As I move ever closer to my 70th birthday, I find myself looking back to the good old days and those memories. I was telling my daughter and my golf partner, Frick, about a newly elected person in Oklahoma. The woman is Muslim and is a declared nonbinary person. Good for you Oklahoma. I immediately thought of Sly and the Family Stone. How does that connect? Well I have convinced myself I saw the the group at Monterey Pop when I was a teenager and I still recall their hit song, “Everyday People”:
“Sometimes I’m right and I can be wrong, My own beliefs are in my song The butcher, the baker, the drummer and then Makes no difference what group I’m in
I am everyday people,
There is a blue one who can’t accept the green one For living with a fat one trying to be a skinny one, And Different strokes, for different folks….”
And then the clever refrain,
“And so on and so on and scooby dooby doo……….”
I learned the same lesson from the Star Bellied speeches in the writing of Dr. Seuss.
Come on America, “we got to live together.”
I referred to my usual golf partner as Frick. Today on several occasions we hit drives that were very close together on the fairway. “Just like Frick and Frack” is often the comment. Turns out Frick and Frack were two Swiss skaters who took those nicknames as a Swiss joke. They came to the United States in 1937 and joined the ice follies. The slang term has come to refer to two people so “closely associated as to be indistinguishable”. As a final look back in history, during a round of golf, Frick hit a shot that appeared to be close to the pin. As we approached, Frick said, “it is a Clairol”. I must have had a questioning look so he explained that “the closer you get the better she looks.” Back in the day Clairol was the gold standard of women’s hair care and the line is from one of their ad campaigns. Ok, back to the present.
I have stopped watching, mostly, the painfully slow journey to the conclusion of the Presidential election. The anxiety level for the 73 million voters for Biden/Harris has reached the extreme. I am hoping for the best outcome for our country—8645.
I did, however, want to wish Judge Candy Dale, Stephanie Johnson, and Frack a very happy birthday on Saturday. May the force be with us. Mike