Mean Woman Blues
“She got ruby lips, she got shapely hips, boy she makes ole Roy flip,
I got a woman mean as she can be, sometimes I think she’s almost mean as me.”
( From Mean Woman Blues, written by Claude Demetruis, recorded by Roy Orbison 1963)
I haven’t had the opportunity to work very hard on my travel writing career path.
But on a recent road trip back out to the Eastern Shore, I was able to enjoy some of my favorite 60s Gold music on Sirius XM. That is thanks to my sweet co-pilot. All was going fairly well, other than a couple of muttered “Shoot me’s” that I casually ignored.
Fairly well, until this song came on:
Roy Orbison’s version of “Mean Woman Blues.”
“Okay, this is jacked up!” she said sounding irritated, followed by something about the need to listen to something else.
On that note, I put on some County music.
Oh well, it’s a process. We are working on it, I am sure we will get there.
I’ve seen many social media posts recently with parents posting photos of their children heading off for their first day of school. It’s fun, I like seeing my grandkid’s photos as I guess I have done for the last many years.
We didn’t have social media back in the 1960s and 70s thankfully.
Yeah, that was probably a good thing.
Somehow, I can’t see my parents wanting to put photos of us kids heading off to our first day of school.
I could just imagine…this photo and…
My dad posting something like; “Okay I don’t care what day of the year this is, if you happen to see this kid, tell him he needs a haircut and to get his ass home, dinner is ready.”
Yeah, I don’t think my first day of school’s photo post would be as charming as this one:
Or this one:
I recently finished another book. It was titled “Grandma Gateway’s Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail.”
Emma Gatewood, in 1955, at the age of 67 years old, mother of eleven and many grandchildren, hiked the entire 2197 miles of the Appalachian Trail.
Not only that, two years later she would do it again. And she is credited with completing the entire trail a third time but the third was accomplished in sections and not as a thru hike.
Like Emma, my father liked to backpack and as a result my brothers and I did as well. An activity that started in the 1960s in Boy Scouts, we continued to hike as a family really, as we got older with trips that included my dad, my brothers Gary and Carl, my brother-in-law John, and my nephew Jason. We would try to do a section of the A.T. each spring. I guess it was our version of the “Hippie Trail.” When my dad turned sixty, he decided to call it quits, but the rest of us continued in various combinations. I am sure if my dad had social media back then he would have been posting photos of his backpacking trips.
I am glad we didn’t have social media growing up.
Maybe we had less distractions which gave us more time to go to the beach, listen to music, and do other idle things that got us in trouble.
But maybe more time to backpack, study, socialize, work, and read too.
Ultimately in his later years my father would have his social media experience with his own Facebook page. In addtion to the usual FB like activities, having Facebook allowed him to communicate with his cousins in Norway, which he really enjoyed. However, he eventually had to put that down too.
And remember, if you are currently less distracted and want to read a great uplifting book, pick up Grandma Gatewood’s Walk by Ben Montgomery. I would highly recommend it.
Hey, maybe instead of being a travel writer, I should be a book reviewer?
Or maybe a song writer…
“I got a woman sweet as she can be…sometimes I think she’s ALMOST sweet as me”
Yeah, I think I may have something there.
Oh well, it’s a process, I’m sure I will figure it out.
Postscript:
And finally, if we did have social media back in the day:
The photo above is one of my brothers and I somewhere along the Appalachian Trial
