Home  >> Stories  >> The Tale Spinner #2016-44

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IN THIS ISSUE

• Mike Yeager is happy with the award given to John Dylan
• Barbara Wear asks what we are missing because we´re too busy
• Irene Harvalias´ story illustrates how media slants the news
• Tom Telfer shares an alphabet for seniors
• Shirley Conlon shows how perceptions change
• Betty Audet sends hints that define old-timers
• Sites are suggested by Barbara Wear, Bruce Galway, Irene Harvalias, Shirley Coutts, Tom Telfer, and Tom Williamson

Mike Yeager is delighted with a recent award:

DYLAN ON THE JUKEBOX

Just the other day Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. For most of us boomers, this is world-wide validation of one of the main artists and driving influences of our generation. Only Elvis and the Beatles share such an exalted place in singlehandedly redirecting the popular music and culture of our time. The poets of our generation were the singer/song writers - Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Neil Young, James Taylor, Jackson Brown, Carol King, and Leonard Cohen.

Dylan´s music brought protest songs into the popular arena and influenced musicians to write and perform their own songs. Yet he was not widely accepted by the popular music-listening audience. In his entire career, he never had a number-one hit on the Billboard Top 100 charts, and made it to number two only twice. In the sixties, most of Dylan´s popular songs were made famous by other artists, "Blowin´ in the Wind," Peter Paul & Mary; "Mr. Tambourine Man," The Byrds; "It Ain´t Me, Babe," The Turtles; "All Along the Watch Tower," Jimi Hendrix.

In 1963 I first heard Dylan´s music. He had only two albums out, "Bob Dylan" and "Freewheelin´." He was a folk singer and not widely known. I´d like to say I liked him from the very beginning, but I didn´t. I thought he had an obnoxious nasally voice and was an even worse harmonica player. What I did like at the time was a girl who wanted me to like him.

Her name was Marley, and she attended a local Catholic school. I met her at a party. That´s not exactly true, we first met at a local Steak & Shake. She was in the back seat of a convertible with three other girls. They pulled in next to the car I was in with three of my friends. She caught my eye immediately and smiled and said hi. My friends knew the other girls in the car. They all attended McCluer High, and invited us to a party at one of their houses.

The party turned out to be just the four of us and the four of them. Marley and I hit it off right away and began talking about music. Her passion for folk and jazz equaled my own for rock & roll. We started seeing each other regularly and listening to music. And that´s all we did, listen to and talk about music. We became good friends and enjoyed each other´s company. I would have liked to have changed the friendship, but dating might have ruined it. Besides, I was too chicken to make a romantic move.

We influenced each other´s taste in music. I began to like folk music and learned to appreciate Dylan´s hard-edged poetic language that mocked cultural conventions and exposed the hypocrisies. I helped Marley appreciate rock & roll.

It was in 1965 on a week-long trip to Florida where I first heard the fusion of folk music and rock & roll. I went with two of my high school friends, Petie and Jeff. We took turns driving Petie´s Corvaire Monza convertible non-stop all the way from Ferguson to Fort Lauderdale. With the top down the entire way, the three of us were painfully sun- and wind-burned by the time we arrived. After renting a cheap motel room, we agreed on one important rule. If any one of us picked up a girl, the other two had to get lost for the entire night.

Over the course of the week, I became intimately acquainted with a bench on the boardwalk, while Jeff and Petie took turns in the motel room. One night while sitting on that bench, I heard Dylan on the jukebox. The music was coming from inside a pinball arcade directly behind me. I located the jukebox in the back of the arcade. The song was number B-25, "Like a Rolling Stone." I plugged the machine with quarters and played it over and over.

The next morning I called Marley long distance from a pay phone next to the highway to tell her the news: Dylan was playing rock & roll.

Barbara Wear asks

WHAT ARE WE MISSING?

A man sat at a metro station in Washington, DC, and started to play the violin. It was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that 1,100 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

Three minutes went by, and a middle-aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds, and then hurried up to meet his schedule.

A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till without stopping, and continued to walk.

A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

The one who paid the most attention was a three-year-old boy. His mother tugged him along, hurried, but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally, the mother pushed hard, and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only six people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money, but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the most talented musicians in the world. He had just played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, on a violin worth $3.5 million dollars.

Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.

This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste, and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?

Irene Harvalias forwards the story of

THE BIKER

A Harley biker is riding by the zoo in Washington, DC, when he sees a little girl leaning into the lion´s cage. Suddenly, the lion grabs her by the collar of her jacket and tries to pull her inside to slaughter her, under the eyes of her screaming parents. The biker jumps off his Harley, runs to the cage, and hits the lion square on the nose with a powerful punch. Whimpering from the pain, the lion jumps back, letting go of the girl, and the biker brings the girl to her terrified parents, who thank him endlessly.

A reporter has watched the whole event.

The reporter addresses the Harley rider, "Sir, this was the most gallant and bravest thing I´ve seen a man do in my whole life!"

The Harley rider replies, "Why, it was nothing, really. The lion was behind bars. I just saw this little kid in danger, and acted as I felt right."

The reporter says, "Well, I´ll make sure this won´t go unnoticed. I´m a journalist, and tomorrow´s paper will have this story on the front page. So what do you do for a living, and what political affiliation do you have?"

The biker replies, "I´m a U.S. Marine, a Republican, and I am voting for Trump."

The journalist leaves.

The following morning the biker buys the paper to see if it indeed brings news of his actions, and reads on the front page: U.S. MARINE ASSAULTS AFRICAN IMMIGRANT AND STEALS HIS LUNCH

And that pretty much sums up the media´s approach to the news these days!

