Wednesday, April 24, 2019

WE CALL HER, “SH-BOOM” by LINDA LEE GREENE©


WE CALL HER, “SH-BOOM” by LINDA LEE GREENE©



The 1954, doo-wop song “Sh-Boom” by the Chords, as well as the Crew-Cuts, is the source of the nickname of my sister Sherri Beth Greene. That the letters of the song’s title correspond to her name is one factor in its link to her, but there are others. It burst on the music scene only months after her birth, and as it rang through the multiple levels of our house at 507 West Second Avenue in Columbus, Ohio, USA, she learned to talk and walk to it. Along with “No” and “Zorro,” and a series of others, “Sh-Boom” was among the earliest words she voiced, and was the first to which she sang and danced. It was a sight to see that tiny ball of dynamite boogying up and down the sidewalks of our Fly-town neighborhood, her pudgy arms and legs pumping as she sang at the top of her lungs, “Sh-Boom, sh-Boom, ya da ya, ya da ya, ya da ya, sh-boom, sh-boom….” When as a baby she gazed upon us with her sparkling blue eyes and gifted us with her rosy-gummed smile, we had an inkling that a pixie had shown up among us. And when as a toddler she began to sing and dance to that song, and along with it work her magic on us, we were convinced of it.

            Our parents had celebrated their eleventh wedding anniversary 22 days before Sherri was born. Our brother David and I were eight and ten, respectively. Mom and Dad had come upon a rough spot that was endangering the bonds of our family unit, and threatening to split it apart. And then our redheaded pixie plopped herself at the forefront of our lives, and she was having none of it! She had things to do and places to go, and no monkey business on the part of anyone was going to keep her from it. “Snap to it!” her attitude signaled, and as if she had sprinkled it with magical pixie dust, the problem went away, and our family was safe and sound again.

             




Multi-award winning author Linda Lee Greene’s books are available worldwide in soft cover and eBook formats on Amazon and other online booksellers.

Sunday, April 14, 2019

MY MOVIE-SCHOOL-YEAR by LINDA LEE GREENE©


MY ‘MOVIE-SCHOOL-YEAR’ by LINDA LEE GREENE©



I was in my final year at Everett Junior High School in Columbus, Ohio, USA when Elvis Presley’s film ‘Jailhouse Rock’ exploded in movie theaters across the nation. That year, the school was undergoing renovation, and class schedules were allocated to accommodate the work. Half of the student body attended morning classes with afternoons off, and the other half attended afternoon classes with mornings off. I was a morning student, lucky me; lucky because at the noon hour of nearly every school day, I caught a city bus into town center, and handing over my quarter to the person in the ticket booth, strolled into the dark womb of a theater and lost myself in a movie.

            Columbus is fortunate to have two iconic theaters as centerpieces of its downtown core: the incomparable ‘Ohio Theater’ and the exceptional ‘Palace Theater.’ I was present at a concert a few years ago starring Tony Bennett. It was held at the ‘Palace,’ and he stated to the audience that it had the best acoustics of almost any venue in which he had ever appeared. He lowered his microphone and sang acapella to demonstrate the theater’s superior sound quality. His voice, unequalled by any but Andrea Bocelli’s, in my opinion, rang through the theater as clear as a bell.

Back in my favorite year of school, my ‘movie-school-year,’ as I think of it, I spent my afternoons in one or the other of Columbus’ two wonderful downtown theaters, for the most part. I was, by that time, a diehard movie buff, a veteran, to my way of thinking, catching as many movies as possible on our black and white, console television-set in the living room of our home, or watching double-feature movies with school friends at the neighborhood ‘Garden Theater,’ located at the corner of High Street and West Fifth Avenue, just a stone’s throw from the school. Year after year, my little sister, Sherri and I stayed up long past our bedtime to watch the Academy Awards, and we could tell you from memory the winners of the Best Actor and Best Actress categories of every year of the 50s, 60s, and 70s, and maybe into the 80s.

Those afternoons in the downtown theaters all alone and enthralled by the stories that in my innocence I dared to imagine would mirror of my own someday, were my best film experiences, however. I saw on the big screen Cary Grant and Debra Kerr in perhaps the greatest movie romance of all time, ‘An Affair to Remember. ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai,’ ‘Funny Face,’ and Marilyn Monroe’s troubled performance in ‘The Prince and the Showgirl’ were among the films I saw that year. Our curiosity was aroused by the rumor that Monroe’s erratic behavior had aged her co-star and director, Lawrence Olivier by 15 years. Despite it all, Monroe was then and is to this day, one of my favorites. Lana Turner’s ‘Peyton Place’ was on tap that year, too. The list goes on and on. But Elvis Presley in ‘Jailhouse Rock’ was the most memorable of all. Teenagers in American and beyond were his slaves, our bondage having begun with his historical first appearance on the ‘Ed Sullivan Show’ on TV the year before, and in the two movies he had made before ‘Jailhouse.’ Every teenager in America with access to a TV had experienced Elvis on Ed Sullivan, our eyes glued to the screen, our hearts pounding with every gyration of his famous hips and flip of the shiny, black shock of hair that suspended over his matchless brow. Was there a handsomer, sexier, and more talented human being ever to grace our lives?

