We lost a legend today. Aretha Franklin, who has provided the soundtrack to many of our lives, has passed at the age of 76 at her home in Detroit, Michigan.
I watched Soul Train every Saturday for most of my life - the first episode aired in 1970, the last in 2006. I don't remember a Saturday morning without the Soul Train line. In the video above, from a December 1979 episode dubbed "A Salute To Aretha Franklin", Don Cornelius switches it us and asks Aretha if she knows any Smokey Robinson songs. She proceeds to play "Ooo Baby Baby" with Smokey jumping in, making it a duet. Most artists are honored to have Aretha cover their songs, but as many find out, once Aretha does one of your songs, it becomes hers.
Here are some of my favorite Aretha songs: Ain't No Way Day Dreaming - this is probably my top favorite. It "He's the kind of guy that would say, 'Hey, baby let's get away, let's go some place, huh, where, I don't care'..."
Here's another arrangement of Until You Come Back To Me - recorded live, in Canada, in 1978. Upbeat, sassy, and fantastic. Something He Can Feel - "I'm givin him somethin he can feel. To let him know this love is real." So soulful. So Aretha. En Vogue did a super sexy version of this song in the 90s - I don't know who's sexier in this video, the girls on the stage or the guys in the audience. Oh my my. Great song. I Say A Little Prayer - "The moment I wake up. Before I put on my makeup. I say a little prayer for you. "
You Are All I Need To Get By - "Like the sweet morning dew, I took one look at you, And it was plain to see, you were my destiny."
Aretha has sung songs in all genres, from her start in gospel, to the time she stepped in for Pavarotti and did Nessun Dorma. The Queen of Soul does Opera.
In 2015, Aretha sang You Make Me Feel) Like A Natural Woman, in tribute to the song's co-writer, Carole King, who was receiving the Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime achievement. The entire crowd, including President Obama, his wife Michelle, Carole King, Clive Davis, rose to their feet as she belted out this classic. Aretha was 73 years old when she brought the house down.
Aretha also performed at Barack Obama's 2009 Inauguration - to the largest inaugural crowd in history - she marked the occasion by singing "My Country "Tis of Thee". Estimated at 1.8 million people, it was generally considered a record for the number of people on the National Mall. The hat almost stole the show.
Many people consider Aretha's music to be part of their life's soundtrack. I certainly do, as many of her songs, I first heard in my youth. She's a true legend.
And she's left a rich legacy that'll take us through the rest of our lives.
Yesterday I sat in traffic in State College, Pennsylvania for an hour and a half. Oddly, I don't really get too annoyed with traffic. I like the slow pace, I like to people watch, and I especially like when it comes to a complete standstill and I have to pull the brake and just sit there.
Stop and go traffic is annoying, especially when you have to shift every three feet. My left leg actually starts to get fatigued from pushing the clutch in so many times. It's like spot exercising. I half expect to come out with a thigh that looks like Popeye's arms.
I also didn't mind because Pennsylvania - especially this part - is stunningly beautiful. Oh my God, all the green! The lush trees. Hills. Grass. It was glorious. It had been raining on and off so the sky was a bit cloudy, no glaring sun to annoy me.
Of course there are the people who need to scoot in front of you because they think they're "getting ahead". I prefer to be behind another truck rather than a car though because constantly watching a little vehicle's movement is annoying. I'd rather creep along with a truck. I had some guy squeeze between me and the truck in front of me and I kept thinking I was going to roll forward and crush him. At some point, the lane to the left moved a wee bit faster and he darted over there. To get one car length ahead. Idiot.
I thought there was an accident because the app on my phone showed a fender bender up ahead. Turns out it wasn't an accident, it was just construction - two lanes merging into one - backing up traffic for miles.
Eventually, the road opened up and the traffic quickly dispersed. My respite from the long haul was over. It was time to go back to work.
Over the years we've hauled loads that need what's called an escort truck. This is not the same as having a pilot car escort. An escort truck follows the lead truck, turning when it turns, stopping when it stops, always keeping it in view. Most of the loads we've hauled that require an escort (or that we've been an escort for) involve some kind of sensitive or expensive freight. Sometimes there will be two loaded trucks and one escort truck. The escort truck is always empty, it never carries any cargo.
One time we did a load that required two trucks AND a car that contained two armed security officers. I still have no idea what was in the truck. Although I did a little research to figure it out and tried to pry it out of the armed guards, we were only told it was some sort of pharmaceutical chemicals. Phooey!
