http://youtu.be/x4PvJpQBt-c This arrangement of this song, brings me back to the late 1940's in our hometown. In the 1940's Cushing Hospital was serving our wounded troops, maybe that is why there were a number of uniformed young men in our town. It is almost a forgotten time, lets not let it be erased.
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Small Town Framingham Sock Hop April
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Monday, March 25, 2013
Small Town Framingham, a song I remember Hey Daddy
http://youtu.be/c8nGrDarRJQ I listened to this at my Aunt Mary's house in Marlboro, while her son Bob danced in the kitchen....I loved every minute of it...
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Small town, Framingham, the great Earl Bostic - Flamingo
http://youtu.be/lcxBLiKpRm0 Here it is again, in all his glory! He had a secret with his instrument, that no one has discovered yet. Storyland featured him and we all went to Boston to hear the great jazz artists that came to our area.
Small Town Framingham, EARL BOSTIC - NIGHT & DAY
http://youtu.be/sebbktK31zc This is one of the most outstanding songs we grew up with in the United States from the 40's-60's a whole generation or two..., Frank Sinatra recorded it three times, (I have the dates in my book) and just listen to this jazz rendition, have you ever heard anyone play like this....Earl Bostic, was one great jazz musician, I particularly like his version of Flamingo. Is there anyone that can make his sounds come to life today?
Small Town Framingham, meet Bing's brother, Bob Crosby - Big Noise Blew In From Winnetka
http://youtu.be/QWTf0DIoqTk This is a song of the Greatest Generation, they knew how to swing! I loved to watch them and was dying to grow up and dance like that. My cousin +Robert Gabriel was the greatest swing dancer , I loved to watch him dance with his then girlfriend , now +Beverly Gabriel
Small Town Framingham George Jones and Gene Pitney - Someday (You'll Want Me To Want You) (1965)
http://youtu.be/G07jid1hjP0 Country music was not popular in our area, and if you liked it, you were referred to as a hillbilly, but I liked it, and so did many others, so it was not long before the juke boxes in the Wellworth in downtown Framingham started to play country music.
Small Town Framingham The Lawrence Welk Show: Mairzy Doats
http://youtu.be/Dny_JDlwGFM If you have read my book and wondered about this song, that drove us crazy....it played everywhere, until we wanted to scream
Small Town Framingham High Jazz Band Wins Gold in State Finals -Patch#photo-13772234
Framingham High Jazz Band Wins Gold in State Finals - Framingham, MA Patch#photo-13772234
If you have been away for years, it is fun to catch up here and there. We have a newspaper in addition to the old Framingham News, which now has a new name. The new paper is The Patch...here is an article on the Jazz Band we have at Framingham High, imagine that?
If you have been away for years, it is fun to catch up here and there. We have a newspaper in addition to the old Framingham News, which now has a new name. The new paper is The Patch...here is an article on the Jazz Band we have at Framingham High, imagine that?
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Small Town America Framingham, event March 24 at History Center
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Monday, March 18, 2013
Small Town America Framingham Eric Felten: How the Taxman Cleared the Dance Floor - WSJ.com
Eric Felten: How the Taxman Cleared the Dance Floor - WSJ.com I often wondered why the wonderful opportunities Mom and Dad had to go dining and dancing disappeared. They had so much fun! When we were ready to have fun, dining and dancing had almost disappeared except for a few places like the Rainbow Room in New York which I just had to go see, so I could experience the glamour I had seen in the movies, and to learn about the good times Mom and Dad had experienced.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Small Town Framingham Wow! The Beatles: 1962 - Love Me Do - BBC Documentary
http://youtu.be/X3jO1OAEPzo The poor dances, the twist , the pony, and all the other crazy names, took a dive, when The Beatles took the world by storm! Their music was beautiful, longing and tender, it issued back into vogue, music with meaning in the sounds of the instruments, the melody and the words, once again, as illustrated by the long living music they recorded.
Small Town Framingham Peppermint Lounge New York and Miami
http://youtu.be/MSV0_ll_3AQ My friend +Thurley Henderson and I wanted to see the famous Peppermint Lounge in Miami, when my Mom was living there in the early 60's. It was a crazy place where people did the twist, and other fad dances. There was a railing around the dance floor which was used as a dance location for a handsome man dancer, who introduced the main act, Chubby Checker...The dancer twisted and turned along the railing...It was a one time visit to see how the other side lived....we did not know that a gangster owned the club.
