AMAZING GRACE AND ROCK 'N' ROLL

I will never forget the day my Dad showed up with a new stereo. This particular model was housed in a nice wooden cabinet with separate speakers and bore a gold embossed logo - Silvertone. Just the name alone conjured up mystery and stirred my imagination. This meant two things - that our family would now be able to enjoy listening in stereo with a much higher fidelity then we had previously and that my brother and I would be the recipients of the old mono suitcase phonograph player.

Dad proudly set up the new stereo in front of the big picture window in the living room of our little house. He placed the unit on a large wooden stand with room for storage of LP's down below and spaced the two speakers out on either side. Our new stereo system had a stacking mechanism allowing for the placement of a half dozen or so LP's on it. One record would finish and another would drop and they would play in sequence. This feature made the player almost like a small home jukebox. I'm pretty sure the scratches inflicted on these vinyl records falling on top of each other was quite damaging, but nobody thought of that at the time. Dad was very careful with his record collection, making sure that he held them with his thumb on the edge and a finger in the middle, so as not to get any fingerprints on the vinyl itself. He had a small cleaning kit which he used to remove dust with the velvet roller. Each and every record promptly went back in its proper sleeve and dust jacket. When Dad placed a record on the machine the glorious sounds of stereo filled the room. It might not have been heaven, but maybe it was a little taste?

Outside of books, Dad loved his records and collecting music. He would frequently come home from the Prairie Bookroom with the latest titles by Rudy Atwood, The Sixteen Singing Men, Tennessee Ernie Ford and a host of others. Christmas music was also important in our home and every Christmas a few more albums were added to the collection. Classics like Bing Crosby and Perry Como were brought home for us to enjoy. The Bookroom's strict music policies seemed to be more relaxed with Christmas music and a lot of "worldly" holiday music managed to sneak its way in the door. One of my Aunts, I'll call her Rachel, because that is her name, kept several of her records at our house so as not to incur any displeasure from Grandpa and Grandma. What better place to store them than at the house of her older sister who was married to a preacher! The original Sound Of Music soundtrack, featuring the clear voice of Julie Andrews and a sampler record that included Patti Page singing How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?, were a couple of the titles I recall.

Dave and I placed the little mono record player in our room and would listen for hours to the various story and song LP's that Dad would buy for us. We enjoyed Black Beauty, Seven at One Blow, Dick Whittington's Cat and a variety of Bible stories. Many nights we would fall asleep while the records played and Mom or Dad would come into our room, lift the needle off the player and shut off the machine. I remember Dad buying the soundtrack to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang long before we had ever seen the movie. As we would listen, our imaginations would fill in the scenes and action and in effect, create our own movie.

Dad, being the loyal Scot that he was, loved the bagpipes and had a few LP's of various pipe bands. Our family had experienced and enjoyed one of the largest drum and pipe festivals in the world when we visited Edinburgh in 1970. Each band, dressed in their kilts with tartans representing the various clans, cut a colorful swath across the vast lawns of Princess Street Gardens at the foot of Edinburgh Castle. Yelling out terse commands, the drum major led the group, holding a highly polished mace in his hands. One of the other highlights of that summer was being able to attend the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. This is an annual series of military tattoos performed by British Armed Forces, Commonwealth and international military bands and display teams. The event takes place annually throughout August, as part of the wider Edinburgh Festival.

A recent article in the Edinburgh Castle paper describes the event this way:

"In the glowing twilight, the floodlit Edinburgh Castle draws all eyes, a hush falls and darkness deepens. Then the great oak gates of Edinburgh Castle sweep open, and the swelling sound of hundreds of pipes and drums cracks through the night sky. Emotions run high: the Edinburgh Military Tattoo unfailingly enthrals, symbolising the Scotland that everyone holds dear in their heart.

Now a dazzling show is spread out on the Castle Esplanade, a whirling and colourful kaleidoscope of music, dance and display. It may be exciting - daredevil motorcycles at speed and the breathtaking re-enactment of battles, or exotic - Turkish music and Chinese dancers, or simply the best of Scottish - Highland dancers wheeling and swirling to a fiddle orchestra.

Then the audience gather themselves together for the finale of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. All 1000 or so performers on the Castle Esplanade, column after column of marchers, dancers and bandsmen. The Tattoo audience joins in a great chorus of singing, cheering, and applause; cries of 'Bravo!' before a hush falls for the singing of the Evening Hymn, the sounding of the Last Post and the lowering of the flags on the Castle.

