UPBEAT TIMES, INC. • MAY 2017 • 5 A little History...& More! ‘Just Chillin’ by Ellie Schmidt ~ eschmidt@upbeattimes.com


Upbeat May 2107 Magnificent Maytime!


Santa Rosa, CA. ~ First, Happy Mother’s Day to every mother on this planet. Why only one day is assigned to celebrate those we love is still a mystery to me. Guess I’m an ancient sort of romantic oſten


soul who


some call “mush” or “corny,”


enjoys what others


say


“schmaltz,” and still others “kitsch,” when it comes to any cre- ative art expression that


feels genuine


and true but “way out there” or “awesome” as the young prefer today. Consider the terribly familiar, and oſten seen on greeting cards, lines of poetry by Strickland Gillilan, American poet and humorist, b. 1869, who wrote “Te Reading Mother”


that


concludes: “I had a Mother who read me the things/Tat wholesome life to the child’s heart brings-/Stories


that stir with an upward touch./Oh,


that each mother were


such!/--You may have tangible wealth untold;/ Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold./Richer than I you can never be--/I had a Mother who read to me.” Yes, I was that lucky too. Tat kind of poetry does mischie-


vously reminds me Gillilan could be funny. He gave the long title: “Lines on the Antiquity of Microbes— Also known as Fleas” to a tiny poem: “Adam/ Had ‘em.” All who love sports may recall Muhammad


Ali was frequently inspired when interviewed.


Once when asked


what it felt like to be Muhammad Ali he responded with: “Me?—Wheee!”


Other


poets fiddled about with words and came up with 1) Authority= “I defy.” 2) Propaganda= “I falsify.” 3) Politicians= “I lie.” No wonder I turn to music, books and film to escape our currently upside down world realities. Happy May 24th Birth-


day to Shabtai Zisl ben Avraham –or Robert Al-


len Zimmerman—widely known and treasured as Bob Dylan— born in 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota. In Dylan’s book: Chronicles: Vol- ume One” you can discover about his youth and influences, his ad- miration for all of Woody Guth- rie’s works, and far more. Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” was first heard in public in 1963. He and


Joan His


Baez were “an item” back then. stamina


is remarkable. All those decades of performance tours and record- ing sessions continue unabated.


His latest won’t end until he performs


European tour began in Stockholm in April and in


Dublin on May 11. Ten this sum- mer he will tour both Canada and the U. S. Not only has Dylan received the


Nobel Prize 2016 in Literature, but he has also published seven books of his paintings and drawings be-


... continued on page 20 “It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.” ~ Winston S. Churchill UPBEAT TIMES, INC. • MAY 2017 • 5


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