Small Town Framingham The Battle of Bretton Woods: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the Making of a New World Order (Council on Foreign Relations Books (Princeton University Press)) (9780691149097): Benn Steil: Books
Amazon.com: The Battle of Bretton Woods: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the Making of a New World Order (Council on Foreign Relations Books (Princeton University Press)) (9780691149097): Benn Steil: Books
My Mother and Father were discussing this at the kitchen table in 1944, they talked about it being in New Hampshire at the Mount Washington Hotel. At my age, (9 years old),I caught the location, the name of the meeting and the fact that everyone was concerned about what was going to come out of the meeting, for our post war monetary policy. I am not sure where my Dad stood on this eventful meeting, but, I recall his concern, that the loss of the gold standard would cause us great distress in the future. Dad was always discussing world events with Mom, I loved to listen and ask questions.
"Money has to be tied to something we can get a grip on, I prefer the gold standard..", I overheard. It was at this meeting that the dollar became the currency that the world would look to in the future
. Could it be that many of our problems today stem from what happened here at Bretton Woods, I guess I will have to read this interesting book. Just reading the review in the March 15, 2012 Wall St Journal, which you can get on line is enough to whet your appetite.
My Mother and Father were discussing this at the kitchen table in 1944, they talked about it being in New Hampshire at the Mount Washington Hotel. At my age, (9 years old),I caught the location, the name of the meeting and the fact that everyone was concerned about what was going to come out of the meeting, for our post war monetary policy. I am not sure where my Dad stood on this eventful meeting, but, I recall his concern, that the loss of the gold standard would cause us great distress in the future. Dad was always discussing world events with Mom, I loved to listen and ask questions.
"Money has to be tied to something we can get a grip on, I prefer the gold standard..", I overheard. It was at this meeting that the dollar became the currency that the world would look to in the future
. Could it be that many of our problems today stem from what happened here at Bretton Woods, I guess I will have to read this interesting book. Just reading the review in the March 15, 2012 Wall St Journal, which you can get on line is enough to whet your appetite.
SMALL TOWN AMERICA, FRAMINGHAM
Can you find your grandparents in this picture below, I see+ Richard Belli and +Fred Ablondi in the front row.+ Arlene Scansaroli Chao and +Carol Reichert Waters in the 2nd row. Many others you might know,+ Rita Stevens Hodi, +Gertrude Rogers Wakeman +Richard Rotelli,
From Kirkus Reviews...
"A first generation Italian-American born in the midst of the Great Depression, shares her real life childhood experiences during World War 2. In this conversational recollection of her rural Massachusetts upbringing, Fafard, (Secrets of the Heart,2010) writes a paean to."The Greatest Generation."
Sixth Grade, Memorial School on Hollis Street, just after the end of the war.
Donald Duck was born in 1934 and Disney paved the way to a magical world that helped keep us all from the moment to moment horrors of what was happening on distant shores. We were so lucky to grow up in small town America.
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Small Town Framingham Moon Over Miami
http://youtu.be/X1RelStGcuw Moon over Miami, the clothes the elegance we all longed for was not available in our little town of Framingham , Mass., most of the folks were building homes that finally had indoor toilets. By the early to mid 1930's depending on your family income, we still had outhouses, and now, an oblong type water tank at the top of the wall near the ceiling that had a chain on it, to pull which caused the toilet to open and the water to come down from the tank and flush. In the early 1940's we had the new homes from Sears with toilets that look like what we have today. Just little tidbits from a little girl that questioned everything, why, who, what , and rambled on about it in her book, Small Town America, Framingham.
Small Town Framingham Lester Young - Count Basie 1936 ~ Lady Be Good
http://youtu.be/-Iq2N0ZsRo0 Sorry the share to blogger button is not working on youtube, so I have to use the links... The Charleston was the dance that was fading out and jazz dancing, as we knew it the jitterbug was on the way in....I once saw Mom and Dad do the Charleston in our dining room, and asked to learn this crazy type of dancing.