Finally, all faces turn to the Edinburgh Castle ramparts, where a single spotlight cues the Lone Piper of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo to play his haunting lament, the high notes echoing across the still night sky and over the dark Edinburgh skyline, as the flames of the Castle torch lights and the piper's warming brazier flicker and slowly die.

At the Edinburgh Military Tattoo fireworks burst out from the Castle against the black sky, but the spell is not broken, for when the crowd sing Auld Lang Syne and shake their neighbour's hand, the emotions linger, and the heart is full. Goers to The Edinburgh Military Tattoo all united in international friendship, the shared love of Scotland, its music and its traditions."

As the fog rolled in from the sea and the sound of the pipes echoed throughout the castle and across the city, it became an unforgettable experience for our family.

I'm not sure which is more maligned - the bagpipes, the banjo or the violin, but the bagpipes certainly receive their fair share of jesting. It is said that the Irish sent the bagpipes over to Scotland as a joke . . . and the Scots still haven't caught on! Alfred Hitchcock once said, "I understand the inventor of the bagpipes was inspired when he saw a man carrying an indignant, asthmatic pig under his arm. Unfortunately, the man-made object never equaled the purity of sound achieved by the pig". A friend of mine once asked me what the definition of a gentleman was. The answer, he claimed, was a person who knows how to play the bagpipes but doesn't.

A friend of Dad's knew he was a big bagpipe fan and presented him with a small gift. It was a 45 record with a bright orange label in the center housed in a plain white paper sleeve. The 45, was another musical reproduction device in a line of many, starting with wire recordings, wax cylinders, 78's and 33 1/3 LP's, to name a few. The 45 had a large hole in the center necessitating the use of a little plastic adapter to enable it to be played on standard phonograph machines. For many years this became the medium of choice for the record companies to service radio stations, hence the name "single", as only one song appeared on either side. Record stores would also sell them and I collected many throughout my high school years.

The title of Dad's gift was the classic recording of "Amazing Grace" by the combined bands of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards. This recording had reached number one status in the charts in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, Canada and South Africa. The recording was originally released in 1971 to mark the amalgamation of the Royal Scots Greys and the 3rd Carabiniers, to become the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, Scotland's only cavalry regiment. The album first appeared on the RCA label and it was this recording which gained the band's world renowned fame, selling over 6 million copies of the tune when it was released as a 45.

Being the curious kid that I was, I decided to check out the B side of the little black vinyl 45. On this particular edition, the distributor of the single, had decided to put an unrelated group on the opposite side of Amazing Grace. What met my ears were the heavy sounds of a rock band a la Deep Purple or T. Rex . This was a brand new sound to me. The punchy drums and powerful guitars were something I thought I could get used to! As the song says, "It's Only Rock 'n Roll, But I Like It".

Occasionally, when we arrived home from school, Mom would have left a note on the table or door letting us know that she would be right home. Sometimes she would be called out on church business or be off on a project or committee meeting. We were pretty independent and would make ourselves a sandwich, grab an apple or some cookies and go outside to play or listen to the stereo.

Every Saturday morning the Institute held a weekly staff meeting. Attendance was mandatory for both staff men and women. To aid in this endeavor, the school provided a babysitting service. Bible school girls were assigned to different homes as part of their student work. The girl would arrive just before 8 o'clock and leave right at 9. Many times Mom and Dad would visit with other staff and wouldn't arrive home until 9:30 or so.

After the discovery of this new musical art form, I decided that a scientific experiment was in order - one along the lines of acoustic research. Taking advantage of the small time window when the babysitter left and my parents weren't yet home, I hauled both of the speakers from Dad's stereo into the front doorway and stacked them up one on top of each other. Pointing them in the direction of the elementary school, I enlisted my brother as my research assistant. I cranked up the B side of that little 45 and then dispatched Dave to walk down towards the school and see just how far he could hear the music. I kept an eye out for Mom and Dad or an annoyed neighbor or two. Evidently the stereo put out quite a healthy decibel level, because on Dave's return, he reported that he could hear the music all the way down at the elementary school. I'm sure that the noise emitting at that level was completely distorted, but it brought me a great deal of satisfaction that I had effectively "covered" the neighborhood with my gift. Working quickly, we had the whole thing put back in its place, playing the sweet sounds of the Sixteen Singing Men upon Mom and Dad's return. I don't think any neighbor ever reported us to our parents nor did any of them call the cops. They were probably all at Staff Meeting as well.

Every time I hear the haunting strains of the bagpipes, I smile to myself and think of the day I found Amazing Grace and discovered Rock 'n' Roll.

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© 2011 Stephen J. Rendall - All rights reserved.

