Back in Hoptown ...
Since I left for Chicago, the Kentucky New Era has gone to a more straightforward, text-based TV listing. I think I like it.
Meanwhile, back in Chicago, we still haven't learned what happened to Lafe Coker after his U.S. Open collapse. Some of Mac Divot's golf-pro colleagues have been talking all week about how the size of the putting cup came to be ...
There are a couple of movies out in Chicago that I'm interested in ...
But neither is playing this weekend in Hoptown ...
So, back in Kentucky, I'll have to content my Evel Knievel craving this Independence Day weekend with this Robert F. Jones takeout from the July 5, 1971, Sports Illustrated. The whole thing is a lively, brisk read, and I do recommend reading it. But here's F. Jones's money sentence: "To the extent that America is a composite of dreams and desperation, Robert Craig Knievel fills the bill." And you can pretty much game out the whole tone of the article from that, and you would be correct.
Somebody smarter than Hoptown 1971 me, Chicago 1971 me and U.S.A. 2017 me all put together could take this collage of artifacts and assemble a pretty compelling post for the HP about how we got from that freakin' weekend to this one in America.
That Ross Sisk song was my favorite that I heard over the last week, but he apparently wasn’t the big star in that Pennyrile Mall music festival.
ReplyDeletePer William T. Turner and Donna K. Stone in Hopkinsville, “No person in the history of Hopkinsville was better known or more beloved than Drury Rathel ‘Chubby Dink’ Embry (1920-1999). Embry came to Hopkinsville before World War II driving a 1937 Packard. He approached WHOP manager Hecht Lackey about singing and telling jokes on the air. After service in World War II, he returned and awaked the community every morning for over 50 years on the Early Bird Show."
William T. Turner and Donna K. Stone wrote "awakened," not "awaked," as I mistakenly typed.
DeleteFrom a very interesting site, Hillbilly-Music dowt com: "Joe Wilson of the Kentucky New Era interviewed Dink's long time co-host on the Early Bird Show, Jim Love and he shared some of his memories of Dink. It seems Dink had a bit of a regular routine to prepare for his morning stint. He would get to the station by 3:00am to begin his preparation. He'd walk in and say hello to everyone that was there, then proceeded to go downstairs to the kitchen area and brew up a fresh pot of coffee. Then he would walk up and down the stairs a few times to get the blood pumping and finally sit down at his familiar seat in front of the microphone, waiting for Jim to start the music for the show. We've read in one internet thread where Dink's show would start with a train whistle and many a child in Hopkinsville probably knew when they heard that it was time to get up and get ready for school."
ReplyDeleteMy fourth-favorite song of last week was "There Ain't No School Today," by "Colonel Dink" and Jerry Stegall.
ReplyDeleteIn looking at those sources, plus Christian County, Ky, Volume 2, it appears that Mr. Embry was born in Love, in Butler County (near Mammoth Cave). As a little boy, he became noted singing for customers at his dad's store and then in school productions in Morgantown.
ReplyDeleteAt age 13, he hitched a ride on a cattle truck to Louisville, moved in with an aunt and uncle and found his way into show business and eventually became a regular performer on WHAS radio. His career brought him to Hoptown in 1940 for a performance with Goober and the Kentuckians on WHOP, four days after the station's opening. Apparently, Dink, Goober, et al were a hit, so they stuck around the area, and then, a year later, he was married to a local girl, Elwanda. Or maybe Dink met Elwanda, and that's why he and the rest of the Kentuckians stuck around Christian County. I'm not sure.
But, anyway, then World War II came, and Mr. Embry went into the U.S. Army. And then children came, and Mr. Embry started pushing the music hard, moving to Nashville. He got on WSM and the Grand Ole Opry with an act called the York Brothers. And then he moved to Atlanta and got on WSB's Barn Dance with Cotton Carrier's Plantation Gang. (Now Joseph A. "Cotton" Carrier of Arthur, Kentucky, looks like a heck of an interesting, Paducah/WPSD-connected story himself, and it appears clear that Dink and Cotton knew each other from their days in the Goober and the Kentuckians. But my wife and daughter are about to wake up on this Independence Day morning, and they're going to want to go out and buy sparklers, and I don't have the time to read Zell Miller's They Heard Georgia Singing in sufficient depth at the moment to know for sure.)
