Check out this photo. You probably have a similar photo somewhere in your family archives ... a mother and father surrounded by their children, all dressed up. And, just like any other similar photo, there's a story behind it.
This is the family of Joseph and Frances Kastl of Omaha, Nebraska. Joseph was about 45 years old at the time; Frances was about 38. Pictured are five of their children - Ed, Sophie, Frank, John and Stanley. I'd place the date of the photo at 1915, but the only thing I know for sure is that it was taken between 1915 and 1919. I know this because of the two Kastl children not pictured - Leopold and Rose.
It was the untimely death of young Leo that prompted the photo. Leo was just six years old when he died on May 21, 1915. Realizing that the family had no photos of Leo, they resolved to have a family photo taken lest their family suffer another similar loss. Rose Mary Kastl (my mother-in-law) wasn't born until 1919 and was not included in what amounted to the only portrait of the Joseph Kastl family.
The Kastls were not wealthy people. Nor were they poor. Joseph's job with the Union Pacific railroad allowed the family to live in a large, comfortable home with room in the basement for making wine, room in the backyard to raise chickens and enough money to send their children to Catholic schools. Still, It must have been difficult for them to decide to pose for a photographer at such a sad time in their lives. The family eventually decided, though, that having a permanent record of their family at that time was important.
Today, photography is cheap and accessible to just about everyone. But how many of us think of photos in the same way the Kastls did a century ago? Families tend to be more scattered geographically than in the past, thus family photos are more difficult to pull off. Fortunately, in our family, our kids have taken the lead in this. Although our family is separated by great distances, whenever we are able to get together, one of the kids arranges for a photo session.
It can be hectic, with our three children, their spouses and our five grandchildren, all squeezing in front of the camera, but, like the Kastls before us, we think it's worth it.
Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand -- Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- is available at Amazon.
Once upon a time, in a time and place very far away, I was a disc jockey.
OK, OK. Disc jockey may not be a totally accurate description of what I did, but I did sit in a small booth, equipped with two turntables, a tape recorder and small control panel where I played records for the public and offered occasional words of wisdom. The radio thing actually felt quite natural for me.
I had a crystal radio as a young boy which, although limited to one station, was magical to me. In the mid-1950s, I often fell asleep to Don Hill's coverage of the Omaha Cardinals baseball team on KOIL. I soon graduated to shortwave radio, butchering the assembly of a Heathkit unit that was salvaged by a kind grandfather. From shortwave, I moved into broadcast band DXing where I met a few honest-to-goodness radio types, like Paul Lotsof who was a newsman at an FM station in Buffalo, New York, that was owned by George "Hound Dog" Lorenz, one of the truly legendary U.S. jocks.
Paul and I shared the (then) quirky trait of tracking down old 78s and 45s from thrift shops, garage sales and cut-out bins. We also had tape recorders and were soon swapping reels of our latest finds. Paul often included snippets of radio broadcasts, some from his own WBLK-FM, others from his travels around the country. Two things I learned from Paul's tapes: the Hound Dog was very good and most of the other radio announcers Paul recorded were very bad.
That's probably where I got the confidence to take a run at my college radio station when I learned it was looking for announcers. I was well into my fourth year of college when I answered the call, but at least a year away from my degree. There were just a few of us as we heard the pitch for KWOU, the campus "station" for Omaha University.
First of all, KWOU wasn't a station in the traditional sense. You couldn't hear it on any radio since it was only piped in from the studio to one location, the often-rowdy Ouampi Room of the student center. As I recall, anyone could amble up to the student center reception desk and ask that KWOU have its volume adjusted or turned down altogether. I believe there was a jukebox in the mix, too, but I could be mistaken about that. (It was the 1960s, after all.)
In any case, prospective jocks could sign up for available slots in the schedule and were expected to show up promptly for every shift. I don't recall how many shifts there were, but I took just one, an hour or two weekly. I suspect legitimate radio and TV students took the bulk of them. The studio was approximately the size of a closet and overlooked an honest-to-goodness TV studio, although I don't recall ever seeing any activity in there. Jocks didn't have to talk at all, though it was strongly suggested that you identify music selections and give a station ID and time check every so often.