A group of us girls piled onto the city bus the afternoon we were going to take in Elvis’ on the giant, silver screen, each of us wearing our best frocks, and having paid special attention to our hairdos and makeup. And yes, when that unparalleled, that ‘dangerous’ beauty of a man appeared on screen in his black and white striped, prison garb, we jumped from our seats and raced en masse to the front of the theater. And throughout the entire production, we jumped up and down; we screamed ourselves silly; we pulled our hair; we burst into rivers of tears, and one or two of the girls actually swooned, comatose to the floor. Oh happy days!  






Multi-award winning author Linda Lee Greene’s books are available worldwide in soft cover and eBook formats on Amazon and other online booksellers.

Friday, April 12, 2019

THE STAMP OF HEAVEN, JULIA ROBB'S LATEST NOVEL

Columbus, Ohio, USA, April 12, 2019...It is my great pleasure to join in on announcing author Julia Robb's new novel, THE STAMP OF HEAVEN. Robb writes historical fiction comprising the flavor and size of her beloved Texas. If you are looking for a great weekend read, this is one I highly recommend. ~ Linda Lee Greene

The Union Army wants former Confederate Army general Beau Kerry for alleged war crimes, but he’s hiding out where the Yankees least expect to find him: in the United States Cavalry. Beau is fighting Apaches out West and praying nobody recognizes his famous face. 

But Lieutenant Kerry's luck changes when he runs into Sergeant Ike Jefferson and says, "The last time I saw you, I had you bent over a barrel and I was whipping you.” Ike is not only Beau's best friend (or worst enemy, depending on the day), he's Beau's former slave -- and Ike knows there’s a $5000 price on Beau’s head.

Caroline Dietrich has vengeance on her mind. Married to Colonel Wesley Dietrich, the Union fort commander, Caroline believes the best path to getting revenge against the Yankees, her husband included, is seducing her husband’s officers. Especially Beau.

From the killing fields of the Civil War, to the savagery of the Indian wars, the characters are also battling each other and searching for what it means to be human.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Julia Robb was a reporter for twenty years and now sits home and writes novels. She lives in Marshall, Texas.

Wednesday, April 10, 2019

DANCING THE NIGHT AWAY by LINDA LEE GREENE©






DANCING THE NIGHT AWAY by LINDA LEE GREENE©



The summer after I graduated from Franklin Heights High School, I went to work at the Union Department Store as a Records Clerk in its Personnel Department in downtown Columbus, Ohio, USA. I earned $50.00 per week at the start, and made it to $52.00 by the time I moved on. Located on the northwest corner of Long and High Streets, at 5:00 PM on good weather days, I walked five blocks south to the intersection of Broad and High Streets, my spike high-heels tapping and my full-skirted dresses swishing in eager anticipation of a quick snack at Jack & Benny’s Downtown Diner on the intersection’s northeast corner. Food consumed, including a piping hot cup of black coffee to keep me going, I proceeded to my night gig as a dance instructor at Arthur Murray’s Dance Studio. The studio was located on the top floor of a building on the north side of East Broad Street, a few steps east of the corner, at about the vicinity of the Rhodes Office Tower, which hadn’t been built yet. On bad weather days, I traveled the five blocks on a city bus.

This was back in the days when Columbus was a small-scale version of Memphis or New Orleans or Chicago in terms of its music and dance scene, interspersed with a business and government sector as serious as it gets. North and south, and east and west, smoky nightclubs pulsating with live music from both local and out-of-state groups dotted Columbus proper.   

 The dance studio closed at 10:00 PM, and then several of us instructors haunted the nightclubs every night, where we spent the evenings hogging the dance floors. Our specialties were the Jitterbug or Swing, the Cha Cha, the Mambo, Merengue, Foxtrot, Waltz, all of the ballroom dances. It was also a time when dancing in the arms of a partner was no longer needed to join in on the fun. The floors were elbow-to-elbow with solo dancers doing the Twist, the Shimmy, the Mashed Potatoes, the Boogaloo, and the Hully Gully among others. Each night was an exhibition of dance, not only comprising us “professionals,” but the general dancing public as well. It was a time when romance sparked between men and women through their shared love of music and the act of dancing.

I read a post on Facebook recently stating that dancing can reverse the signs of aging in the brain. I wonder if I can still do the Watusi?! What role did dancing play in your younger days?






Multi-award winning author Linda Lee Greene’s books are available worldwide in soft cover and eBook formats on Amazon and other online booksellers.

Sunday, April 7, 2019

HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION BLUES by LINDA LEE GREENE©


HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION BLUES by LINDA LEE GREENE©



High school was a hodgepodge of confusion for me. Consequently, I had no clear idea of what to expect in life. For the most part, I took college prep courses because those were the subjects that interested me and in which I made top grades. As a stop gap, I took typing and shorthand classes, and I will wager that I was the worse student in those subjects ever in the history of my school. My low grades in the business courses notwithstanding, I was an honors student, and in the long run was better suited for life as a professional person. But most of the fledgling adults in my socioeconomic circle didn’t have college on their radar screen, and it was an especially long-shot for females. (I attended college as an adult student many years later.) We were expected to marry as soon out of high school as possible, and spend our lives as housewives and mothers. My prospects in that regard were slim, as well, because the boys I had dated had ideas of their own that did not include being saddled with a family so young. And who could blame them?

