way back machine #6

Sherman, tonight we’re going to set the way back machine to Nov 10, 1973. Quite a few neat things happened this month in 1973. The Watergate investigation was getting ramped up. Tricky Dick comes out and tells 400 reporters that he’s not a crook and yet, just a few days later, the eighteen and a half-minute gap in the “secret” tapes is revealed, by his lawyer no less. Our boy Spiro Agnew gave up the job in October and Gerald Ford (who remembers the Ford years?) was confirmed as the new Vice President. I still maintain that whole chain went something like this:

Scene 1

Smoky back room in the basement of the White House late at night, early September. Dick, Spiro, Gerry, and Nelson are sitting around the table. Fade in from black…

Dick: Spiro, you quit and we’ll get Gerry in as Vice. Then I’ll quit, Gerry’ll take over and get Nelson in as his Vice. I’ll pardon you, Gerry’ll pardon me, and Nelson can flip off the protesters at the airport in Binghamton. Hell, get Bob Dole involved in that whole airport thing too. We’ll ALL be famous!

Spiro: Sounds good to me. Someone wake Gerry up and let’s see what he has to say.

Nelson: Maybe I can get my picture on a t-shirt when I do that! I can use it as an ad for our run in 1976!

Gerry (grumbling): Lemme be…I don’t wanna be POTUS. I’ll get shot at by screwed up women.

What else went on…Egypt and Israel sign an US brokered peace accord. You see how well that went. One of the few things Tricky Dick did right was sign the Trans Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act making the pipeline that runs through my backyard a reality. (And helping to line my pockets every October with a piece of that action. No state taxes and we get paid to live here!) Oh yeah, we launched Mariner 10 towards Mercury. It was the first probe to land on Mercury. Pioneer 10 was approaching Jupiter. All this after we went to the moon several times (40 years on and the only human footprints on the lunar surface are American footprints) and had a bunch of guys floating around the earth for months at a time in Skylab. Now the Obamanation wants to dismantle the one government agency that actually does something worthwhile. Go figure.

I was about a third of the way through the eighth grade. Just starting to notice that girls were a little more interesting than they had been (one tall blonde in particular) and that there might be something to all this music stuff I’d been learning. Algebra was a whole ‘nother story. I still can’t look a quadratic equation in the face. My science teacher filled my head with fun facts like: “Everything is basically black. We see colors ’cause things reflect that color’s wavelength of light. ” That and the whole energy transferance thing. It’s why I leave the seat up. I’m saving energy.

Number two on Billboard’s Top 40 list this week was Midnight Train to Georgia; still a classic. Whoo-Whoo….

Number One was by a member of the Temptations, Eddie Kendricks. Keep on truckin’. A nice little jazz-funk fusion with a great horn riff and a bass line you can’t help but move to. May have to find this one on iTunes and add it to my collection. By the way, our boy Spiro, after he resigned, plead no contest in federal court to what else but tax evasion. He was fined 10 large and given 3 years probation. Today, he’d be the Treasury Secretary. I just love my government. They’re such fun!