There must have been some rudimentary instruction of how to cue a record (just to show you how hep I was, I was fond of "slip cueing") and how to run the board ("spin the pots," etc.). When they got to the part about what music was to played, I instantly understood why they were in need of fresh bodies. The university had apparently signed a deal with the devil (Mitch Miller) because the only records in the library came from Columbia's pop music division. That meant endless spins of Johnny Mathis, Robert Goulet, Steve Lawrence, Barbara Streisand and John Davidson - good singers all, but hardly the type of music to compete with the noisy frat tables of the Ouampi Room.
Despite my limited "air time," I quickly tired of all that MOR pap. I started bringing records from home. I borrowed my theme song from "Hound Dog," Otis Redding's Fa Fa Fa Fa Fa (Sad Song). I was playing Buffalo Springfield, Aretha and the Lovin' Spoonful, but I was saying Andy Williams, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Brothers Four. If anyone noticed the deception, they never said anything to me.
I was really looking forward to the fall semester when I planned to go even more radical, playing more early Dylan, the Seeds and Mothers of Invention. But my perceived role as a change agent was preempted by station brass who declared that Columbia pop was out, rock was in. We even printed music surveys (one is at the top of this post) to tout our new format. I think we did that for two weeks. There were a few sketchy signs that people were actually listening.
One sign was the unruly crowd of fraternity brothers that clamored outside the studio when one announcer dedicated Neil Diamond's Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon to them. Another was the time I cleverly decided to conduct a quiz to gauge audience interest. During the course of my program I presented three questions. The first person to show up at the studio with the correct answer to all three questions would win a prize, which (unbeknownst to them) was a stash of 10 Tootsie Roll Pops (retail value: 20 cents). Honestly, I never expected any takers but three or four people showed up after the second question to claim their prize. Thrilled, I sent them packing with the admonishment that they needed to come back with the answer to all three questions. After they left, the truth hit me: how will they react to winning a fistful of suckers? Hopefully, better than those fraternity brothers reacted to Neil Diamond. Any concern I had dissipated when nobody showed up after the third question.
Truth is, there was so much going on at that time, that I lost interest in my radio gig.
The preceding summer of 1967 is still known as "the summer of love." Somewhere around that time, I went with a few friends to an actual "love in" in Lincoln, a 50-mile drive. We thought nothing of parking our car on a roadside and hiking in to the festivities, which were much more tame than we were led to expect. Opposition to the fighting in Vietnam was taking root, even on our conservative campus. Eugene McCarthy would be a popular Omaha visitor in the months ahead, as would Peter Fonda. The truly enlightened would hang out at the Aruba sandwich shop where the world's woes were discussed ad nauseum over meatball sandwiches. Many stories that found their way into the school's underground newspaper, The Lone Haranguer, were doubtless hatched at the Aruba.
Personally, I was transitioning from radio to newspapers. Success in several journalism classes that I stumbled into in my quest to extend my student draft deferment as long as humanly possible, led to a position on the student newspaper and, eventually, to a real, paying job at a real newspaper. I just kind of faded away from KWOU and I'm pretty sure nobody noticed. I lost my full-time job at Union Pacific Railroad that year and the deferment went away as well.
Like most able-bodied young men of that era, I served in the military, got married and started a career and a family. I never looked back on my radio "career" and have never lost my love for the music I've grown up with. Sad to say, Otis Redding lost his life about the same time my radio career was fading. He was just 26.
Here's Redding's Fa Fa Fa Fa Fa (Sad Song):
Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand -- Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- is available at Amazon.
Dick Clark was fond of referring to music as "the soundtrack of your life." I like to think of family photos as windows into your life.
The visual memories of our past are among the strongest memory triggers around. Thumbing through a family photo album is an evocative trip into our personal past. Each photo stirs memories of people, place and occasions from our life's journey.
But photos, especially those from our distant past, often reveal their age in unflattering ways. They crack. They fade. We assault them with glue, tape and who-knows-what chemicals from materials that once promised to preserve and protect. What to do?
You may not be able to stop the natural aging process, but it's possible to make some amends by transferring your photos to a new medium by using readily available technology. By scanning a photo (or a document) into a digital format and cleaning it up with software, you can come up with an enhanced version of your original.
