacher and signing a paper and knowing that it was for always and not until the next cotton crop.

Freedom was Bibles, freedom was churches, freedom was gin.

Freedom was two names.

A man sat for awhile and decided on a name and if he didn't like it, he could change it tomorrow.

Freedom was getting up when you wanted to and lying down when the spirit hit you.

Freedom was doing nothing too.

How was a man to know he was free if he couldn't sit still and watch the sun and pull on his pipe when he didn't want to do anything else?

Freedom was all this and more, but mostly it was books and legs:
an opportunity to learn and the right to pick up & go.

best,
rr






Thursday, November 29, 2007

Hey y'all:
I guess the best way to start
THIS
is with this rap
which just so happens to be
dedicated to "yu no hoo"

"Now you're my SUGAR WOOGER
& my heart desire
& you're the only one
CAN SET MY SOUL ON FIRE!!!!"


TEASING TAN

I walk in the rain
& I don't get wet.
I work in 90 degrees weather
& I don't even sweat.
I'm just teasing tan
& pleasing in the pants.

I got the sweetest thing
In all this land.
They say I'm often imitated
But I'm never duplicated.

I always keep things
SIMPLICATED...

Now you're my SUGAR WOOGER
& my heart's desire
& you're the only one
Can set my soul on fire!

You see I'm Rolls Royce riding
With a woman on the hood.
She got wings on her hips.
You know it's looking good.

With gangster walls.

I'm just teasin' tan
& sweet in the pants.

I GOT THE SWEETEST THING
IN ALL THIS LAND!



WHOA!

We having some fun with Tuscaloosa's Copper Theft Task Force!!!!
WE ON DAH MONEY!

You know Tom Wolfe in THE ELECTRIC KOOL-AID ACID TEST said that Kesey & his crowd talked about "the unspoken thing" but I think with our crowd,
it's more like
THE INSIDE VIBE!




Now Greg Haynes from http://heybabydays.com
recently responded to a relative of the Brennan radio family
& Greg's letter is so BAD
I just had to transcribe it and put it out to the residents
of ZERO, NORTHWEST FLORIDA.

I guess if he don't like he can see me in court.

4th Quarter Comments from Greg Haynes for http://heybabydays.com

November 16, 2007

Yesterday, I received a very nice letter from Diane Brennan Knapp, the daughter of Cyril Brennan, one of the owners of WAPE (The Mighty 690) in Jacksonville, Florida.
Brennan Broadcasting also owned WBAM "Big Bam" in Montgomery, WVOK in Birmingham &
WFLI in Lookout Mountain, Tennessee but in South Georgia it was THE BIG APE
that captured the teenage audience back in the day.

Diane's letter can be found in the "Letters" section of the book page.
My return letter follows.

November 16, 2007

Diane,

Thank you for your nice letter. It's affirming letters like yours that has made the effort in the project worthwhile.

Ironically, as I sit in my car at 6:15 A.M. this morning waiting for an associate to drive to a meeting near Birmingham, I hear the sultry voice of Wilbur Walton in the background.

The particular cut on Volume 12 of THE HEEEY BABY DAYS OF BEACH MUSIC CD Series
is on produced by another Alabamian, Buddy Buie.
The song, FOR A LITTLE OF HER SUNSHINE, is the third cut on the CD preceded by THE MELODY MAKERS cover of Willie Tee's
WALKIN' UP A ONE WAY STREET
& followed by The Weejuns'
WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?
We know there was a great band from Alabama back in those days named The Weejuns
but this great band of Weejuns on this CD is from Burlington, North Carolina
& THE MELODY MAKERS hail from Beaufort, South Carolina.

THAT sums up that incredible age that I call THE HEEEY BABY DAYS OF BEACH MUSIC.

There were great bands from all over the South making great music & so many of them didn't know all their counterparts in other states.

Only a handful of the Southern R&B bands from the South gained much notoriety in the era;e.g.
Swingin' Medallions, Tams, Bill Deal & the Rhondells, etc.

One of the pleasures at the HEEEY BABY DAYS OF BEACH MUSIC PROJECT
has been seeing many of these musicians reconnect with one another.

And that brings me to the Rockin' Gibraltars...