Small Town Framingham Count Basie Jumpin at the woodside
http://youtu.be/-Iq2N0ZsRo0 Count Basie and Jazz were eating up the air waves ...Tommy Dorsey, Harry James, Glen Miller, Jimmy Dorsey, the music of the big bands, was incredible....it is interesting that we don't remember songs like this as much as we remember the romantic ones that told a story.
Snall town Framingham At the Woodchopper's Ball - Woody Herman (1939)
http://youtu.be/2wcVtUNMQsQ Here is the song....I could not find the old cartoon...
Small Town Framingham,There Is No Greater Love (1947)
http://youtu.be/92WoPrrwbzA this song is from the long ago, and the little bit of history in the comments below about Woody Herman are interesting.....because I always remember a cartoon, at the Hollis Theater, when I was a child, called the Woodchoppers Ball, and it was the music of Woody Herman that accompanied it.
Friday, March 15, 2013
Small Town America Framingham Frances Langford
http://youtu.be/YI8x0uG_NRI The flavor of the times in Framingham as we mourned the effects of the war on our families.
Small Town Framingham, Van Cliburn
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/apNTq-Tgf4w" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/apNTq-Tgf4w" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Suddenly, in our small town, Framingham, we were astounded to hear that a young man had won a prize in Russia, for his piano playing. He was young an unexpected winner! We stopped listening to jazz, even stopped what we called the jitterbug, for a few minutes to learn about him and join in the wonder of his accomplishment! Maybe that is when I learned to love Rachmaninoff!
Suddenly, in our small town, Framingham, we were astounded to hear that a young man had won a prize in Russia, for his piano playing. He was young an unexpected winner! We stopped listening to jazz, even stopped what we called the jitterbug, for a few minutes to learn about him and join in the wonder of his accomplishment! Maybe that is when I learned to love Rachmaninoff!
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
FRANKIE LAINE - TWO LOVES HAVE I
Two Loves Have I....by Frankie Laine....played on the car radio in 1947, and ensuing years, on WKOX Framingham, and the Boston radio stations. http://youtu.be/2pJ2WnEewOw What a wonderful time! We were just becoming teens and oh my gosh, we had cars! How lucky could we get? Off to Nantasket, Revere and Wareham beaches in summer on our own....! Kids today don't realize that we were trapped in our towns for the most part , unless we took the bus or train....travel was not easy til cars became popular. Thanks to Knudson and the beginning of General Motors, he provided competition to Ford and with that cars got color, bigger engines and great prices in the late 20's, and the price then was in range of $400.00 but still they were not available to the mass market. who could not afford them even at that price...until the 30's then the war stopped car production til 1945 ....when all Hell broke loose! Yes, we went crazy with tv's , washing machines, refrigerators, cars, and more....we had savings from war bonds, and for years we had gone without to provide for the troops first!
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Small Town Framingham, Guild Road and memory begins
Our first home was on Guild Road in Framingham a rented house, where Mom got her first piano. What brought the house, the first floor room layout and the piano to mind was my first memory. It was the first time I was aware and had memory of something. I was about three years old, and Mom had some Russian dolls that fit inside each other. They are what did it! I was mesmerized, astonished and inquistive...and so the day went down in memory forever, and then memory faded away for a few months until a new event was announced.....my brother was joining our family! Then awareness began from that point onward. I don't think it was just the notice that Frank was coming to our home, but rather I was turning 4...
Monday, March 11, 2013
Small Town Framingham motorcycles and me
My mother was not happy to think I would be on a motorcycle, and I was told, "No, no, no." +Richard Caferelli, decided to give me a ride on his motorcycle one day down town in front of Liggetts drugstore. I got on, and guess what.....my mother was driving by! Why me? I always got caught! What made me think of this was this weekend, the bikes were out in full force. We drove to Amelia Island, off Jacksonville, Florida and we were escorted by all kinds of bikes, all the way from Jupiter, Florida, and all the way back to Jupiter, Florida. There were plenty of signs to watch for motorcycles, and one accident, where I don't think anyone got hurt, but there was plenty of opportunity for some bloody wrecks...Speeding bikes over 80 miles an hour, no helmuts, no protective gear, darting in and out between the cars....Wow, it was a little nerve wracking to be behind them...but, they had lots of fun up in the New Smyrna Beach area, this weekend, there appeared to be a big meet at the big motorcycle dealers up there .
Small Town Framingham fun at History Center coming events!