Plus, it's a lot easier to share an electronic image with friends and family.
The example used with this column shows what can be done in 10 minutes by using Photoshop, a popular photo-editing software.
For more tips on preserving your family photo history, go here.
Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand -- Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- is available at Amazon.
In May 1971, I was into my second year of Air Force duty in California, enjoying the amazing riches of that part of the country with the nagging realization that I could be shipped overseas on a moment's notice.
Linda and I had been married just before heading west and we were eagerly awaiting the birth of our first child, due in the fall of 1971. We had already decided on a boy's name - Aaron Guthrie, named after my favorite baseball player, Hank Aaron, and folk singer Woody Guthrie, who was the inspiration for another of my favorites, Bob Dylan.
Guthrie had died a few years earlier but Aaron was not only alive and well, he was making a serious run at eclipsing Babe Ruth's major league career home run record. And his Atlanta Braves team was making two trips to San Francisco, just 40 miles from our home, that summer.
The second trip in late July was just a little too close to Linda's due date, so I decided we should catch the Braves in May. We settled on May 9, a Sunday, when the Giants and Braves were scheduled for an afternoon doubleheader. I should probably point out that Linda is not a sports fan and I don't generally recommend ushering any 5-months pregnant woman to an event she's not wholly in sync with, but my enthusiasm apparently overcame any reservations she may have had.
We loaded up a cooler with food and drinks, which was allowed in the cheap seats in those days. Those cheap seats were the bleachers in left field and went for $2 a head. It was quite a hike from the Candlestick Park parking lot to the bleachers, but we did our best to blend in with our fellow bleacherites. This was difficult, given their rowdy behavior and the pungency of the air in our immediate vicinity.
Truth is, we could have left the cooler at home. Cokes, popcorn and peanuts went for just a quarter, a hot dog cost 40 cents and a beer was just 50 cents. Those were bargain prices, at a time when free agency was still being debated in the courts and million dollar salaries were still years away.
Despite the fact that there were 10 Hall of Famers at Candlestick that day, none of them earned as much as baseball's highest-paid player in 1971 - Boston's Carl Yastrzemski. Yaz pulled own $167,000 that year - a pittance by current standards, but well above Major League Baseball's 1971 average salary of $31,500.
As I mentioned, there were 10 Hall of Famers present in Candlestick on May 9, 1971 - five on each team. That includes Carl Hubbell, the Giants' farm system director and screwball pitcher who fanned five straight American Leaguers in the 1934 All-Star Game. On the field were Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal and Gaylord Perry.
The Braves, of course, had Hank Aaron and his longtime teammate, Edie Mathews, who was now a coach. Orlando Cepeda, who banged out 46 home runs and drove in 142 runs as a Giant in 1961 and was National League MVP for the Cardinals in 1967, was now playing first base for the Braves. Other Hall of Famers on the Braves roster that day were pitchers Phil Niekro and 47-year-old Hoyt Wilhelm, who was in the 20th of his 21 major league seasons.
The Giants' roster was peppered with a few other notables that day. Bobby Bonds, who rapped 332 home runs in a 14-year career, is probably more famous for being the father of disgraced Giants slugger Barry Bonds. Rookie pitcher Steve Stone, a 25-game winner for the Baltimore Orioles in 1980, is probably better known as a Chicago broadcaster, first with the Cubs, later with the White Sox. George Foster was a 22-year-old outfielder who would be NL MVP just six years later with Cincinnati and Don McMahon, the ex-Braves relief ace was in the twilight years of a career that would see him post an amazing 2.96 ERA over 874 major league games.
For the most part, the players didn't disappoint. In the first game, Mays slapped a home run that landed near us in a 5-2 Giants' win. McCovey homered for the Giants in the second game with a moon shot that rattled in the right field bleachers so loudly that you could hear it over the Grateful Dead music being played on a tinny tape deck in our vicinity. Fortunately, Cepeda countered that with a pair homers himself, driving in five runs that allowed the Braves to escape with a split. 6-5.
Our baby did, indeed, turn out to be a boy and we did name him Aaron Guthrie. A few years later, when Hank Aaron was touring the country with the home run ball that broke Ruth's home run record, I had the opportunity to introduce our son to him. I'm sure neither Aaron remember the encounter, but I was as proud as a papa can be.
