opinion ~ expression ~
6 - Southpoint Sun
Wednesday, August 18, 2021
and other musings
Mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away
As time moves along, so many things become obsolete in our lives. For some people, there are things that never become obsolete, but for others, there are things that fall by the wayside as we get older. Looking back through family photo albums, I have to wonder if anyone is keeping photo albums anymore in this day of technology. It’s a shame really, because all of those memories are getting put on an electronic device and some of those images are never seen again. The days of those black-paged photo albums seem to be gone forever. Same with those little cardboard corners that you could buy to hold the photos in
place. I remember looking through my parents’ albums on a regular basis when I was a kid. That connected me to my extended family, some of whom I only know through those old photos. My maternal grandfather died before I was born, so my only image of him is through those old photos. My paternal grandfather had a debilitating stroke when I was very young, so my only memories of him are visiting him afterward, prior to his death. When my kids were young, we kept photo albums and also have lots of loose photos of each of the kids doing various things like playing baseball, visiting Storybook Gardens or just doing normal
kid things in the yard. Birthdays were captured with pictures and videos. Now, the videos are also obsolete. So now, most people under 60 are taking photos with their phones and tablets. With everything being digital, they get stored on these devices for eternity, or at least that’s what we think. That’s certainly what we thought 30 years ago when we were snapping pictures on our old Kodak cameras. Technology is great and I’ve managed to save quite a few photos from years gone by on Facebook, but somehow it’s not the same as leafing through those old photo albums and remembering. If I need to find a picture on my phone,
RIB’S RAMBLINGS Mark Ribble Apple tends to make it more complicated than it should be. It’s cool that everything is instantaneous and you don’t have to wait for film to be developed, but part of the charm is gone from that era. And if we can’t have the charm, what do we have? As Paul Simon said, “Mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away.”
Celebrating Elvis on the anniversary of his death It was two days and 44 years ago, on the afternoon of August 16, 1977 that Elvis Presley died. His girlfriend, Ginger Alden, apparently found him lying lifeless on the bathroom floor.
All efforts to revive him failed and he was officially pronounced dead at the Baptist Memorial Hospital at 3:30 p.m. As the reports got out quickly to the various medias of radio, TV and news outlets, by late Thursday afternoon and evening, it seems that just about everybody had heard about it. It truly was one of those ‘where were you when you first heard about it?’ moments. For me, it was around 5:30 p.m. in downtown Toronto at a broadcasting school studio on Queen Street East where I was in the middle of producing an aircheck record-
FLASHBACK RADIO with Chuck Reynolds ing that I could mail out to various radio stations in hopes of starting my career as an announcer or DJ somewhere in Ontario. Initially, I was surprised and shocked. Then, as it really hit me later that evening, I was sad and very disappointed and even mad. Sad because Elvis was my very first music star idol, on radio, that I started listening to around 1960 and onwards. And prior to 1965, I had collected many of his 45s and extended play 45s and also saw all of his movies,
Jim Heyens PUBLISHER
Mark Ribble EDITOR
Allison Siddall EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
Keira Janisse ADVERTISING SALES
Mallory Wright SALES COORDINATOR
Mackenzie Dresser PRINTERS AND PUBLISHERS - Publications Mail Registration No. 09204. Published every Wednesday
194 Talbot St. E. Unit #2, Leamington ON N8H 1M2 519-398-9098 • sun@southpointsun.ca Member of the
Ontario Community Newspaper Association
Advertisements and inserts do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Southpoint Sun
PRINT SALES
Melissa Hopper OFFICE MANAGER
Roberta McCarty OFFICE
Lori Gouin PRODUCTION
Tom Warwick PRODUCTION
old and new, during the 1960s at the local theatre in Richmond Hill. His movies and songs gave me great pleasure. Why was I disappointed? Well, the man I had admired for so many years wasn’t the same person in the mid 1970s. Seeing footage of him slurring his way through songs and forgetting the words at concerts was hard to comprehend. To me, he was the “King” who ruled the charts from 1957 to the mid-’60s with 17 number one hits and many more top 10 hits than anyone else at that time. Of course, just about everyone took a back seat when the Beatles arrived in 1964.
But forget that. Before he imploded, Elvis made a musical comeback on December 3, 1968 when his one hour televised concert “Singer Presents Elvis” absolutely blew everyone away. Dressed for a portion of the show in his tight black leather outfit with his long and thick sideburns, he looked incredibly cool and good looking. He sang many of his classics, along with some contemporary gems like “If I Can Dream” and “A Little Less Conversation”. Elvis really was indeed back! Even the contemporary Rolling Stone magazine raved about it. Just over a month later, Elvis finally – for the first time ever – made a decision without following his conniving, despicable and greedy manager Colonel Parker’s advice or direction. It would be a decision that changed Presley’s future for the time being. Teaming up with producer Chips Moman and some excellent musicians
and songwriters, including Mac Davis (at the time known as Scott Davis) and Mark James, among others, Elvis came up with a contemporary hit album called “From Elvis in Memphis” featuring “In The Ghetto” and his last #1 hit, “Suspicious Minds”. These were both great contemporary songs. The album was amazing with a fresh mix of rock, pop and country and everything in between. The King had returned! He would go on for seven years past then with some other great hits like “Don’t Cry Daddy”, “Kentucky Rain”, “The Wonder of You” and “Burning Love”. But hearing “Way Down” in 1977 on the radio a month or so before he died seemed a bit off. Something was not right. It was kind of blurry and muddy sounding. When I heard it again that evening on August 16, I knew why. That’s when I was mad and cried.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR POLICY
• Letters must stay within the 300-350 word range. • We reserve the right to edit for spelling, grammar and length. • We reserve the right to not publish letters that we view inflammatory, inaccurate or ‘rants’ against specific people, groups, religions, governments or ethnic organizations. Those rants are more suited to social media. • We will gladly print letters commending specific people or organizations in the community, as we believe that this helps the community as a whole.
• Please sign your letters and provide a phone number for verification or questions if we need to reach out to you. • Anonymous letters are not printed as we cannot verify their origin, but we may hold back your name in print if there are special circumstances, by request. • Send letters to sun@southpointsun.ca or mail to Southpoint Sun – Editor – 194 Talbot Street East, Unit 2, Leamington, ON N8H 1M2
