Visit and Recall While Ye May

The Rock & Roll Hall-of-Fame is located in Cleveland, Ohio; the first inductee was Charles Edward Anderson, aka Chuck Berry. Berry was born in 1926 and still performs occasionally at the 'Duck Room' on Blueberry Hill near the Washington University campus (St. Louis). At age 87, Chuck will sometimes 'drop' a chord or forget lyrics. Since most of his followers are old senior farts who forget where we park our auto at Wal Mart, we give Chuck a 'PASS."

Once in awhile, I 'burn' new CD's of various artists and send them to friends.  (Note: This 'burn' process consists of transferring song-recordings from wax records and cassette tapes onto a CD). My current dilemma is this: I came across some vintage Chuck Berry classic 45 wax records and I 'burned' several CD's but I cannot remember if I sent these same  recordings to my same friend and if so, which friends. My wife is constantly telling me that I should 'write things down.' I did write a list of names in a booklet and for the life of me, I cannot find the book! Searching for the booklet, I came across some speech notes, which I had planned on using in a Topeka, Kansas presentation about eight years ago. I think there is some good stuff in those notes so I filed them in a category entitled: 'Speaking notes Never Used.'

Speaking of speaking, I just agreed to give a speaking-presentation one year from this month at the West Central Illinois Scholar-Athlete Banquet. While I was confirming this arrangement via a telephone conversation, the thought occurred to me, Holy crap, should I be so bold as to think at age 75, I will still be around. I immediately dismissed the depressing thought and now I face the probability of not being able to locate these Topeka, Kansas notes.

I hayda say, if it ain't one thing it's another.

Ps. I do recall, this morning where I was last night. I sat in the Illini baseball stadium and watched Eastern Illinois University win 8-4 over the Fighting Illini. Grandson Caleb Howell had two hits, scored a run and drove in a run. While at the game. I had a nice visit with Richard "Itchy" Jones, former 'everything." "Itchy and I played American Legion and college baseball against one another in the 1950's. Other ties to each other are documented when my Mason City basketball team played 'Itchy's Jacksonville team in 1964 at the JHS Bowl, a place I would later call my coaching home for twenty-one years. We spoke of many topics during our long visit and agreed that we were both truly blessed.