We have our 1st winner!
Ms. Eve Bender of the Washington, DC area, I think Virginia, really.
Way to go Eve.
Eve correctly interpreted the sentence’s meaning.
You can too!!! It’s fun! It’s easy! Get out those Funk & Wagners, those Webster’s, those Oxford English Dictionaries…
Being a musician made it possible for me to have met and run into blues genius, Muddy Waters on many occasions in different locations throughout time.
I lived a short while in Tempe, AZ., attending Scottedale Community Colledge. I was taking a course in Biology and Physiology of light Farm Animals and a course in horse management. It was cool, I had work study working a couple ranches! I never really got to ride much, mostly shovel and bring horses by the forelock to and fro, feed & water. Watch & learn. I had pie in the sky dreams of being a horseshoer. You know, the other noun that begins with "f".
This was somewhere in the mid 1970s.
One day, Muddy Waters came to play at this big joint in Tempe. Sonny Terry and Brownie Magee were opening.
It had been a few years since Muddy had seen Sonny and Brownie. Muddy told me this as we road in the limo sent to take him to the gig. ("I deserve to ride inna limousine sometime!", he quipped.)
He had arranged a preshow gathering for everyone in a large reception room backstage.
On a sideboard with chairs along one wall were roses and a large fruit, cheese, meats, and wine basket all wrapt in see-thru blue shrunk plastic. There were easily 50 or so poeple there at the time when Sonny Terry & Brownie Magee arrived.
Sonny Terry, being blind was led by his young white protoge to a seat in front of the flowers and basket; Sonny’s back to the sideboard, facing the room, close to where I was sitting with Muddy drinking beer. After Muddy rose and made a hugging hello both to Sonny and Brownie they sat back down to talk.
After a moment Sonny Terry turned towards the sideboard saying, "My! What A lovely fragrance!", and reaching for the flowers his hand came upon the fruit basket. Of course, these items bore envelopes and cards for Muddy; "and what is this?", he asked further examining the basket. Muddy, winking to all, got up and took up the envelope attached to the fruitbasket, opened it, and "read", " To Sonny Terry, wonderful traditional blues harpist, our heartfelt thanks in leading us all with your style and delivery, truly a blues treasure!" Sonny started crying, Muddy informed him that the roses were his as well. Muddy looked around at us all and said, "Really! It’s the truth"
I know what you meant Muddy!
And Muddy did not do this in a loud magnanimous way to attract the attention of the room. This was just us! He and Sonny really….
It was a wonderful moment, and one of my favorites in the presence of Mr. Muddy Waters!!!
The part of Pittsburgh that I grew up in is called Shadyside. My family had four houses near the top of Ellesworth Ave., near the junction of Ravenna St., Spahr Street and Ellesworth. To the east stretched the body of the city, to the west was the area of the city that tapers off to the downtown bussiness area, the "Golden Triangle", and the confluence of the Monongahela, and the Allegheny rivers into the beginning of the Ohio river; the "gateway to the west".
Our block of Elleswoth Ave. began at Spahr St. to the east was the Ellesworth Ave. bridge into East Liberty and the central interior of the city; to the west our one block headed west towards "town"to College Ave.. One block north of Ellesworth ave. on College was Pierce street which ended there and began two blocks west at Sumerlea Street. The eastern block of Pierce was white and the western block black in the 1950s. In the 60s it was more mixed with the east block becoming more black and the west block became mostly dismantled and after 2000, slightly gentrified.
One can probably visit some website and access a street map of the Shadyside district of Pittsburgh, PA and follow along with the reminences that i will be blogging here concerning my youth spent mostly between the Shadyside and Homewood neighborhoods.
This part of Ellesworth Ave. was best to grow up on; East Liberty was one block across the Ellesworth Ave Bridge. A four lane railroad track ran directly behind my house. Bell Telephone had a facility on the southeast corner of Ellesworth and Spahr street. Their yard had larger than life cable spools we could climb over and through. we had the smell of the Sunshine Bakery(factory size) a block away east across the Ellesworth Ave. bridge and 1/2 block off Highland Ave.; half of a mile beyond that, the huge Nabisco Baking Company bakery socking out Saltines & Fig Newtons!
At the east end of our side of Ellesworth Ave.(the north side of the street)sat the last building before the footbridge to Centre Ave., and the Elleswoth Ave. Bridge to East Liberty, which was Kate Grecco’s tiny grocery. Across from her on the southwest corner of Ellesworth and Spahr was Henry’s Pie Shoppe. A short block south down Spahr on the corner was a tiny Mr. Softie garage.
On the southwest corner of Ellesworth and College Aves. was a 7UP plant, and just across the railroad tracks to the north of Ellesworth Ave. was a large Coca-Cola bottleing plant. We kids took full advantage of these places into our ‘tweens.
In the 1950s as now, Shadyside was a mix of families and College and university students due to it’s proximity to the Oakland section to the west towards town, and Carlow women’s colledge was at across the street from where Collefe Ave. intersected with 5th Ave.; this meant that when I was a child Ellesworth Ave. to the west between Spahr and Sumerlea Ave. were families, and hipster beatnic students, coffeehouses and art galleries, drugstores, bars, small mom & pop groceries, a Krogers and such.
So we had this, to me, wonderful mix of white, black, jewish, working, middle, and lower class, and hipster artists poets and musicians in our immediate vicinity.
I can remember that between 1955 and 59 my older cousins and their peers, white and black, used to stand on the footbridge to Centre Ave, or sometimes right in front of Kate’s Grocery and harmonize early doo wop and r&b, I remember wishing I was older so I could sing with them.
There were these two black hipsters that would sometimes play bass & conga on the corner of college and Ellesworth. I think the bass players name was Bat. He was an artist as well, painter and sculptor, i think.
Well, here goes; 1st the Japanese Culture Vulture group now an attempt atta blog!
Do not really know what to do here yet but keep posted something will appear soon.
At any rate, a prizeless contest!!!
What is the meaning of the following sentence?
I was partaking of my postprandial potation when the pulchritudinous princess wrapped upon the postern.
Send answers to: iratejones40@hotmail.com
Winner(s) will be anounced.
