14 Winter 2012 Applegater
Tall Tales from the Editor
High point
or
hand-me-downs
Has anybody out there ever heard of
Bean Blossom, Indiana? If so, you know it’s
a little bigger than Gnaw Bone, Indiana, but
smaller than, say, French Lick, Indiana. At
least that’s the way they were years ago—like
way back in the last century.
The first band I was ever in was the
fabled Hand-me-Downs. The original
lineup consisted of my older cousin Steve
“The Cool One” Porter. Steve was our lead
singer with moves that would be the envy of
Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones.
Then there was Marty “Chickslayer”
Wilson on drums. His nickname says it
all. “Mothers, lock your daughters up” was
the cry when he came to town. I need to
add that when this band was first being put
together, we couldn’t find a drummer. Marty
had been telling me for over a year that he
was a drummer; he was always drumming
with his hands, pencils, whatever, while we
were in school or just hanging out. Problem
was he didn’t have a drum kit. He said when
he moved from California to Indiana he had
to sell them. What to do? Marty said if
his father heard the band he was sure he’d
spring for a drum kit. I said we don’t have
a drum set that you can use to play the six
or seven songs that the band knew at that
time. So a brilliant plan was hatched. We
would record on his reel-to-reel a few songs
by the instrumental band The Challengers,
who did surfer-type music. Then we’d play
it for his dad and tell him it was our band.
We just hoped he didn’t want to hear us live.
Although Marty’s copy of The
Challengers record was quite scratchy, we
went ahead with our plan. Marty’s dad
wrote him a check to cover the cost of a
blue sparkle set of Norma drums. Years later
his dad said he knew we were full of it, but
thought the scam was funny and obviously
Marty wanted to be a drummer.
That’s when Carl Allen and I found out
that Marty had scammed us. On our first
rehearsal, Marty was trying to fit his riding
tom into his snare drum stand. We’d been
had. Marty was still our drummer—no one
else around had a set. He went from not
really knowing how to set his drums up to
placing third at the Indiana State Fair drum-
off in less than a year.
Carl Allen and I met in study hall. He
was two years older than me and we both
wanted to be rock stars. That’s how the band
started. He was our shy lead guitarist, who
would turn red when girls talked to him.
Rick Leeds was the wild one and
undependable. There’s always one who is a
no-show at band rehearsals. He was also our
bass player. Rick and I held down backing
vocals and I played rhythm guitar even
though I had or have no natural rhythm.
We ventured south from Avon, Indiana,
to Bean Blossom for a talent contest we’d
entered. This was one of our early gigs. We
had played maybe six or eight dances up to
this point. This talent contest was held in a
very large barn that had been converted to
an entertainment center for everything from
auctions to dances. It could seat several
hundred people, plus the old hayloft had
been converted to seating. The stage was
mammoth, with stage and overhead lighting.
We were all a bit nervous when we
saw that all of our competition were Porter
Wagner, Hank Williams and Loretta Lynn
look-alikes. You get the picture—hard-core
country 1967, and we were a rockin,’ rock ‘n’
roll band that was way out of our element.
No cowboy hats or yodeling here.
All day long different acts would play
a three-song set, then be judged by a very
scientific and quite large applause meter.
The louder people hooted, hollered and
clapped, the farther the needle moved on
the applause meter.
There was an emcee who announced
each act and, after you left the stage, told
you where you placed on the old meter. The
top five acts would play that night to decide
the winner.
I don’t remember, nor do any of my
old (and they are old now) mates, where we
were in the lineup.
When we walked out on the stage,
my knees were knocking and I was sure I
needed to run to the restroom and throw up
or worse. “Oh, my god,” I thought, “what
are we doing here?” as I stood up there in
my fluorescent sun-glowing yellow pants
that I had talked my mother into dyeing
for me. She said, “Honey, don’t you think
somebody might beat you up for wearing
something like that?” The shirts we all wore
would have been the envy of any church
stained-glass window—only our shirts were
bright, bright, brighter. With the stage lights
shining on me, attendees needed shades not
to be blinded. I was the perfect target for any
bottle, rock, ball-peen hammer, or someone
just wanting to sight in their varmint rifle.
I looked out at the quarter or so filled
house only once. Steve’s parents, my parents
and our grandparents were the only familiar
faces I saw. I never looked at the audience
again.
We played “Money” by the Kingsmen,
“Gloria,” the Shadows of Night version, and
“Little Latin Lupe Lu,” another Kingsmen
version.
When we finished our set, I couldn’t
believe there were no boos or “get a haircut”
or obscene hollers—only a pleasant round of
applause. That applause was good enough to
place us fifth. We now had several hours to
kill before the big battle that started at seven
pm. Because the bands went on stage in
order of where they placed, we would be last.
Marty was pacing around muttering
nervously about how the drummer in the
first-place Smitty and the Checks had two
riding toms on his set, and he had only one.
Marty just knew we would lose because
Smitty’s drummer would play better than
him. “Why, oh why, didn’t I get a set with
two toms?” he’d moan.
In the meantime, Rick called me over
to meet one of the two local Bean Blossom
girls he had met. Normally, this was Marty’s
role, but he was consumed with his drum
dilemma.
Rick told the very blossomed girls that
we had written “Little Latin Lupe Lu.” What
could I say? They thought we were stars as
they led us up to the darkened seating area
that was once a hayloft.
The one thing I remember the girl I was
with saying was “Aren’t you afraid you might
get beat up wearing pants like that?” “Do
you like them?” I asked. “Yeah, they’re cool,”
she said. “Well then, that’s all that matters.”