SHARP AS NAILS

When I was growing up, the IDA drugstore in town was right up there on my list of favorite places. Not because of the toothpaste, deodorant, candy or even the drugs, it was because of the music. Before there was itunes, MP3's, Limewire, CD's, minidiscs, cassettes, or even 8 tracks, there were LP's. The store had a very large section of Long Play records and I knew exactly what they had, what they should have and what I thought I wanted.

Prairie Bookroom had extremely strict policies on what it would carry and by diligently guarding the flock from this type of worldly influence they provided no option for those interested in other types of music. John Toplensky, the proprietor of IDA, had carved out a very nice niche market in the selling of Contemporary Christian Music or CCM as it is called. John carried some secular music, but focused primarily on CCM as distributed by WORD Canada.

I saw no reason why the secular couldn't live in harmony with the sacred and so I would eagerly await the arrival of the latest releases. Albums by Love Song, Daniel Amos, Phil Keaggy, 2nd Chapter of Acts or Keith Green would quite happily co-exist in my collection alongside the Eagles, April Wine, Alan Parsons, Chilliwack, Joe Walsh and many other titles. I would be there waiting the day a new shipment arrived. John would let me special order LP's that he wasn't planning on stocking. He also began to bring in recording magazines of which I couldn't seem to get enough of. The WORD rep would come to town and hold "listening parties" of the latest music and hand out prize packs of singles, promo flats, etc. This effectively fueled my fire.

Back in the day, WORD ran a coupon program with stickers placed on all of their LP's and cassettes. If you bought 3, you would get one free, but later that program moved to buy 4 and then buy 5 and then eventually was done away with all together. The coupons were stuck to the outside of the shrink-wrap and on occasion WORD would "double coupon" in order to incentivize the buyer. I would carefully save up my coupons waiting to use them on just the right title. I always bought the vinyl, feeling that the cassettes were too low quality and thinking of myself as quite the little audiophile. I loved the LP jackets with all the liner notes, lyrics, pictures and large artwork. In my mind the absence of these extras is one of the great losses in the new digital delivery world we live in.

Over the years I became as familiar with the music inventory in the store as John himself or maybe even more so. I had started noticing that many of the LP's were missing their coupons. There were holes in the cellophane where they should have been. It looked like someone had taken a little exacto knife and just cut a neat square around each one. I talked to John about this and he didn't seem to have any idea where the missing stickers were wandering off to. This was before closed circuit TV became popular.

Several weeks later as I was perusing the stacks of LP's, I noticed a most curious sight. Right beside me was a middle aged woman from the community. This lady and her husband owned a business in town and were very upstanding citizens. As she would flip an album forward, I could see her take the nail of her index finger and jab it down into the cellophane behind the coupon. Quickly, she worked her long, sharpened fingernail all the way around the coupon, pocketing it and moving on to the next one. I was shocked to say the least! She was very focused and by the efficiency of the act, looked like she had done this a time or two before. To this day I am not sure why she didn't notice me or seem to care if anyone was watching her, but she was making quite a haul. I wasn't really sure what to do, being only 14 or 15 at the time. I should have said, "Hey, Mrs. so and so, what do you think you're doing?", or something to that effect, but I didn't. I walked to the back of the store and found John. After telling him what had happened, he assured me that he would keep an eye out for this woman. Some time later I was visiting with him and he mentioned that he had caught her doing exactly what I had described. He confronted the lady and the coupons stopped disappearing.

In later years, as I visited with many store owners, I was told that Bibles and Christian music are some of the most stolen items in stores. Since that time, I have never looked at long fingernails the same!

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© 2010 Stephen J. Rendall - All rights reserved.

TASTE OF HONEY IN THE FIRES OF HELL

Albert Kitts was, in the words of my father, a "mountain of a man", the type with the build of a middle linebacker with no neck. Kitts, of Dutch extraction, wound up moving to Prairie sometime in the early 60's. He performed manual labor working on the farm and the construction crew. With an accent as thick as molasses, Albert was tall, broad shouldered and strong as an ox. Unfortunately, Albert was mentally unstable which caused serious problems throughout his life.

In the spring of 1982, Albert took it on himself to move back to Three Hills and take up residence in W dorm. This dormitory housed the single staff men. Those characters were material enough for a whole book in themselves. Men like George Bryant who hailed from Georgia. A very large man and bald as a peanut, we affectionately dubbed him "chrome dome". George had a typical southern drawl and was employed as a High School study hall supervisor, where with some creative gift giving of cakes and cookies, one could buy their freedom from said prison.