I'm really not a fan of doing loads that require an escort. It pays very well, and you don't have to drive loaded (so no weight issues, no load checks necessary) but it's still a bit of a pain in the ass. Escorting is all about compromise - you have to talk to the other drivers and agree on the speed of travel, what kind of stops and breaks you're going to take, whether there are pets involved that need walking. Mostly, I don't like being at the mercy of another driver or having to make any changes to my routine. If we do it, I'd much rather be the lead truck instead of the one following.
We recently did an escorted load where we were the loaded truck and the other was the escort. Good because we, as the lead truck, made the rules, but bad because we still had to make some compromises. The other team we drove with were great. The wife was just the kind of person I like, which is rare in this industry, as I usually don't have anything in common with the other trucker wives. The only problem it seemed we were going to have was the speed - they wanted to do "the speed limit", which can mean 75 miles per hour in some states. We don't do 75 miles per hour. EVER.
In fact, our regular speed is 58 miles per hour. If we're in a rush, we might do 60. And 62 is our top speed. We don't like going fast. I don't like it because it's unsafe. Ed doesn't like it because it tears up the equipment. There's just no benefit to going that fast. I knew when I was moseying along around 60 miles per hour, she was behind me pulling her hair out. I felt a teensy bit bad but not enough to crank it up to 62.
I also don't like using the CB Radio and hate having to keep it on while doing an escorted load. But you need to be able to communicate with the other team. I like to listen to podcasts or books on tape when I drive and I hate the scratchy sound of the CB. And when people talk it's always so garbled, I can't understand them anyway. On this last load, we communicated using phones which was much better.
I'm not saying I'll never do another escorted load, but whenever Ed tells me we got one, I always say, "Ugh. Really??"
Probably my favorite part about this particular type of freight hauling is seeing the look on my mother's face when I say, "Guess what? I got paid four figures this week to be an escort."
Aunt Jennie is my grandmother's sister, my father's Aunt. In this photo, Aunt Jennie and her husband, Uncle Lawrence are making gnocchi in our kitchen in New York. I was seven years old.
Both Auntie and Uncle were born in Italy and this was one of the traditions they brought with them when they came to America. To this day, gnocchi is my favorite pasta. And nothing beats freshly made.
My mother recently sent me the following video:
Just watching these women make pasta ignited something in me. I now need to make pasta! And the next time I'm home, I'm going to attempt it.
To view the videos in this series, check out Pasta Grannies on YouTube. They also have an Instagram page if you're interested.
My mother has nicknamed her cat "The Little Beggar" because she seems to appear when she knows there's food around. Some of her favorites include yogurt, pineapple, and of course, tuna. When she's not begging, she's sleeping.
I was born in the Bronx and spent the first five years of my childhood living in an apartment above my paternal grandparents less than two miles from the Bronx Zoo. My family still lives there.
The Bronx Zoo "is the largest metropolitan zoo in the United States and among the largest in the world. On average, the zoo has 2.15 million visitors each year, and it comprises 265 acres of parklands and naturalistic habitats, through which the Bronx River flows. It is world-renowned for its large and diverse animal collection and award-winning exhibitions. The zoo is part of an integrated system of four zoos and one aquarium managed by the Wildlife Conservation Society, and it is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums."
This was a great place to have my first childhood zoo experience. It's probably time for another visit.
Years ago I listened to a podcast about the poaching of Venus flytraps. Seems it's a big business and brings good money on the black market. I'd never seen a Venus Flytrap in real life. Until this week when Ed bought one for me.
We've spent quite a bit of time in Southport, North Carolina which lies in Brunswick County. Venus flytraps are native to the area - they grow within a 75-mile radius of Wilmington, North Carolina and are native to the Green Swamp in Brunswick.
The poaching of Venus flytraps became so out of control, with "poachers trafficking in thousands of plants plucked illegally from the wild, as well as from gardens and nurseries" that North Carolina law now prohibits removing the plants from where they grow and upgraded the act of removing them from a misdemeanor to a felony.
Imagine going to jail for stealing a plant that grows in the wild??
The plant is very small - this pot is only about five inches tall - and although colorful, they're a little creepy looking. And the do snap shut if you touch your finger to the red area between the leaves. It doesn't hurt, but it's really wild to see the way it reacts.
I don't have any insects in the truck for the flytrap to feast on so I guess I'm going to have to be on the lookout for dead bugs in order to give my little pet a meal. It's not as cute as a kitten, but at least I don't have to clean a litter box.