Robertoreg & Rockin' Gibraltars' Singer Sonny Greer @ R.E. Lee Class of '67
40th Reunion


I had the pleasure of seeing the original RGs perform this past summer in Montgomery for a high school reunion & they were great.

They sounded like they did when I last heard them in Waycross, Georgia in 1966 or '67.

Thanks to the great stations like THE BIG BAM & THE BIG APE,
many of the regional bands got their records played.

Many of these bands were on the edge of breaking out nationally.

Specifically, others besides the RGs that your father's & uncle's radio stations helped get exposure included
THE VILLAGERS from Marianna, Florida (LAUGH IT OFF),
MOUSE, THE BOYS & BRASS (DANCIN' TO THE BEAT)
& dozens of other bands.

THE MIGHTY 690's
signal traversed the Okefenokee Swamp and was a standard fixture for teenagers in my hometown.

What great institutions: Brennan Broadcasting, their deejays and great concerts.

Next time there is a BIG BAM reunion, please let me know.
I would love to attend.

Regards,
Greg Haynes

Message to Buddy Buie:

Buddy,
There's still music in your soul.
We all prayed for you because we can't let you go until you sing it all!
We thank God for your recovery!
--William Wheatley




From wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwyker....


Just wanted to get this in the archives and some of ya'll may not have seen this when the cd came out a few months ago on Collector's Choice (a division of Rhino Records) the reviewer said that the liner notes were worth the price of the CD......enjoy

LINER NOTES FOR SAILCAT'S MOTORCYCLE MAMA

By Richie Unterberger

When Sailcat's "Motorcycle Mama" rose to #12 in the national singles chart in the summer of 1972, few would have suspected that the song had almost literally got thrown out in the garbage before it had a chance to get released. Too, few were aware that its songwriter, John Wyker, was hardly a newcomer to the business, but had been a behind-the-scenes player of note in the Southern rock scene for more than a decade. Accordingly, the Motorcycle Mama album was a diverse cocktail of the Muscle Shoals, Alabama roots music in which Wyker was steeped, merging blues, country, R&B, rock, and gospel music into a concept album of sorts.
Wyker had barely entered his teens when he first got into the music business in the late 1950s, hanging around Spar Music in Florence, "the only recording studio [then] in the state of Alabama as far as I know." He got to know the great soul singer Arthur Alexander, songwriter Dan Penn, and some of the session musicians who'd later form the backbone of the Muscle Shoals sound. By his college years he was playing in a band with singer John Townsend (who struck gold in the late 1970s as part of the Sanford & Townsend duo) and bassist Ed Pickett, older brother of Sailcat singer Court Pickett. As the Rubber Band, they had a mid-'60s hit in many regions of the South with an original tune on Columbia, "Let Love Come Between Us." With the composition co-credited to Wyker and Joe Sobotka, in 1967 the song was covered by the popular soul duo James & Bobby Purify, rising to #23 in the pop charts. Near the end of the '60s, he formed American Eagles with John "Buck" Wilkin (who'd spearheaded Ronny & the Daytonas, who had a big hot rod hit in 1964 with "G.T.O.") and a young Chuck Leavell, who dropped out of high school to be the piano player. American Eagles issued just one single on Liberty, but that 45 (co-produced by Wyker in Muscle Shoals) was Kris Kristofferson's "Me and Bobby McGee," well before Janis Joplin took the same song to #1.

By the early 1970s, John was hanging out in Tuscaloosa, Alabama with Leavell and Court Pickett. "Three o'clock in the morning we'd be out in the parking lot, Court'd be doing 'Motorcycle Mama,'" he recalls. "I'd be playing and singing along with him, and the local Hell's Angeles would be out there just loving it." At a local bar in February 1971, Wyker "just jumped up on the bar and said, 'I heard somebody opened a new studio in Muscle Shoals. He mainly knows about running a truck stop, and had never been in the business. These two girls have volunteered to drive me up there. I'm gonna go up there and talk a speculation deal for some recording time. Anybody that wants to play on it, come on up. By the time you get there, I'll have a deal made.' That was a pretty bold thing to do, and crazy. But we go up there, and I catch the guy, Ron Ballew, who owned Widget Studios, walking out of the studio about midnight."