Boy, oh, boy, I thought rock ‘n’ roll was
turning out to be everything this six-foot
four-inch, 130-pound beanpole had dreamt
it would be. Oh, yeah.
A couple of hours later, we returned to
our bandmates who were sitting down by the
stage. They asked, “Where in heck did you
guys go? We need to figure out what songs
we’re doing tonight.”
That’s when Rick showed off all the
hickeys on his neck. We told them the girls
we had met loved us and had used the pay
phone out front to call all of their friends
and told them to call more friends. The
girls said we were the first rock-and-roll band
to play there and they wanted everyone to
come hear us.
When Smitty and the Checks hit the
stage, the place was packed; even the love
nest up in the hayloft was filling up.
When Smitty finished their set, Carl
pointed out to Marty that their drummer
didn’t use any of his riding toms. “I know,”
he said, “that was his big mistake.” Now
Marty was relaxing a bit; I could tell that
Chickslayer was back. In contrast, my
stomach was getting very jumpy. “Just
relax,” I kept telling myself. “Don’t throw
up now.”
After the third act had finished their
set, the emcee announced, “Folks, we’re all
out of Pepsi and the 7-Up is going fast. My
goodness, this may be our biggest crowd
ever. Thank you.”
When we were announced, the emcee
said, “Folks, our final act of the night doesn’t
play country, but they sure can rock and roll.
Let’s hear it for the Hand-me-Downs.”
As the crowd erupted with screams
and hollers, Steve took his black suede boots
with their two-inch heels and stomped out
our four-count intro that sounded like it
echoed through the barn louder than the
screams. Steve sang, “The best things in
life are free, but you can keep them for the
birds and bees. Now give me money…”
At that point the screams went through the
stratosphere. Holy moly. Every hair on my
body was standing on end and the goose
bumps, oh, man.
Halfway through our last song Rick
danced over to me and shouted. I said, “I
can’t hear you.”
“We’re going to be the Beatles.”
At that moment, it felt like that—there
were girls jumping and dancing at the edge
of the stage.
“Time to announce the winner,” said
the emcee. “Not only are they the winners,
but the applause meter is pegged all the way
into the red and broken by the screams from
all their fans.” With that, he said that the
winners are the Countdowns.
As quiet ensued, we all looked at each
other and said, “Who are they?”
“I mean the Hand-me-Downs,” the
emcee said.
The place went nuts. We even had the
adults standing and hollering.
We went back up on stage to receive
the “grand prize,” a seven-inch tarnished
swimming trophy. I am not kidding. It
had a person in a diving position on it with
a shiny new brass plate for our name to be
engraved on. Next we got to record the song
“Money” live right there, which would be
aired on the radio at a later time.
When Steve started singing for the
recording, we could not hear him because
his microphone went straight into the reel-
to-reel tape. Rick and I had to sing our parts
into the same mic.
Marty couldn’t hear anything and
about three-quarters of the way through
the song, he thought we’d come to the end
and stopped. The four of us all looked at
him at the same time as we kept playing
and he came right back in with some fancy
action on his single tom—he didn’t need
two of them.
That was the high point for that
particular lineup of the Hand-me-Downs.
There were many other great adventures
for the band, but none like Bean Blossom,
Indiana.
These days when I think of high points
and hand-me-downs, it’s in a different light.
I wonder if we as a great nation will
ever get back to our highest points of glory
or are we on the road to a nation of hand-
me-downs. Month after month, year after
year, the spin doctors tell us all indicators
are pointing to a slight economic recovery,
only to tell us the next month that they
were baffled by yet another _____ (you fill
in the blank).
Then there is the national debt. The
other day I heard an interesting way to
understand what a trillion dollars is: One
million dollars a day for 3,000 years. And
we’re how many trillions of dollars in debt?
At all levels of government we are
without leadership, and I see none on the
horizon. How will we ever recapture those
high points?
I believe we have to start at the local
level, and buying local has never meant more
than it does right now. If you haven’t already,
a good thing to do is move your money to a
local credit union or local bank. Keep our
money local with loans for local businesses
as opposed to banking with Chase, Bank of
America, Citigroup or any of those other
Wall Street bandits that laugh at us with
impunity. The same with credit cards—if
you still use them: Get local credit cards.
You have to create something to make
wealth like in our manufacturing heyday.
That was a high point. Now 90 percent of
our jobs are service-related, and minimum
wage for most. Come get your hand-me-
downs.
Here in the Applegate and Rogue
valleys, we do have more choices than most
to keep the few dollars we do have local. I
encourage you to seek out local businesses
and use them. That would be a high point.
As for the Occupy Wall Street folks,
I think they’ve got it wrong. It should be
“Occupy Washington, DC,” where both
political parties signed on to NAFTA and
GATT treaties, and passed all the laws that
let Wall Street rob the country blind.
We don’t need a new system; we just
need to do some very serious repairs. I
think one million people—better yet ten
million—occupying Washington, DC,
would start those repairs pronto.
NOTE: NAFTA (North American
Free Trade Agreement) and GATT (General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) are the
catalysts of the trend to move US manufacturing
overseas, which eliminates American jobs, and
also eliminates import duties on overseas
manufacturing shipped to the United States.
ONLINE EXCLUSIVE!
For another adventure with “The Cool
One” and “Chickslayer” by J.D. Rogers,
go to www.applegater.org and click on
“additional articles” under “Latest Issue
of the Applegater,” then select “House of
Blue Lights.”