Earl Latimer was an odd duck who had one room of his little two room apartment chock full of tape recorders, turntables and a sizable record collection. Earl would copy LP after LP and give the cassettes to staff and visiting missionaries, "sharing" his wonderful library with the larger world. This was long before file sharing and downloading was to become an issue. Little did the artists know that in a little town in Alberta, bootlegging ran rampant. Earl could be very gruff and curmudgeonly, but underneath his tough exterior beat a kind heart.

Paul Koch was a small German man who worked on the maintenance crew shoveling snow in the winter and weeding flower beds in the spring and summer. In the dead of winter Paul would be up long before the dawn. Armed with his pick axe, shovels and wheelbarrow, he would make sure that the core campus was free of snow and ice insuring staff and students would be safe from injury should they slip and fall. Paul was a faithful servant who lived an extremely simple life and had very little for himself. With his German accent and a twinkle in his eye, Paul loved the students and they loved him. One day in his older years Paul mysteriously disappeared and no one had any idea where he had gone. He was found several days later face down in one of the boiler plant's reservoir ponds. He had his wheelbarrow and scythe with him and the conclusion that was reached was that he had a heart attack while weeding around the ponds and slipped into the water.

Sid Langley was also a resident of W dorm and anyone who ever met Sid was lucky to have gotten away. Sid could talk the hind leg off a donkey. Sid worked in various jobs at the school and did stints in the Bookroom, nightwatch and maintenance. One summer when I was in High School, I traveled back and forth to Camp Silversides several times with Sid. He was brave enough to let me drive his car which I thoroughly enjoyed.

The problem with Albert moving in to W dorm, was that he was not invited, nor did he have permission to live there. Albert just moved in lock, stock and barrel. He felt that it was his "right" to live there having worked for the school back in the 60's. His presence struck fear into the residents and rightly so; they were very concerned about their new house guest. Big George Bryant was so scared that he took to sleeping in his station wagon at night. Some of the other guys would bar their doors, while others had a hard time sleeping. Clearly something needed to be done. That "something" fell to my father who was a vice president at the school.

Dad had several encounters over the years with Albert. Occasionally during a church service Albert would stand up and start yelling out a bizarre concoction of verses, doomsday prophesies and general hatred and venom directed at the staff and administration of the school. It turns out that when Albert had been working for the school in the 60's, his employment was terminated due to his violent temper and his inability to get along with his fellow employees and leadership at the institute. Evidently Albert hadn't remembered the "forgive and forget" part and was back to make his presence felt.

Because of Albert's history, Dad wisely chose to take another of the vice presidents with him to chat with Albert about his living in W dorm. They made him aware of the fact that he was not really welcome to stay. To say the least, this news was not welcomed by Albert. Dad and his partner took their leave, not really sure what step to take next outside of calling in the authorities. Clearly something needed to be done as his presence in the dorm was causing a great deal of discomfort and inconvenience to the residents. Dad decided to leave it to the next day when the administration would meet and determine the next course of action.

Mom was a fairly accomplished author and had released a book entitled "Just A Taste Of Honey" in 1976. This book, published by Moody Press of Chicago, IL, featured short articles from Mom's life with a brief application at the end of each story. This was the first of Mom's four books along with dozens of articles that she wrote for the Prairie Overcomer. Just A Taste Of Honey went on to sell over one hundred thousand copies making it a best seller.

One sunny afternoon in the spring of 1982, the front door bell rang at Mom and Dad's house. Dad was at work and Mom was lying on the couch in the front room. After coming down with MS in 1976, she spent a great deal of time on the couch in the living room. Mom could still walk, albeit in an awkward teetering way, and she made her way to the front door. Upon opening the door, she saw Albert Kitts standing there, red faced and clearly agitated. Mom was frozen and scared. She had not seen Albert in years, but knew from Dad that he was back in town. Nervously, Mom reached out to the screen door, quietly locking it as she asked Albert how she could be of help. In one quick motion, Albert produced a copy of her book and yelled at my Mother in his thick Dutch accent, "May you have a taste of honey in the fires of hell!". With that he ripped the book completely in half and threw it down on the front stairs. He didn't just rip it down the spine, he ripped the book sideways. Mom, imagining those large strong hands ripping the screen door down and grabbing her throat, was shaking like a leaf. Albert, without saying another word, turned around, marched back down the stairs and left the yard. Mom collapsed on the floor her rubbery legs refusing to hold her up any longer.

After she regained her composure and some of her strength, she was able to get over to the telephone and call my Dad. He came home and was able to comfort Mom and get her comfortable. Later that afternoon, a call was made to the authorities and Albert was no longer a resident of W dorm.

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© 2010 Stephen J. Rendall - All rights reserved.