Whatever, it appears that Elwanda got sick in 1947, and so the Embrys loaded up again and moved home to Hoptown. Maybe Grandpa Jones and Stringbean were headed for Hee Haw, but such was not the fate of Dink. He got the morning show at WHOP, and he put together a band with his wife, a musically gifted local insurance salesperson and Ross Sisk. They played all throughout the area, including shows at Fort Campbell's hospital, Western State and Outwood. Even after Elwanda died in 1961, Mr. Embry never left Hoptown. A year later, he married another local girl, Virginia, who was a colleague at WHOP and Cumberland Presbyterian Sunday-school pianist.
ReplyDeleteIt was a big deal in Hoptown in 2000 when Mr. Embry died. The Rotarians even used their 50th-anniversary auction to put on an extended, televised tribute to him.
ReplyDeleteKelley Lynn quoted the second Mrs. Embry in the Kentucky New Era about the event: "He'd probably say that he didn't deserve it. But he used to say, 'I've got a cold and I didn't deserve that, too.'"
This CBS Interns program looks and sounds pretty hip and appealing.
ReplyDeleteIn this Dec. 4, 1970, episode of The Interns, Mike Farrell gets bubonic plague!
ReplyDeletePretty intense episodes: "A monk who has been cloistered for 40 years is treated for a tumor, while a stripper suffers from a bone spur and a distraught wife pleads for the mercy killing of her dying husband ... A playboy (Martin Sheen) takes the blame for a fatal hit-and-run auto accident in order to protect his guilty brother, a senatorial candidate ... A young man, fearful of passing on an inherited brain disease, demands that his girlfriend have an abortion."
ReplyDeleteThe one I want to see is "The Manly Art:" "A veteran boxer (Ron O'Neal) stages a surprising comeback." But, alas, it is not available on YouTube.
ReplyDeleteWell, that's enough of The Interns. Here's the famous Cindy-is-a-tattletale episode of Brady Bunch.
ReplyDeleteI think it might've been Bert Convy playing the "young, mod psychology professor" on the July 2, 1971, rerun of Nanny and the Professor.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that Shirley Partridge really got right about being a parent is that she takes seriously her children's ups and downs. She doesn't translate their severity to her own scale. I am trying to get better at that.
ReplyDeleteTo Tell The Truth wasn't a good game show. It was a freaking great game show.
ReplyDeleteIn heaven, I'll bet there's a Baseball-Reference.com-equivalent statistics website for To Tell The Truth, and I'll bet Kitty Carlisle's WAR is out of sight.
DeleteOn July 6, 1971, the A's beat the White Sox, 9-4, and I was able to watch animated play-by-play at Back To Baseball because The Internet Is Amazing™. I am so looking forward to following the second game of this series in Chicago later today, and I genuinely don't know how it's going to come out because the Amazing people at Back To Baseball brilliantly enable us fortunate users to set a "Hide Final Results" default.
ReplyDeleteI'll tell you what, boy ... the HP is going to be OTH when Mars 2043 me is pretending to be rich Hoptown 1997 me and I'm following animated play-by-play at Back To Baseball with my "Hide Final Results" default set because I actually don't know who ends up winning the divisions and the World Series in 1997.
ReplyDeleteAlso on Wednesday, July 7, 1971, the British Open starts. Everybody's going cuckoo for Lee Trevino. He just beat Jack Nicklaus in that U.S. Open playoff a couple of weeks ago, and then the AP sent around a picture sequence of Nicklaus grimly practicing at the Royal Birkdale Golf Club in the days leading up to the British Open. But not Trevino--he's hustled into Southport only Monday, July 5, after spending this past weekend winning the Canadian Open.
ReplyDelete"Super Mex" was on the cover of Sports Illustrated after winning at Merion. The Tuesday-afternoon Kentucky New Era carried a wire story headlined, "Trevino rapidly becoming No. 1 to golfing public." In it, the AP's golf writer, Bob Green, wrote about how in the Canadian Open, there was a moment when Arnold Palmer had just made the turn and was about to tee off at No. 10 but a lot of his gallery drifted over to the nearby No. 1 tee box to watch Trevino get started instead. But don't go to that link because the KNE nestled a little story amid the Trevino layout that reveals who won Wimbledon, and we haven't gotten to that film here yet at #freakinweekend.