                When I came across the photograph featured in this piece, taken on May 31, 1961, it reminded me of how purposeless and frightened I felt then. I had designed, and my mother had made my dress, which I loved, but in truth, I was a seventeen-year-old lost soul that evening, posing bravely with my boyfriend Frank Adams before attending my senior class prom. In only a few days my high school diploma from Franklin Heights High School in Columbus, Ohio, USA would be handed to me and the troubled thought that would weigh on my mind would be, “What do I do now?”

Frank and I drifted apart thereafter, our fates sending us to opposite sides of the nation eventually, life journeys neither of us could have anticipated. But isn’t that the way of fate? My guess is that most of us are amazed at the way life turned out for us. What surprises has life sent your way?


Multi-award winning author Linda Lee Greene’s books are available worldwide in soft cover and eBook formats on Amazon and other online booksellers.


Friday, April 5, 2019

A TRIBUTE TO MY BROTHER by LINDA LEE GREENE©






A TRIBUTE TO MY BROTHER by LINDA LEE GREENE©



On the back of the featured photograph in my mother’s handwriting is noted, “Watching TV, of course.” In January, 1966, my brother David Marlin Greene would have been three months shy of his 21st birthday. If he were still with us, he would be 74 today. In the photo with David is my then 12 year old sister Sherri Beth Greene (on the left), and my then 10 year old sister Susan Renee Greene (her back to the camera). Susan passed away in December, 2018. My mother took this photo in the living room of the house that both she and my father, with the help of some of their many siblings, built at 2983 Alkire Road, Grove City, Ohio. It was our family home until the late 1980s. I was living in New York at the time of the photo.

            This is such a typical scenario of teenagers in the 1960s: gathered together in front of the television. It looks as if they are also playing some sort of game, indicated by the sheets of paper on the floor in front of them. My guess is that as the day turned into night, David would have pulled to his feet, grabbed the keys to his car, and set out to spend a good portion of his evening cruising Green Gables Drive-in Restaurant at Mound and Central in Columbus. Overflowing the front and back seats of the car would have been a girl or two and as many of his buddies as he could squeeze in. David always had an entourage in tow. Not only was he devilishly handsome, but he was a storyteller of rare talent. Girls and guys all loved him and wanted to be counted as one of his friends.  

            Happy Birthday to you, David! I bet you are getting a kick out of looking down upon us from Heaven. I hope there are televisions up there, as well as drive-in restaurants that you cruise, because I don’t know how you would get through the days and nights of eternity without indulging in two of your favorite pastimes.






Multi-award winning author Linda Lee Greene’s books are available worldwide in soft cover and eBook formats on Amazon and other online booksellers.

Monday, April 1, 2019

STRIPPING WOODWORK AND HANGING WALLPAPER by LINDA LEE GREENE©


STRIPPING WOODWORK AND HANGING WALLPAPER by LINDA LEE GREENE©



Columbus, Ohio, USA, March 30, 2019…I was a born-photographer before I knew I was also an artist and a writer. The instrument at the end of my grubby hands was my parent’s kid-friendly Brownie camera. In what was termed “Fly Town” in my family’s blue-collar days and has graduated to the current smart moniker of “Harrison West” in Columbus, Ohio’s near Westside, I gave our Brownie camera a workout, as did kids of most every other nearby household. One of my early endeavors, taken in December, 1953, is the photo featured with this posting.

In terms of composition, the photo leaves much to be desired, but its contents are what are so precious to me. Pictured are my father Lee, my mother Roma, and my brother David, who was eight and none too happy to stand still yet again while his big sister snapped another picture. In my mother’s arms is the newest member of our family, my baby sister Sherri. I was ten at the time, and I remember it like it was yesterday. It was our first weekend outing as a family since Sherri’s birth—our destination was the Christmas gathering at my maternal grandparent’s farm in Peebles, Adams County, Ohio. We would also spend part of the weekend with my dad’s family who lived in Adams County, too.

Almost as dear as the people in the image, is the story its background tells. When my parents bought our house at 507 West Second Avenue, all of that gorgeous woodwork was painted over, and not merely in the area pictured, but throughout its first and second stories. My mother, bless her heart, working alone, stripped every inch of paint off the woodwork in that house, including three gas-burning fireplaces. She stripped it, sanded it, and then stained and varnished it. (There were no water-based paints, stains, or varnishes in those days.) It took her years to accomplish, but she did it. And see that wallpaper on the walls? She hung it, all by herself, while at the same time seeing to every other physical and spiritual need of our family.

The Greatest Generation?! You bet! And I have the photos and stories to prove it.






Multi-award winning author Linda Lee Greene’s books are available worldwide in soft cover and eBook formats on Amazon and other online booksellers.