Sunday Drive: Deep Purple

The 1939 hit, as performed by Artie Shaw and his Orchestra, featuring Helen Forrest:

Waitin' for the Weekend

Sunday Drive: Delicado

This delightful tune, a favorite of your Head Trucker's, was a chart-topper for Percy Faith and his Orchestra in 1952.

Waitin' for the Weekend

"How was your month, Dear?"

The very exclusive beach at Marbella beside the blue Mediterranean, 
playground of the rich and famous.

A guest post by my truckbuddy Tim from England, now resident in Spain, where he spends his golden years lolling about on the Costa del Sol, counting the mega-yachts in the harbor, and sipping champagne with oil sheiks and oligarchs:

"How was your month, Dear?"

You probably haven't noticed, but I've been absent from the pages of the Blue Truck for some time this year, but I do have a good excuse:  several, in fact.

We all know the old gag - a man comes home from work to find his wife frazzled and drinking, and he asks, unthinkingly, "How was your day, Dear?" Well, for 2019 I've dispensed with having days. I'm having months.

Just since late spring, I've had three bouts of surgery, two of them for prostate cancer. And to put the icing on the cake, my beloved Labrador, Lulu, died at the end of June. I'm not seeking sympathy here, rather I'm trying to make light of life and all the terrible trials and tribulations it throws at you from time to time. Putting it all down on paper seems to help. I don't know how exactly, but I've found it to be a form of closure. A means of bringing order to the chaos perhaps? Sometimes in life, if you don't laugh, you'll cry. And laughter, as the old saying goes, is the best medicine. And so, for me, is writing.

This tale also helps to debunk the mythical notion held by my Editor; namely that my retired life here in Spain is some sort of hedonistic paradise, akin to living in Palm Springs, say, or Palm Beach. Sure, there are some nice meals, sunshine and blue skies, but there's tears and tantrums too. Whatever our own personal desires, Life marches blithely on . . . and on. But there's always hope. If you're patient, and you keep faith, there will be light at the end of any tunnel. Just don't expect Life to give you an easy ride along the way!

So, how was my month? Read on.

Continued after the jump . . .

Sunday Drive: Time Is Tight

Time flows on endlessly like a mighty river, and we small, frangible human beings mostly find ourselves drifting with the current, sometimes languorously over a broad stretch of placid water, and other times dashing and crashing through fearsome rapids that lead to who knows what on the other side.  All we can be sure of is that if we survive the rocks and shocks, we shall certainly be changed, for good or ill.

How short a span does fifty years seem in retrospect!  One can almost turn around and touch it.  The year 1969 was a turning point in American history in some ways, and certainly it was in my personal history:  the last golden, carefree summer before the hammer blows of life began to fall, forging childhood into adulthood in the years that followed.  There is a persistent myth that one's teenage years are the happiest of one's life.  I can testify that in my own case, they were anything but.

Nevertheless, for me this simple, lively tune by Booker T. and the M. G.'s from the spring of that watershed year perfectly expresses the exuberance of youthful, untroubled happiness.  I thought so then, and I think so now.  It always makes me smile.

Waitin' for the Weekend

Today's Quote

Former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who resigned at the end of last year:

Nations with allies thrive, and those without them wither. Alone, America cannot protect our people and our economy. At this time, we can see storm clouds gathering. A polemicist’s role is not sufficient for a leader. . . .

What concerns me most as a military man is not our external adversaries; it is our internal divisiveness. We are dividing into hostile tribes cheering against each other, fueled by emotion and a mutual disdain that jeopardizes our future. . . .

All Americans need to recognize that our democracy is an experiment—and one that can be reversed. We all know that we’re better than our current politics. Tribalism must not be allowed to destroy our experiment.

According to Wikipedia,

Mattis was raised in a bookish household that did not own a television. . . . During his service years, Mattis was considered an "intellectual" among the upper ranks. . . . He is noted for his interest in the study of military history and world history, with a personal library that once included over 7,000 volumes, and a penchant for publishing required reading lists for Marines under his command. He required his Marines to be well-read in the culture and history of regions where they were deployed, and had his Marines deploying to Iraq undergo "cultural sensitivity training."

A devout Catholic, Mattis has never been married.

Sunday Drive: 5th Dimension, Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In

Few other songs conjure up the euphoric mood of the hippie-dippy year 1969 as much as this hit by the 5th Dimension that was at the top of the charts for six weeks in the spring of that year.




Ah, but where now is all that dreamy anticipation of a new Golden Age? Who now believes that love is all you need? And where have all the flowers gone?

Waitin' for the Weekend

Invasion of the Flying Mattresses

It happened in Denver, last Saturday.  Coming soon to a neighborhood near you.