You never know what you’re going to read about here…I’ll drag you down any alley and just hope you’ll follow.
Today, for example, with a tough few days behind us — with “Over-land Park” (as I heard it pronounced on NPR today) in the national spotlight for the worst of reasons — I decided to lighten up after a day of substitute teaching.
So, I clicked on my iTunes library and started in on some of my 35 songs. (I know, some people have hundreds, maybe thousands, but I keep it simple.)
I didn’t get far, though, when I homed in on “Poetry in Motion” by Johnny Tillotson. I’ve always loved that song, which came out in 1960, my first year of high school back in Louisville. Those four years — especially the first three — at that all-boys, Catholic school were grim and difficult.
There wasn’t much to look forward to, except football and basketball games and Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand” on TV every afternoon. There were a few parties, but the girls were mostly out of reach for me and my buddies. The Xaverian Brothers who ran the school didn’t hesitate to smack us around for the smallest of transgressions, and I remember one “brother” in particular who would walk up and down the aisles smacking kids with a book on days when his arthritis was acting up. Didn’t matter if you were sitting still, not bothering anybody, you or the equally terrified guy next to you might get it, regardless.
About the only thing that salved the psychological torment and gave us hope that a kinder, happier world existed outside the walls of St. Xavier High was the incomparable, soaring music of the ’60s. How were we to know that what we were hearing on the radio (radio station WAKY in Louisville) would come to be regarded, almost unarguably, as the greatest pop music of all time?
“Poetry in Motion” was one of the most uplifting, hopeful songs on the radio in those days.
Those opening lines…
When I see my baby
What do I see
Poetry
Poetry in motion
Poetry in motion
Walkin’ by my side
Her lovely locomotion
Keeps my eyes open wide…
Wow!
Where do I find a girl like that? That’s what I wanted to know. And…Will I ever get the opportunity?
Johnny Tillotson was 21 or 22 when he recorded that song — not that much older than us, but light years away.
I didn’t know it then but two of the Nashville studio musicians who played backup on the song were Boots Randolph (“Yakkety Sax,” 1963) and Floyd Cramer (“Last Date,” 1960.)
I didn’t know this, either: The guys who wrote the song, Paul Kaufman (1930–1999) and Mike Anthony (born 1930), said their inspiration came from looking up from their work and seeing a procession of young ladies from a nearby school pass by on the sidewalk outside each afternoon.
What I knew was that the song thrilled me and helped get me through those long, dreary school weeks.
**
On Sunday, Johnny Tillotson will turn 75.
Thank you, Johnny, wherever you are…Florida, maybe, where he was inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame in 2011.
…Now, here’s that song…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2yAanNhcqI
(Sorry about the ad.)
**
Just to give you the flavor of my high school, here’s a 1964 photo from “the smoking shed,” outside the school cafeteria. I am at the extreme upper right, to the left of the guy looking at the camera. (I think he was blowing smoke rings.)
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Thanks for the trip down memory lane, Fitz. I was probably the guy blowing smoke rings-)
Good to hear from you, Pat…I was one of the best at blowing smoke rings.
YOU LOOK JUST LIKE CHARLIE!!!
Well, I guess, more like CHARLIE LOOKS JUST LIKE YOU!!!!
(That’s from my 26-year-old daughter, readers…Charlie is her brother, our 24-year-old son.)
Jim:
Hate to think high school was so grim for you, but what a group of good-looking guys–including you, of course—in your suits and ties. A little different garb than the normal of today. Glad your experience didn’t hurt your sense of humor.
Thanks to Brooks, I know what your son Charlie looks like!
Cheers,
Laura
The first year was absolute hell. We were in a 60-year-old building in downtown Louisville, and the smoking shed — our only haven from the drudgery — was a long, low structure, open on the front, metal on the back side and a corrugated tin roof…Things got a little better in our sophomore year, after we moved to a new building in what was then the “suburbs.” It was still oppressive, however…I’ve got one old buddy — who has commented here under the nom de plume Hubartos vanDrehl — who absolutely loathes Louisville because of the schooling we endured at the hands of nuns in grade school and “the brothers” in high school. Hubartos pulled up stakes the year he graduated and never lived there again. (In the photo, Hubartos is the guy to the right of the smoke-ring-blower. The smoke-ring-blower’s name is Mike Hanley. A math whiz, he went on to become an anesthesiologist in Lexington, Ky.)
Jimmy you forgot to mention your addiction to pool in this period and your calling “raaaack” when you won a game.
To be precise, Bill, it was “Raaaack ’em, fish!”
Yeah, I sure was a gracious winner…And when I lost, I just threw the cue.
(In the photo, Bill is to my left.)
Fitz,
I will listen to the album.
Be Well
The one and only Hubartos vanDrehl has weighed in with a comment, sent to me by email…Here it is:
Dear Jim,
You’re my oldest friend, but I have to tell you that after Elvis
went into the army and Jerry Lee Lewis married his cousin and Little
Richard got religion and Buddy Holly died in the plane crash, there
wasn’t any good music for a long time. Musically our time in high
school was a wasteland. My brother and I listened to the black station
(“WLOU, the black spot on your dial”), bluegrass and jazz. We did this
secretly to avoid the derision that would have come our way from those
insufferable conformists in East Louisville. I was a rabid fan of
James Brown in ’63 so I was not impressed with the Beatles and kept on
listening to black stations until the FM stations came along with
alternative music in the late ’60’s. My favorite class in high school
was the smoke shed. You couldn’t get laid or drink in Louisville so
nicotine was our only escape.
Respectfully yours and with a blessed lack of memories of those days,
I remain,
Hubartos vanDrehl