Wyker wasted no time going into his pitch, and "by this time, I didn't expect it, but all my friends from Tuscaloosa showed up, like Chuck Leavell and his girlfriend, and the dog, the cat, and all his equipment. Lou Mullenix, an incredible drummer that died way too young, and about 15 guitar players. I mean, he couldn't have thrown us out of the studio. We had literally just taken over by force. But he said, 'Give me a minute.' He called around, and evidently somebody gave me a good reference. So we started a publishing company together and recorded for two or three days, cut four songs—'Motorcycle Mama,' 'Rainbow Road,' 'B.B. Gunn,' and I think 'The Thief.' So we get a motel, come back, listened to what we did, and I said, 'Oh, man, this is the worst thing I ever heard in my life.' And took the tape, and literally threw it in the garbage can."

Soon afterward, John was knocking around Florida with Leavell, Mullinix, and Capricorn artists Cowboy and Alex Taylor when Ron Ballew somehow got a hold of him by phone. "He says 'Wyker, I took "Motorcycle Mama"'—and it didn't [even] have the Pete Carr slide guitar on it at that time—'I caught Russ Miller, vice president of Elektra Records.' I didn't think Ron could pitch it because the only thing he had to play it on was one of those Dictaphone machines. [But] he played it for Russ, and almost before the thing was finished, [Miller] said, 'I'll take it. I know [Elektra president] Jac Holzman will love this, because he started his business delivering his recordings on a Harley 165. I'll give you a $30,000 budget, any artwork you want, if you can get this guy to finish the album.'"

Ballew did get Wyker to finish the album, even flying down to Macon, Georgia, where John had "caught pneumonia or something," to take him back to Muscle Shoals and get "me a doctor and some antibiotics and stuff." The producer was also chosen in the on-the-fly spirit guiding the whole enterprise: "Pete Carr was trying to break into the business. I'd met him in '65. He was trying to get a job as a guitar player or something at Muscle Shoals Sound. Word got out that I was building the perfect beast, and Pete came down like the first or second day that we were recording, and all I wanted to do was get drunk and go sit by the river or something. So I said, 'Hey Pete, you wanna produce?' Pete almost went into shock. He just rolled [his] sleeves up and started telling people what to do. He said word got out at Muscle Shoals Sound, which was a closed door for him, [and] they offered him a job as soon as he finished the project."

Carr wrote a couple of songs ("The Dream" and "It'll Be a Long Long Time") for the LP as well, and would go on to play guitar on albums by Bob Seger, Paul Simon, Willie Nelson, Rod Stewart, and numerous other big names in the business. Old friends Court Pickett, Chuck Leavell, and Lou Mullenix were among the supporting players, with bassist/singer Pickett being the only other official member of Sailcat besides Wyker. Why Sailcat? "The name came from a Jonathan Winters record, where a sailcat is a cat that's been run over so many times on the highway that you can scoop him up and throw him like a frisbee," reveals John.

"We went in the studio, and I hadn't written but about fifteen seconds of half the songs on there," Wyker admits. "But most of the songs were vague ideas in my head, and when we got everybody together, the adrenaline would start flowing to where I could finish the songs on the spot. I remember when we did 'Highway Riff,' we had an intro on the guitar, and I told [keyboardist] Clayton Ivey, 'In one part, I want it to sound like he's riding and the cops are chasing him.' That's when Clayton starts just beating on the Hammond organ. I said, 'And then I want it to be like an adventure, and all of a sudden, he comes to a screeching halt. And then the sun's going down, and I want it to sound like he's coming into town and winding down, and eventually winds up in a bar having a beer. In "Ambush," I want places where it sounds like circus girls swinging by their feet from those ropes.' Just turned Clayton loose, gave him a bunch of visual illustrations, and he interpreted it so well. 'Ambush' and 'Highway Riff' are two of my favorite songs still." Strings were added in Memphis at Sun Records, and the famed Memphis Horns were also used.

As for the album's "concept" (with which Wyker is even credited on the back cover), "I called it a rock opera. The storyline behind Motorcycle Mama is really simple to understand. It's about a no-good riding motorcycled tramp that is really a latent romantic, and has dreams of settling down and having a family. And 'B.B. Gunn' shoots him down." In the inside of the original gatefold sleeve, each song was illustrated with a different picture by artist Jack Davis, working from details supplied by John.