As I recall, Linda had picked the name Stephanie in case we had a daughter. If that name was inspired by a popular ballerina or opera singer, I guess I would have gone to the ballet or something, but I don't think that was the case.
I sure lucked out on that one.
Photo: Linda Lehmer with Aaron Guthrie Lehmer at David Grant Memorial Hospital, Travis AFB, California, September 1971.
Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand -- Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- is available at Amazon.
John Edwards will go down in U.S. history as a disgraced presidential candidate. But before his fall, Edwards left something for all of us to ponder – the value of home.
Edwards’ 2004 bid for the presidential nomination was based on professed values transcending what he saw as the inequities of “two Americas” – one for the rich, one for the not-rich. In retrospect, his real-life values contradicted his professed beliefs. One could say the same about his perception of “home.”
As was revealed in his failed 2008 campaign, home to Edwards was a $6 million, 29,000-square-foot bungalow tucked away on 100 acres or so of North Carolina real estate. But Edwards has also offered up something for the masses in a coffee table book carrying his name as author entitled “Home: The Blueprints of Our Lives.”
The book presents 58 people sharing their recollections of their childhood homes. Most are celebrities from humble backgrounds, sharing the house-related events that helped shape them as they grew up.
The lesson here is that the memories of a childhood home are powerful. Use that power when crafting your own personal history. Mentally go through the rooms of your own childhood home and start recording your memories, room by room.
That's what this blogger did, but by actually visiting her childhood home. You can do it, too.
Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand -- Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- is available at Amazon.
As a product of the rock 'n' roll generation, I've drawn inspiration from the writing of many of the genre's icons.
That includes Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, Paul Simon, Tom Waits and John Lennon, among others. One of Lennon's lines, from the song "Beautiful Boy" is particularly memorable, I think.
Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.
I think this is important to remember as we work on our own family histories. Whether reflecting on our own personal history or interviewing others, it's a valid question to pose: What were your hopes and dreams at various points of your life? How did they change?
After all, it's not just the things that happened in our lives that shaped us into the people we've become. Sometimes it's the things that didn't happen that have the biggest impact.
Here are a couple of people who have written recently about hopes and dreams and how they intersect with real life. Writer Susan Henderson writes about the joy of a book deal and the sadness of the passing of a relative. Eric Brown, a West Coast transplant and long-time Mets fan, writes about his experiences at a Mets fantasy baseball camp.
So, how have your hopes and dreams affected your life's journey?
Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand -- Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- is available at Amazon.
So what do you do if Aunt Gertie dies and leaves you with a trunk full of memories? Her memories.
After all, she thought so much of you that she entrusted you with the eternal care of many of her favorite possessions.
Decluttering experts will tell you that the hardest items to get rid of are those with which you have an emotional connection. Those passed into your hands from loving relatives are the hardest of them all.
But, just as preserving your family history is a deliberate and selective process, the same discretion should be used in parsing your aunt's items. Sorting through them should be an affirming and joyous process, but it's important that each item be assigned a proper home.
As a chronicler of your family history, you'll want to keep those items which evoke memories of key personal events or with which you have a strong connection (emphasis on strong). Incorporate them into your own work by noting the stories behind the items.
Other familiar items can be given to other family members or friends as you deem appropriate. Some items will not be familiar to you at all, or may be damaged. If you don't understand its significance, get rid of it. If you just can't bear to toss it, share it with others who may understand its importance and let them make the call.
By sorting and evaluating, you'll be able to put your aunt's life into a perspective that adds richness to your own personal history.
Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand -- Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- is available at Amazon.
A personal letter, that is. Not a letter of complaint. Not a thank you note. Not a Christmas letter. And not an electronic one.
A real, honest-to-goodness, pen-to-paper retelling of details of your life to be stuffed into a paper envelope, adorned with a stamp and sent by what is known today as snail mail to its recipient.
Chances are, it's been a while. That's a shame. There was a time not so very long ago when letter-writing was a major means of communication. Certainly mail call was one of the few pleasures for many of us who spent extended periods of time away from our loved ones while serving our country in the pre-Internet age.
