Frazz by Jef Mallett for June 29, 2019

Sheesh! When I went to elementary school in the ‘40s, we sure didn’t have any summer reading or studying thrust upon us.

Wartime. Men were gone. We were needed.

Nice Aretha reference. Good earworm, too.

I was that oddball that read every book on the reading list….and more

You also didn’t have a backpack weighing close to 40 pounds to lug back and forth to school every day!

THINK about it. She had to clean out her locker. “People walking around everydayPlaying games and taking scoresTrying to make other people lose their mindsWell, be careful, you’re goin’ to lose yours”

Aretha Franklin – Think (feat. The Blues Brothers)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vet6AHmq3_s

Good song, but I prefer Richie Havens singing about “freedom.”

Before the last frame, I thought it was the anthem “Oh, Freedom” from the Civil Rights Movement.

A stack of books from the library and the daybed out on the screen porch was my idea of a perfect summer day!

Am I the only one who wonders how somebody so young remembers Motown lyrics?

Hey, think about it…

“Oh no. This is what I read for fun!”

I went through Bryson Elementary, South Gate, CA in the 50’s and had nothing to do but play all summer long. Not even a fun book to read.

With rare exceptions, school has always be rote memorization, because it is easier to teach, because “the test” requires it for both student and teacher, and because “tradition”. Most exceptions will be due to autodidact or one-on-one tutoring.

First I thought it was George Michael’s “Freedom.” Then I remembered this: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x36squf

PostsFrazz13 hrs ·

When the movie The Blues Brothers came out in 1980(!), I didn’t see it. I’m not exactly sure why. I probably only had a window of about a week at the Big Rapids Theater, and I may have been gone, I may have had to work, I may have already been entertaining delusions of athleticism and finding time for a movie didn’t fit my training plan. But I probably also didn’t care. I had seen their stuff on Saturday Night Live and thought it was pretty good, but it wouldn’t have been a stretch — or probably out of line — to think that a good SNL skit was one thing and stretching it out into a feature-length movie was another.

Many years later, I would write a story for Bicycling magazine about the best car-chase movies to pop into the VCR (it was a while ago) to watch while training indoors, and The Blues Brothers was one of the movies. I vaguely remember deciding that, yes, you COULD stretch a solid SNL skit into a movie, and I vaguely remember that it was also a pretty exhausting movie to watch on rollers. They went fast a lot. But I very solidly remember the scene with Aretha Franklin in the diner singing “Think,” and feeling like I’d just won the musical lottery and I’d better start listening to a whole lot more of the Queen of Soul. Lord, she was good. I do miss her.

The absolutely longest stretch of non-stop school was spring, when I was a kid. These days, there are all kinds of teacher work days, parent conference days and other stuff. Even 30 years ago, my kid seemed to get every third friday off.

The song ‘The Clansman’ by Iron Maiden was what came to my mind!