Tom Telfer sends

THE ALPHABET

A is for apple, and B is for boat,
That used to be right, but now it won't float!
Age before beauty is what we once said,
But let's be a bit more realistic instead.

Now TheNew Alphabet

A's for arthritis;
B's the bad back,
C's the chest pains,
Perhaps card-i-ac?

D is for dental decay and decline,
E is for eyesight, can't read that top line!
F is for fissures and fluid retention,
G is for gas, which I'd rather not mention.

H- High blood pressure - I'd rather it low;
I- For incisions with scars you can show.
J is for joints, out of socket, won't mend;
K is for knees that crack when they bend.

L 's for libido, what happened to sex?
M is for memory, I forget what comes next.
N is neuralgia, in nerves way down low;
O is for osteo, bones that don't grow!

P for prescriptions, I have quite a few,
Just give me a pill and I'll be good as new!
Q is for queasy, is it fatal or flu?
R is for reflux, one meal turns to two.

S is for sleepless nights, counting my fears,
T is for tinnitus; bells in my ears!
U is for urinary; troubles with flow;
V for vertigo, that's "dizzy," you know.

W for worry, NOW what's going 'round?
X is for X-ray, and what might be found.
Yfor another year I'm left here behind,
Z is for zest I still have - in my mind.

*I've survived all the symptoms, my body's deployed, andI'm keeping 26 doctors fully employed!!!

Shirley Conlon shares this story:

SURELY I´M NOT THAT OLD!

Have you ever been guilty of looking at others your own age and thinking, surely I can´t look that old?

Well, you´ll love this one.

My name is Alice, and I was sitting in the waiting room for my first appointment with a new dentist.

I noticed his DDS diploma on the wall, which bore his full name. Suddenly I remembered a tall, handsome, dark-haired boy with the same name who had been in my high school class some 40-odd years ago.

Could he be the same guy that I had a secret crush on, way back then?

Upon seeing him, however, I quickly discarded any such thought.

This balding, gray-haired man with the deeply-lined face was way too old to have been my classmate.

After he examined my teeth, I asked him if he had attended Morgan Park High School.

"Yes. Yes, I did. I´m a Mustang." He gleamed with pride.

"When did you graduate?" I asked.

He answered, "In 1974. Why do you ask?"

"You were in my class!" I exclaimed.

He looked at me closely. Then that ugly, old, bald, wrinkle-faced, fat-assed, decrepit son-of-a-bitch asked,

"What did you teach?"

Betty Audet sends these definitions:

AN OLD-TIMER IS...

1. One who can remember when folks sat down at the table and counted their blessings instead of calories.

2. A person who remembers when people wearing blue jeans worked.

3. One who can remember back to when a telephone was a convenience.

4. A geezer who can remember when "setting the world on fire" was only a figure of speech.

5. A guy who distinctly remembers the five-cent cigar but forgets the 10-hour, six-day workweek.

6. One who still remembers when the red menace was made of flannel, had a flap in the back, and was worn in the winter.

7. A guy who realizes that his kid´s history lessons are what he read in the newspapers.

8. The person who can remember that when you bought $5.00 worth of groceries, the clerk reminded you to hold the bag by the bottom.

9. A father who remembers when a juvenile delinquent was a youngster returning from the woodshed.

10. A man who is old enough not to care what anyone says about him, and no-one does.

11. A senior citizen who can remember when you could get the landlord to fix anything by threatening to move.

12. A person who can remember when you didn´t even think of Christmas shopping until after Thanksgiving.

13. One who recalls the only improper things you learned in school were fractions.

14. A man who can remember the time when it was easy to distinguish between a bathing beach and a nudist camp.

15. A man who can remember when you could light a cigarette at either end.

16. One who can remember when there was hot criticism of the extravagance of a government when it gave away free garden seeds.

17. A person who can remember when charity was a virtue, not an industry.

18. A person who can recollect when a new baby was considered an addition instead of a deduction.

19. A man who can remember when a lady looked the same after washing her face.

20. A guy who can remember when the sky was the limit.

21. A person who remembers when buttons were sewn, not pushed.

SUGGESTED WEBSITES

Barbara Wear sends this link to a video of a couple who dedicated their lives to rescuing and releasing injured animals. Their main charge is a huge 1400-pound Kodiak brown bear:

Bruce Galway forwards the URL for a compilation of 12 poisonous plants, some of which may be in your own garden:

Irene Harvalias suggests this site, which gives a history of our world in two minutes, compiled by a 17-year-old high school student, Joe Bush:

Shirley Coutts sends the URL for the story of a patient and talented young Japanese artist whose work turns bad news into captivating animals sculptures:

Tom Telfer forwards the URL for a flash mob performing "Ode to Joy" by Ludwig an Beethoven in the town square of Sabadell in Spain:

Tom also suggests this video of German helicopter aerobatic champion Charlie Zimmermann flying the BO-105 through a Bavarian forest.

Tom Williamson sends this link to a video of the men who make a perilous living driving on thin ice on Siberia´s Ice Highway:

Zvonko Springer forwards the URL for a video that proves door-to-door salespeople are found everywhere:

To sign a petition to stop the Japanese whale slaughter, click on

This video show the bond between a baby elephant and her trainer at the Elephant Nature Park when she thought he was in trouble and rushed to the river and try to save him:

Who killed economic growth:

To check out the features of the "FreeDictionary," which changes daily, go to