Caches of letters have proved to be invaluable assets in constructing many a family history. They fill in gaps of missing knowledge, stir memories and often reflect an eloquence too-often missing in a hastily dashed e-mail.
One question we should be asking ourselves as preservers of our own family histories is what kind of record are we leaving for our descendents? Have we done as good a job at documenting our lives as our ancestors?
For scientists, the electronic age has already created some serious problems.
As American Institute of Physics historian Spencer Weart notes: “We have paper from 2000 BC, but we can't read the first e-mail ever sent. We have the data, and the magnetic tape – but the format is lost.”
Take some time to revive this lost art. Slow down long enough to dash off a personal note to someone you love. Put it in an envelope, put on a stamp (you don't even have to lick them anymore!) and send it on its way.
Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand -- Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- is available at Amazon.
History, the kind I learned in school, wasn't usually my favorite subject. Memorizing dates, names and places tended to be dry and tedious exercises, unless there was an interesting story attached.
Family histories are different. Their relevance is easier to understand with connections to people we actually know or have at least heard about from those people who are closest to us. One of the fascinations of delving into one's past is that, for better or worse, you don't know where your path will lead.
Family history is made up of the personal histories of people within a family. It’s a close cousin to genealogy. Genealogy is a hobby dedicated to creating a family tree; family histories put some leaves on that tree by telling the stories of the people who populate its branches. Blogging guru Mike Sansone, a self-described “conversation conductor” who moved his home base from Des Moines to Omaha a few years back, once described family history to me as adding the fruit to a family tree. I really like that description. After all, the stories of our ancestors nourish us and give us the sustenance of our family legacies.
In my own family, it is said that my maternal grandmother's bloodlines lead back to a pre-Civil War-era vice president, John C. Breckenridge. Another branch of the Breckenridge family tree is said to lead to one of my favorite singers of the rock 'n' roll era, Grace Slick of the Jefferson Airplane. That makes us distant cousins. Very distant.
Sometimes your family history research takes you to darker places. For instance, there’s ample evidence that at least one of my ancestors may have been a slave owner.
One story making the rounds gives a tip on how to deal with the black sheep of your family. When a family historian discovered that a relative had been publicly hanged, he wrote about the incident: "He died during a public ceremony, when the platform upon which he was standing collapsed beneath him."
What about you? What surprises have you found in your family's history?
Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand -- Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- is available at Amazon.
A lot of people these days celebrate “Throwback Thursday.”
In case you’re not familiar with the term, it’s commonly used in social media to describe some sort of post about one’s past. It usually involves sharing of a cherished photo or story about a meaningful event from someone’s personal history.
That's pretty much what I did every day in my career as a personal historian. I helped people preserve for future generations those important moments from their lives. It should come as no surprise that researching family history is the No. 2 hobby (behind gardening) in the United States.
Preserving personal history 1) is a huge reward with zero risk, and 2) anyone can do it. You don’t have to be a great writer to jot down your memories and someone out there wants to read whatever you have to say. There’s no reason to be intimidated by the prospect of sharing what you already know with an audience that’s eager to hear about it.
One of the most common rationalizations I hear from people for not preserving their own family history is that "My family isn't all that interesting."
Are you sure?
Truth is, most families have a very interesting history and just don't realize it. For one thing, most of us grow up hearing the same family stories over and over again. For us, they're nothing special. To someone else, however, those stories can be spellbinding.
In my own family, an uncle carried around in his family history the story of his grandfather serving time in a Danish prison. One of his sisters, my mother. who shared the same family history, was unaware of this part of family lore until my uncle casually mentioned it at a family gathering. Perplexed, she asked him why he hadn't mentioned it before. His reply: “I thought everybody knew that story.”
How many family stories are lost because they aren't shared, even with their closest relatives?
It’s never too late to get started.
Don Crowdis, a resident of Toronto, began writing his “Don to Earth” blog when he was 93 years old. Crowdis wrote his blog posts by longhand at his kitchen table, then mailed them to New Brunswick where a family member typed them and posted them. Crowdis, who died in 2011, just short of his 98th birthday, created a devoted readership with his recollections of a lengthy and colorful family history and claimed the title of “the world's oldest blogger.”
What are you doing to save your family stories for future generations?
Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand -- Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- is available at Amazon.