Instead, if you're wanting some Lee Trevino love to get you psyched up for the Open Championship, check out this John Husar item in the June 25 morning Chicago Tribune, "Lee Trevino -- Super Status Pro?:"
ReplyDeleteJust as other Opens have become landmarks, this year's contest even may have pointed out ArnoId Palmer's long-awaited successor as king of golf.
Palmer, although still extremely capable at 41, no longer has the powerful shots required to dominate his sport. These now belong to men like Jack Nicklaus, Trevino, and a few others still emerging--John Miller, Bob Lunn, Larry Hinson, and perhaps Lanny Wadkins, to name a few.
Certainly, there now Is no such thing as a "Big Three" or "Big Four." Palmer, Gary Player, and Billy Casper have their own special level a notch below the newly-crowned "Big Two"--Nicklaus and Trevino.
No Wimbledon spoilers there. This story instead is wrapped around a Mac Divot strip in the wake of the Lafe Coker debacle. Still no word on the whereabouts of Lafe, by the way. I'm getting concerned.
DeleteBy the way, I've learned that there's "Mac Divot," the father, and "Sandy Mac Divot," the son. It was actually Sandy Mac who won the U.S. Open against his cousin, Lafe Coker, a couple of weeks ago, and now it's big Mac who has been schooling us on putting cup history and stance technique over the last two weeks.
DeleteIt has been a rough few years for Don Knotts.
ReplyDeleteAmerican League standings as of the morning of July 7 …
ReplyDeleteWestern Division
Oakland 53-28
Kansas City 42-37, 10 games back
Minnesota 39-43, 14.5
California 38-48, 17.5
Chicago 34-45, 18
Milwaukee 34-45, 18
Eastern Division
Baltimore 50-31
Boston 47-33, 2.5
Detroit 44-37, 6
New York 37-46, 14
Cleveland 36-46, 14.5
Washington 33-48, 17
The A's and White Sox get back at it at 8 Central with John Odom (4-4) scheduled to face Tommy John (6-9).
ReplyDeleteNational ...
ReplyDeleteEast
Pittsburgh 53-31
New York 46-35, 5.5
Chicago 42-38, 9
St. Louis 42-41, 10.5
Philadelphia 35-48, 17.5
Montreal 32-50, 20
West
San Francisco 52-33
Los Angeles 48-36, 3.5
Houston 42-39, 8
Atlanta 43-46, 11
Cincinnati 37-49, 15.5
San Diego 29-55, 22.5
The N.L. series that I'm following at the moment is Cubs vs. Dodgers.
ReplyDeleteThe Chicago Tribune has been so despondent over Chicago's sluggishness this season. In yesterday 1971's paper, George Langford's beat story was headlined, "Cuts Still Pretending Not Contending."
The Tribune has gotten pretty tough on Manager Leo Durocher, covering in detail his allowing catcher Randy Hundley to play so often so quickly after being activated following a bad surgery (Hundley is now out for the rest of the year, and that's a big deal because the difference in Cubs winning percentage in games that Hundley catches vs. those he does not is significant). And in his coverage following Chicago's most recent loss, a fall-from-ahead affair against the division-leading Pirates, Langford noted a series of sixth-inning maneuvers with curiosity:
ReplyDelete-- pulling standout starter Ken Holtzman for a pinch hitter after six innings and trailing only 3-2,
-- sending up Paul Popovich as the pinch hitter with two men on base when he was 0-for-15 in the role so far this season (Popovich popped out) and
-- inserting Ron Tompkins, who had not been used in 13 days (he gave up a double and hit a batter to touch off a three-run inning for the Pirates).
And now the Cubs' first baseman, Joe Pepitone, is hurt. He's a stud hitter and considered a more agile fielder than backup Jim Hickman.
The Dodgers, on the other hand, entered the series with five straight wins, most recently 7-3 July 5 over the Giants. Los Angeles has reeled back San Francisco to within a 3.5-game lead in the West, and that's the Giants' narrowest margin in many, many weeks. The Dodgers belted Gaylord Perry for 12 hits and seven earned runs in eight innings, as Perry's winless streak since May 30 was extended.