The record label was happy too, as "the guy from Elektra gave me a box of albums and $500, which was a lot of money back then. He said, 'I had the privilege of telling Dustin Hoffman after he made The Graduate that this movie was gonna change his life forever. I've got the same honor to be able to tell you that this is gonna be a hit, and it's gonna change your life. Go somewhere and stay healthy, and we'll contact you when we're ready.'" John went to "a sleepy little fishing village" in Florida, "checked in the campground, and gave the lady one of the albums. I loved it so much, I'd never felt that free, just having a good time. I was seriously considering telling Elektra to go fuck off. But one day I was in the shower and heard 'Motorcycle Mama.' My first thought was, I gave the woman an album, she's probably got it on at the turntable in the playroom behind the shower. Then at the end of the thing, I heard the guy say, 'That was ol' Sailcat singing about his motorcycle mama. I got one, how 'bout you? This is WTIX, in New Orleans.' I knew it was a 50,000-watt, important [station]. I went running out of the shower naked, screaming, 'Hey y'all, I just heard "Motorcycle Mama" on the radio! Hallucination verification, somebody! We got a hit!' That night, there was a radio on, I remember the song before it was 'Candy Man' by Sammy Davis Jr., and then they played one by Frank Sinatra Jr. Then later we heard it on a country station. I said, 'Good god, man, I got a fucking crossover hit. Something I threw in the garbage can.'"

It wasn't long before Sailcat were promoting the record in Los Angeles. "It was already in the charts, and we didn't have a band put together," says Wyker. With a hastily hired backup group, they appeared on TV with Dick Clark, where Clark "says, 'How come so much great music comes out of a little town like Muscle Shoals, Alabama?' I said, 'There's nothin' else to do.' Sweat popped out of Dick Clark, just shot out every pore, like 'he's just insulted his home town.' He thought they'd take it a different way. But people that live there knew I was telling the truth."

His candor wasn't always appreciated by Elektra, however: "I cussed the label out from the stage of Carnegie Hall. Somebody said 'Motorcycle Mama'! I said, 'You know, I hate that fucking song. It's just so wussy. I had thrown it in a garbage can, and somebody fished it out and these fucking double-domed eggheads from L.A. thought it could be a hit, and they made it a hit, and I'm ashamed of it. I'll play it, but first, I'm gonna play it the way I feel it.' And did a whole 'nother, like, 'Why Don't We Do It in the Road' version of 'Motorcycle Mama.' But I kind of said some nasty things onstage and had some people squirming. When we ended our show, we went right back in the bathroom and locked the doors so they couldn't beat us up and cuss us out. We passed out in there, and about four in the morning this guy says, 'They're gonna turn the heat off, and it's gonna get down to zero tonight, so if you're in there, you're gonna freeze to death.' So we woke up and got out of there."

Motorcycle Mama sold pretty well, reaching #38 on the album charts. Yet although Sailcat did issue a subsequent non-LP single, "Baby Ruth," they never made another album, though Court Pickett did a solo LP for Elektra shortly afterward. "We were a one-hit wonder by choice," explains Wyker. "I was so burned out on the road. They would fly us from one side of the country to the next. I said, 'Man, this was a freak accident, I'm not going to try to duplicate the success. I'm gonna leave while I'm on top.' Then came back to Muscle Shoals, bought a 24-foot houseboat, and lived on it."

John's still living in Alabama today, putting most of his musical energies into the Mighty Field of Vision project (www.mightyfieldofvision.com), which is both an internet radio station and a foundation for aiding fellow musicians and artists in need of social and financial assistance. "Now my mission in life is to promote new artists, and also, more importantly, expose some stuff that got done in the '60s and '70s that got put in the vaults, and the record companies missed them, or passed over 'em, or somebody had half an album and died, and their music was destined to live in the can and collect dust forever," he summarizes. "Our content, you can't get it anywhere else."