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Framingham Historical Society and Museum | 16 Vernon Street | P. O. Box 2032 | Framingham | MA | 01703 |
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Small Town Framingham diners convert to big restaurants
In the early days before Rt 9 became a Megaplex...+.Kens Steak House, was Ken's a diner on Route 9. In those days diners were all we seemed to know in our area. Although my Mom and Dad went to Chicken Petes to go dining and dancing on Saturday night, as most of the folks out our way did in those days,.(It was out in Medway, I think.)
Ballrooms were the rage, it was the era of the big bands, Tommy Dorsey, Harry James, Jimmy Dorsey, Glen Miller, hugh bands that crossed the country on terrible roads in buses. It was a difficult life. You know of course that the highway system was not built until Eisenhower became President after the war, and Route 66 was the road we sang and dreamed about in our fantasies of travel across our vast country.
Ballrooms were the rage, it was the era of the big bands, Tommy Dorsey, Harry James, Jimmy Dorsey, Glen Miller, hugh bands that crossed the country on terrible roads in buses. It was a difficult life. You know of course that the highway system was not built until Eisenhower became President after the war, and Route 66 was the road we sang and dreamed about in our fantasies of travel across our vast country.
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
small town Framingham Louis Prima------Jump,Jive an'Wail
Oh, did we love Louie Prima, we went to Las Vegas as soon as we could to see and hear him perform. +Bob Boucini, could swing and sing just like Louis Prima...what fun we had swinging to this great music and the great performers...
Earl Bostic - "Flamingo" - '51 - (ORIGINAL vinyl issue)
Oh, did I love this, what a sax player. We even went into Boston to see and hear him at one of the clubs. In those days we had a couple of good clubs in Boston( in addition to the Totem Pole in Newton), that brought in Ella, Gene Krupa, and Earl Bostic...
Sunday, March 3, 2013
One Minute to Zero (1952) - IMDb
One Minute to Zero (1952) - IMDb A little information on the movie I just mentioned, if you have not seen it, you might want to put it on your list of to do.
Nat King Cole sings "When I Fall in Love"
An early 1950 song, introduced in a movie, One Minute to Zero, according to Wikipedia....what a song/1
Small Town FraminghamTito Puente Mambo Birdland
1950's Mambo, and Birdland...we all wanted to go to New York to Birdland
Small Town Framingham It's No Sin - 3 versions. Four Aces, Eddy Howard, Duprees
Come back to the high school days of the early 1950's when we all hummed and sang this song. It rang out of our juke boxes and car radios thru the open windows in summer. It played on the records in our victrolas....that is what we called the record player.
Small Town Framingham
+Richard Rotelli born in Framingham and schooled in our public schools, wrote a piece about his summer of work at the Dennison. It was eye opening about factory work in our town, the people who worked there, and the culture of the time. He may have given it to the Framingham History Center, in case you want to read it. Richard Rotelli is also the author of two books, which you can find by googling him, or going to Amazon.com
Saturday, March 2, 2013
Small Town FraminghamThe Hawaii Clipper Disappearance - Historic Mysteries
The Hawaii Clipper Disappearance - Historic Mysteries Before the days of commercial travel over the sea, mysteries like this happened
Friday, March 1, 2013
small town Framingham, basements before air conditioning
A basement was a wonderful treat in the long ago days of the 1940's and 1950's. Before air conditioning we had the front porch and a small fan that whirred hard to keep us all cool. The basement on the other hand remained cool most of the time, and so our parents had a living room in the basement, or a family room....but we did not know family rooms in those days, so it was our summer living room. Some people even had a basement kitchen.
Our room had chairs, table, phonograph player and radio, plus standing lights to go between the chairs so the folks could read the evening paper and listen to the radio, or turn on the phonograph and dance on the basement concrete floor. The summer living room in the basement doubled as our playroom, and when I became a teen, it was my party room. Many times I had a party in the basement with my friends, thanks to a great Mom.
Our room had chairs, table, phonograph player and radio, plus standing lights to go between the chairs so the folks could read the evening paper and listen to the radio, or turn on the phonograph and dance on the basement concrete floor. The summer living room in the basement doubled as our playroom, and when I became a teen, it was my party room. Many times I had a party in the basement with my friends, thanks to a great Mom.
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