ReplyDeleteWell, the Dodgers kept right on hitting in the first game of the series with the visiting Cubs. Moving down the Los Angeles batting order, …
ReplyDelete— shortstop Maury Wills had a hit;
— left-fielder Willie Crawford had two;
— center-fielder Willie Davis had a hit;
— third-baseman Richie Allen had three;
— first-baseman Wes Parker, catcher Duke Sims and second-baseman Joe Lefebvre had a hit apiece;
— right-fielder Bill Buckner had no hits but also was credited with no official at-bats in four plate appearances, and
— even reliever Jose Pena gave the Dodgers a hit out of the ninth spot in the order.
That totals up to 11 hits, and, yet, they converted into only one run, and Ferguson Jenkins went the whole way for a 3-1 victory. Fergie is 12-8 on the season. It was only Los Angeles’s second loss in 11 games, but both came against Chicago. The teams return to action July 7 with a double-header.
Well, I just watched the A's-White Sox game on Back To Baseball, and I absolutely loved it even though the A's lost, 2-1.
ReplyDeleteAlso, by the way, the afternoon Kentucky New Era today 1971 had that Lee Trevino this morning shot a 4-under 69 in the first round of the British Open and tied for the early lead. (Jack Nicklaus was still out on the course as of press time.) Like the Internet, the AP wire is amazing.
Later in the day Wednesday at Royal Birkdale, Brit Tony Jacklin held the Open Championship alone but three-putted the 18th and finished with a 69. That left Jack Nicklaus in the lead, but then he collapsed on 17 and 18 and slipped to a first-round 71.
ReplyDeleteThat put the 69ers into a four-way tie for the lead: Jacklin, Minnesotan Howie Johnson, Argentinian Vicente Fernández and Trevino. After his morning round, hot Lee was disappointed in his driving and told Arthur Veysey of the Chicago Tribune Press Service that he was grabbing a cup of water and heading to the range for the afternoon.
Nicklaus was less chatty when he came off the course in the evening. “Don’t ask me to comment until I cool down,” heated Jack told Veysey. “Anyway, we came here to play golf, so let’s get on with it.”
If Trevino were to throw a rubber snake at Nicklaus on the teebox this 1971 morning, I’ll bet Nicklaus would strangle Trevino with it.
Meanwhile, the Cubs swept the Dodgers in the Los Angeles double-header last night, 6-5 and 4-3. The second Chicago win was thrown by Juan Pizarro, a 34-year-old lefty who won 19 games for the 1964 White Sox but has bounced around the league since then. The Cubs had called up Pizarro from Tacoma of the Pacific Coast League earlier in the day.
ReplyDeleteThe Tribune stayed on Leo Durocher in its coverage of the first game, even though Chicago won. With the Cubs ahead 6-2 in the bottom of the ninth and bases loaded, wrote George Langford, “Durocher visited the mound at this point with Lefebvre at bat and, after a long discussion, decided to allow the suddenly struggling Pappas to continue. Pappas’ first pitch to Lefebvre was in the dirt and the second was a wild pitch, advancing both runners. Durocher then attempted to remove Pappas, but the umpires reminded the Cub manager that since he had visited the mound with Lefebvre at bat he must let Pappas finish pitching to him. Pappas proceeded to walk Lefebvre …” Well, some other stuff happened but not enough of it for the Dodgers.
The Cubs and the Dodgers wrap up their series at 10 p.m. Central with etiher Bill Hands (9-6) or Ken Holtzman (7-9) facing Claude Osteen (9-6). The Cubs are now 8.5 back of Pittsburgh (and two behind New York) in the N.L. East. The Dodgers are four behind San Francisco in the West.
Pat Dobson (7-0) and the A’s face Wilbur Wood (8-4) and the White Sox at 1:15 at Comiskey (andBack To Baseball!). Oakland’s lead over Kansas City in the A.L. West is 10 games.
ReplyDeleteIt was Chuck (not Pat) Dobson for the A's, and he threw a complete game, 4-2. Larry Brown, the shortstop subbing for injured Bert Campaneris the last several games, went four for four with a run scored and an RBI.
DeleteThe other big baseball news today 1971 for me is that the Brewers traded Paducah's Phil Roof to Minnesota. I strongly considered Roof for my All-Star ballot, which I will be revealing soon.
