FOR A BRIEF MOMENT I BECAME A PART OF IT

After publishing my post Tuesday night I got a hankerin' to go for a drive somewhere so I hopped into the car and headed for Bayfield.  Not a creature was stirring anywhere, not even a mouse, although I did see one raccoon.  It was like I was the last person on the Planet as I cruised along at a slow 10mph under the softly lit street lights with my quietly haunting ambient music playing low.  The lights on people's properties and in people's homes looked so warm and inviting it gave me an overall sense of peace and well-being in this ever-maddening world we are all struggling with right now.  I felt like I had driven into the Twilight Zone and wanted to stay there forever.  No more harsh realities of life.  The quiet night wrapped me in a magic all its own and for a brief moment, I became a part of it.

THE FRONT PORCH IS BEGINNING TO TAKE SHAPE

With our nice weather about to backslide Thursday, I was up, out the door, and right at my outside Spring clean-up this morning.  I got so many things done today I can't think of them all so I won't bore you with my day except to say, Pheebs and I took our first walk around the Park's pond for 2025.  Oh, and I turned the outside water on today too.  I can't even begin to describe how nice it is here this afternoon with all the doors and windows open and me in a short-sleeved shirt.  I think we might have hit 70F.  And oh my, to hear all the excited Spring birds twittering.   A fabulous time of year and even more so this year than ever before.  The sun is shining and I feel a breath of fresh air in my life again. 

I STARTED WITH A BIG CLEAN-UP IN THE CARPORT THIS MORNING

HAULED OUT OUR TIRED OLD SUMMER STUFF FOR ANOTHER SEASON

 THERE IS STILL ICE IN OUR FRONT YARD FROG POND

Al's Music Box Jambalaya is a song written and recorded by American country music singer Hank Williams that was first released in July 1952. It is Williams' most recorded song. Named for a Creole and Cajun dish, jambalaya, it spawned numerous recordings and has since achieved popularity in several different music genres.  In 2002, the 1952 Hank Williams recording of the song on MGM Records was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.  Williams began writing the song while listening to the Cajuns talk about food on the Hadacol Caravan bus.  With a melody based on the Cajun song "Grand Texas", some sources, including AllMusic, claim that the song was co-written by Williams and Moon Mullican, with Williams credited as sole author and Mullican receiving ongoing royalties. Williams' biographer Colin Escott speculates that it is likely Mullican wrote at least some of the song and Hank's music publisher Fred Rose paid him surreptitiously so that he wouldn't have to split the publishing with Moon's label King Records.  Williams' song resembles "Grand Texas" in melody only. "Grand Texas" is a song about a lost love, a woman who left the singer to go with another man to "Big Texas"; "Jambalaya", while maintaining a Cajun theme, is about life, parties and stereotypical food of Cajun cuisine. The narrator leaves to pole a pirogue down the shallow water of the bayou, to attend a party with his girlfriend Yvonne and her family. At the feast, they have Cajun cuisine, notably Jambalaya, crawfish pie and file' gumbo, and drink liquor from fruit jars. Yvonne is his [ma] "chère amie", which is Cajun French for "my dear (female) friend" or more likely to mean "my girlfriend".  Williams recorded the song on June 13, 1952, his first recording session in six months, at Castle Studio in Nashville with backing provided by Jerry Rivers (fiddle), Don Helms (steel guitar), Chet Atkins (lead guitar), Chuck Wright (bass) and probably Ernie Newton (bass).  The recording Williams made differs significantly from Mullican's, which was released in the same month as Williams' version but with a different order of verses and extra rhyming couplets.  Since the original melody of the song was from "Grand Texas", the song is a staple of Cajun culture. However, although Williams kept a Louisiana theme, the song is not a true Cajun song, which helped the song gain widespread popularity:  Ethnic music is usually unpalatable for a mass market unless it is diluted in some way (Harry Belafonte's calypsos, Paul Simon's Graceland... the list is endless). The broader audience related to "Jambalaya" in a way that it could never relate to a true cajun two-step led by an asthmatic accordion and sung in patois.  Released in July 1952, it reached number one on the U.S. country charts for fourteen non-consecutive weeks.  Williams performed "Jambalaya" at the Louisiana Hayride as part of his "homecoming" in fall, 1952 (after being fired from the Grand Ole Opry). A live recording released as part of a series of Hayride performances includes outbursts of applause.  Another unreleased version is included in the 2017 CD set, At the Louisiana Hayride Tonight.  After Williams released his version, Cajuns recorded the song again using Cajun instruments. However, they used Williams' lyrics translated into the Cajun French language. "Jambalaya" remains one of Hank Williams' most popular songs today. International, translated or derived versions exist at least in Chinese, Dutch, Finnish, French, Italian, Polish, German, Spanish, Estonian and Swedish.  A demo version of Williams singing "Jambalaya (On the Bayou)" with just his guitar, likely recorded in 1951, is also available. Williams composed a sequel to the song from the female perspective, "I'm Yvonne (Of the Bayou)", recorded by Goldie Hill. It was not as popular. As with "Jambalaya" there is speculation that Williams may have written this song with Mullican and their friend Jimmy Rule.

 I'M SLOWLY GETTING THINGS LOOKING BETTER

GROANER'S CORNER:(( A Sunday school teacher was teaching her young students about Noah and the ark. She asked them what they thought Noah may have done to pass the time in the ark for forty years. After waiting a few moments, the teacher suggested, Maybe he did a lot of fishing. How about that?  One little boy gave her a funny look and said, I don't think so. It's kinda hard to fish with just two worms!

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Picking up this tiny piece of paper would take 2 seconds...But instead I'm going to run it over 100 times with my vacuum at different angles.

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You know you've reached middle age...
When you're cautioned to slow down by your doctor, instead of by the police.

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One Day the Devil challenged the Lord to a baseball game.  Smiling the Lord proclaimed, "You don't have a chance, I've got Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, and all the greatest players up here."  "Yes", laughed the devil, "but I have all the umpires!"

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Late one night, a mugger wearing a ski mask jumped into the path of a well-dressed man and stuck a gun in his ribs. "Give me your money," he demanded.
Indignant, the affluent man replied, "You can't do this - I'm a United States Congressman!"  "In that case," replied the mugger, "give me MY money!"

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The man told his doctor that he wasn't able to do all the things around the house that he used to do. When the examination was complete, he said, "Now, Doc, I can take it. Tell me in plain English what is wrong with me." "Well, in plain English," the doctor replied, "you're just lazy." "Okay," said the man. "Now give me the medical term so I can tell my wife."

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Al's Doggy World

Meanings::

Kelly's Corner

 A MORNING WALK IN THE LAND OF MAGIC NEAR OUR ARIZONA HOUSE

 A RELAXING DAY IN OUR FIRST MOTORHOME

 A QUIET EVENING CAMPFIRE AT OUR ARIZONA HOUSE

Al's Art Gallery