Tuesday, November 27, 2007


image courtesy of http://www.chess-theory.com/images1/01522_henri_matisse.jpg
JOY OF LIFE
BY HENRI MATISSE



Buddy Buie In Front Of His House On Lake Eufaula

Buddy At The Top Of The Bluff In Bluffton, GA

Buddy & Gloria Jane

TO EVERYONE:

Just eight days ago I was taking a walk with Gloria and my dog Sadie.
When we got back to the house I was a little
tired but I thought nothing of it. I had a little fever that night and went to bed early because I had a doctors appointment.

The next day had been scheduled for a while for a consultation.
By the time I arrived at the doctors office, I was feeling
lousy and informed the doc that something was wrong that was totally unrelated to the consultation originally scheduled.

He listened to my chest and did an x-ray. A few minutes later he walked back in and said,
"You have pneumonia and I want
to put you in the hospital immediately."

After being admitted and checked into a room, they began giving me oxygen and intravenous
antibiotics. The pneumonia was causing Atrial Fibrillation and the upper chamber of my heart was racing.

I was in a mess!!

The doctor came by the next morning and reviewed my charts then closed the door and sat down beside my bed and told me he was very concerned because I was on 100% percent oxygen and still had extremely low blood oxygen levels.
The antibiotics were having zero effect and he admitted that he didn't know if he could help me but he would try every thing he could.

They rushed me to ICU and injected large doses of steroids and six different antibiotics.
One of the antibiotics cost over a thousand dollars a bag.
In the final scheme of things, none of the antibiotics really helped.

They finely found the culprit.
It was a bacteria which was resistant to antibiotics, called pseudomonas .
By this time the steroids had fought back a small amount of the inflammation and miraculously my body's immune system began to win the battle.

My doctors told me they thought I wouldn't make it the night before,
and said I wouldn't have if I had been a smoker or had a weak immune system.

I have never been that afraid or prayed so hard.

I am 67 and that was my first trip to the hospital so naturally I thought I was bullet proof.

I am back home today
and thanking God for every breath.

The sunshine has never been so bright, the sky has never been so blue, and my attitude has never been so
changed.

There are things I want to do and I have put them off.
There are people who mean a lot to me, but I've never told them.

Those days
are over.

Last Wednesday I would have died if God was ready for me but
I'm ALIVE and plan to celebrate this wonderful life he gave me.

For all of you who prayed for me....
IT WORKED !!!!!!

LIVE YOUR LIFE IN THE PRESENT TENSE.
YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT TOMORROW HAS IN STORE.



BUDDY BUIE
November 27,2007

Hey y'all:

I'd like to recommend a book by Thomas Lynch called THE UNDERTAKING: LIFE STUDIES FROM THE DISMAL TRADE
http://www.thomaslynch.com/undertaking.html

An Interview With Thomas Lynch who was undertaker for Dr. Kevorkian's first victims :

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week436/lynch.html#right

ABERNETHY: Your one-time neighbor in Michigan was Dr. Kevorkian, before he went off to prison. What do you make of assisted suicide? If somebody is in pain and using up all his money and has lost control of life and wants terribly to die, shouldn't that person have a right to be helped?

LYNCH: Well, they should have the right to help.

But do they have the right to assistance in their suicide?
To me, "assisted suicide" sounds oxymoronic -- like "holy war."
Suicide means "one" homicide. Sui generis -- one of a kind.
One person doing the homicide.

When there are two people in the room, there is a relationship.

Because we have the ability to make things dead does not mean that we have the right to make things dead.

If the only way to get rid of suffering is to get rid of the sufferer, then I say we haven't looked at our other options.

Do I think that palliative care needs to be addressed in a new way?
Yes, I do.
Do I think that people can be medicated for their pain in a way that might hasten their death? Yes, I do.
But I see Jack Kevorkian as a serial killer.

I see him as the back alley and the coat hanger of this particular existential question.


We were talking about witness.

Most of us here in Oakland County, Michigan sat around and discussed these issues about assisted suicide and death with dignity and our right to die in the way we'd be discussing whitewall tires or rear-window defrost.

It was all speculation.

But when we saw it happen, when we saw him put down one of our own kind Sunday night in prime time -- in the way that, by the way, we intend to put down Tim McVeigh -- we said,
"No, that's not mercy. That's wrong." And that's why Dr. Kevorkian is in the prison now in Jackson, Michigan.