ReplyDeleteTrevino went out in 2-over in Thursday’s second round but got it going on the back nine and closed with a 40-foot eagle putt to tie Jacklin for the British Open lead at 7-under. Nicklaus shot another 2-under 71 Thursday, and so he’s now three back of the lead. Having already won the U.S. and Canadian opens within the last 30 days, Trevino is vying to become the first man to ever win three national opens within the span of a month, notes Arthur Veysey in the July 9, 1971, Chicago Tribune. “Call me Lee, rhymes with three,” Trevino was quoted as saying upon arriving earlier this week at Royal Birkdale.
ReplyDeleteThe Cubs completed the four-game sweep in Los Angeles. George Langford reported that Ken Holtzman volunteered to pitch on one day’s less rest than usual and, after allowing the Dodgers to open a 2-0 lead int he bottom of the first, notched a complete-game 4-2 victory. “Ever since the Cubs’ arrival in Los Angeles three days ago, all the attention has been focused on the Dodgers’ pending weekend series with the division-leading San Francisco Giants. They then led the Dodgers by only three and a half games. While Los Angeles was looking ahead, the Cubs dealth their team a punishing blow by sweeping the set, dropping the Dodgers five games behind the Giants in saddling them with their longest losing streak of the season—four games.”
ReplyDeleteI love what George Langford did with his nouns and pronouns there—he made the Dodgers the team of the people of Los Angeles. In a similar vein, Langford frequently refers to the Cubs as “the North Siders” in the Chicago Tribune. I like that, too.
In the third round of the British Open on Friday, July 9, 1971, things got ugly as the home crowd not only cheered for Jacklin but also went so far as to reportedly cheer for his co-leader's mistakes. Trevino bore down, however, and birdied three of the last four holes and bettered Jacklin by a stroke. "At one point, I felt like going into the gallery with my putter," Trevino was quoted as saying in the AP coverage. "... Those people were rude."
ReplyDeleteLee Trevino won! He shot 70, following rounds of 69, 70 and 69. Lu Liang-Huan of Taiwan finished second a stroke back, and Jacklin, a stroke behind him. Nicklaus came in with a 69, five back and T5 with the Masters champion, Charles Coody.
ReplyDeleteSo that's it for 1971's golf majors. Nicklaus won the PGA Championship, played in February this year (it will go back to August for good in 1972). Coody got the Masters, and then Trevino won the U.S. and British opens (with a Canadian in between). And now it's on to Chicago for the Western Open, and let's see if Lee wins there, too.
The A's, meanwhile, split a series with the Angels at California. Things opened with a 20-inning, 1-0 victory Friday night/Saturday morning, and then it looked from the animation at BackToBaseball.com that the good guys were sleepy. They lost two straight and then had to scramble back from 2-0 down in the second game of a Sunday, July 11, doubleheader to win, 3-2. Awesome Oakland rolls into the All-Star break at 56-31 and 11 games ahead of Kansas City in the American League West.
ReplyDeleteThey offered Columbo to Bing Crosby.
ReplyDeleteTattletales will be a definitive improvement come 1974, but I do like He Said, She Said. And I really like it that the celebrity couples are paired with non-celebrity couples in the audience--whichever celebrity couple wins, that couple's non-celeb couple gets a free week at a Holiday Inn. That's an excellent prize.
ReplyDeleteNow I'm lost in a Holiday Inn haze. I want this fried chicken.
DeleteJohn Davidson--a Baptist "PK," as my wife and her colleagues say, on both sides--is now an outspoken atheist.
ReplyDeleteI have a bit of an in with the people who program the P.A. music at the Madisonville Miners' Ohio Valley League summer baseball games, and I'm going to see what I can do about them switching to the Hugh Montenegro version of "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" for when opposing pitchers are taken out of the game by their managers.
ReplyDeleteSay you're a person who really misses, say, that one radio station in Nashville in the 1980s that played easy listening music and say you have a son who is an IT professional who has set you up with a good internet connection and digital-audio system, you might really enjoy the "Easy Listening Hits Of The 60s" series posted by YouTube user "joking722." Here's Volume 1, with a fantastic Si Zentner and His Orchestra version of "Fly Me To The Moon (In Other Words)" in the leadoff spot.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I ponied up with the Wikipedia people the $3 each for all six of us--Matthew, Go Heath, Route2, Anonymous, SmartMom and me--plus an additional $2 to cover all the kids.
ReplyDeleteHow 6-year-old David Aldridge kicks off the #freakinweekend.
ReplyDelete