From Miami's Blue Beetle:

rr,

First..all the best for a speedy recovery for Buddy.

That was a great clip of the Candymen.
It was especially a great memory flashback for me given the fact that on the youtube line-up with them was Dennis Yost & The Classics IV...both of which I had the pleasure of playing with at the Par Tee in Miami.

I still remember the four pearl handled 38's the Classics IV kept in a brief case under the organ...
ah life was GOOD!
Thanks again for the post.

BB {ed. note: Miami's Blue Beetle}

From Buddy Henry:

Furtrader(Dogwalker),

Here are shots I took at Ramer
Baptist(Freewill,Primitive?)Cemetery.I
don't know the history of the
church.
You will notice the dates on one marble stone which is just
beside the "cypress" markers.

At the farm we got two and a half inches of
rain.


I will send you a few more photos in another mail.

If you want me to
take any others,let me know.

Bud

















Monday, November 26, 2007

Hey y'all:

I'll try to finish telling the story of my Thanksgiving adventures later this week but I'm so beat right now that this is about all I can do tonight.

Watch The Candymen perform GEORGIA PINES courtesy of Bama Queen http://www.myspace.com/fiddledeedeeme

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVj0b9_5EK4

Our friend, Buddy Buie, who co-wrote Georgia Pines with John Rainey Adkins
http://www.myspace.com/adkinsjohnrainey
contracted an antibiotic resistant form of pneumonia last week. He ended up in ICU at Southeast Alabama Medical Center in Dothan but he's now recovering and should go home later this week.

I spent some time with him in the hospital yesterday morning.
It was the first time in his 67 year life that he'd ever been in the hospital so this has been a "challenging" experience for him.

Please keep Buddy & his family in your prayers right now.
Click here to find the 67 Atlanta Rhythm Section videos now posted on youtube...
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%22atlanta+rhythm+section%22&search=Search


photo courtesy of Kathy Swigler
After I left Buie at the hospital, I drove down to PC to have lunch with Dave & Kathy Swigler.
We ended up at their house on St. Andrews Bay & Kathy took this picture of me in their front yard at sundown.
You can see Kathy's BMW convertible in the background along with the bay.

photo by Kathy Swigler
Here's the back of my big old bucket head as I watch Dave Swigler chop wood beside his garage. Dave owns his own private race car/motorcycle museum on Harrison Avenue. This cat has absolutely mastered everything one could ever know about open wheel racing but the most impressive item in his museum to me was HILTON PARRISH'S MATCHBOOK COLLECTION! WE'VE GOT TO GET SOME OF THAT STUFF ON THE WEB!
Back in the day when everybody smoked cigarettes, every business in the Tri-States printed their business logo on a matchbook. Hilton's collection is like a window into another time.

Speaking of another time, my brother-in-law Buddy sent me some shots these wild turkeys feeding near Lake Sousepahtowsky.

Buddy also sent us images of two beavers he & Wildman rescued out of the mud from the Creel Pond which has now dried up. Some of y'all may recollect the story I told about two of my Daddy's speed freak friends, Radio & Rabbit Man, helping us seine this pond.





Wildman & the beavers at the Creel Pond
Buddy & Wildman released the beavers unharmed into the big spring at Bud & Bec's
Farm.

Our old Dusy Street/Young Jr./DHS partner, Frank Tanton,
http://www.myspace.com/thebopcats
shot us some images of THE CHIMES. Here's a couple ya might like:






& last but not least, we received this email from Nip & Dot Howard's youngest daughter, Bobbie:

Robert,
I got your e-mail address from Jennifer Rolen.
I hope you remember me, Bobbie Howard Johnson, Ann, Linda and Carl's sister.
Jennifer forwarded the thread about Nip & Ernie's and I got all teary eyed thinking what the youth of today are missing out on. I have a pic from the late 50's, I think, when the old wooden booths were there. I'm not quite sure how to pick up the thread and get that put in. I really would like to share it.
Hope to hear from you soon.
Bobbie
PS
I forwarded it to Ann and Larry, who live in Hawaii, and they also want to add some stories. You put a big smile on my Mom's face and that meant the world to her children!