LeAnn – A Song I Wrote

“LeAnn” – This is an original song that I composed the words and music for. I also made a recording
of the song with me playing the piano accompanied by studio orchestra. The song has
2 verses: Push the Button with the arrow pointing right, to play it.

Verse 1
LeAnn, you are the sunshine in my life and I want you for my wife until the end of time.
LeAnn, the days are cold without your smile, nights are darker all the while that you’re away from me.
The times that you are in my arms give me the strength to face the world.
My heart is empty when you’re gone, come to me, close to me, my love.
And now, alone and far away from you, my lonely music sings a blue and plaintive melody.
When next my eyes behold your lovely face the empty space inside my heart will fill with love.

Verse 2
LeAnn, the dream was beautiful and warm, (spoken) Daybreak comes and the alarm says it was just a dream.(end spoken)
LeAnn, your heart does not belong to me, my love is lost upon a sea of empty promises.
The times when you were in my arms gave me the strength to face the world.
My heart is empty now you’re gone, I cannot see, I cannot be your love.
The dark and lonely night descends at last, Life’s Golden Sunrise is a past and distant memory.
LeAnn, tomorrow holds no other love, the dawn of days now comes and goes without the Sun.

Words and Music to the song were composed in 1988.

1949 BT (Before Television)

1949 BT
(Before Television)

By Ron Porter

I would almost be willing to lay a bet that there are people in this audience who are not really aware, at least in their day-to-day lives, that there were actually days before there was television. Imagine–no TV! That probably runs some chills down younger spines. Others may think that it’s just a story that old people tell, kind of like those five-mile walks uphill every day to and from school.

The fact is; that it was true. Further, there were no computers either. I’m talking about a time that is pre-history to anyone born after about 1953. If you are one of those people, then you may well ask: “What did people do for fun and to keep themselves occupied?” In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if people born in that AT (After Television) period really think that it’s just a scary story.

Well, I’m about to show you real evidence that there really was such a period. I have in my possession part of an old newspaper that, besides articles and ads, actually contains a radio guide which is much like the TV guide that you see in the newspaper today. And I’m going to let you see it too. You can look at it here:

http://tinyurl.com/yhfxuac

This particular guide of “What’s on the Air Today” came from The Salt Lake Tribune published on Sunday, February 6, 1949.

Now, of course, there are even darker periods of past history when radio didn’t even exist but that is beyond my breadth of experience, so I’m going to stick with that which I was able to witness firsthand. When this particular edition of The Salt Lake Tribune was published, it was about a week before my eighth birthday which gives you an idea of how much older than dirt that I am.

The time that this Radio Program Guide pertains to was toward the end of the dominance by radio of the home entertainment scene, particularly in the time periods now referred to in the television era as Prime Time, that is, the hours between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. With the advent of regularly scheduled TV programming, “Prime Time” for radio stations underwent a radical and fundamental change. But that’s the grist for yet another article.

So, what does this Radio Guide contain? What did people do for the news and entertainment, so readily available now on television? What did they do to keep from being bored out of their skulls, I mean, no television, no computers? Nowadays, computers run everything in the world and TV shows about everything that’s going on in it. Again, that’s grist for another mill.

The guide we’re looking at shows a typical Sunday’s programming available on radio stations in the Intermountain area of the United States in 1949. The stations, as they did every day, signed on the air about 6 a.m. and signed off at midnight. On a typical Sunday in most households, there would be church in the morning and then, later on, Sunday dinner, and then finally, it would move toward evening. Radios didn’t get listened to the way they do now. There weren’t any portable radios, no headsets, and no iPods. There was most often a radio in the car, but that was about as portable as radios got.

So, with dinner settling, and the dishes done, it was time for the evening’s entertainment. What was it? It was radio! As a kid, I was completely familiar with what radio programs were on each night of the week and knew what time they were on. I can still partially remember some of the program line-ups to this day. For the most part, the really good programming was mostly on two major networks: CBS and NBC. ABC was kind of a distant third, at least where we were.

In our 1949 guide, I’m going to pay particular attention to the programs that I was probably listening to at the time, most probably on CBS. At 5 p.m. there was Jack Benny’s program, follow by Amos ‘n Andy at 5:30 and a Sam Spade Mystery at 6 p.m. At about      7 p. m., more dramatic programs would start, many times running an entire hour, which was rare on radio then.
In our house, when the whole family was in the living room listening to the radio, most often we did so with the lights off since there was, after all, nothing to watch but each other. The programs that you would listen to were aided by what you might call “your mind’s eye,” your imagination, which would provide pictures that far surpassed anything that might possibly have been a set on a visual screen. It was kind of like a case of sitting or laying down and allowing the radio to tell you a story, and your “mind’s eye” would fill in all the necessary details.

Interestingly, when television replaced radio in the evening entertainment scenario, one of the most difficult things, at least initially, was providing sets and backdrops to replace those which, with radio, your “mind’s eye” had provided. Particularly at first, this was almost impossible to do because your mind’s pictures are limited only by the breadth of your imagination. When they first tried to re-create such scenes in a picture, they had neither the money or the production means to equal what the mind had created and the result, at least in my estimation, was far less than satisfying.

As time has passed, that problem has ceased, particularly with all of the electronic and other means of creating almost anything in the way of pictures, backgrounds–you name it.

Radio, after being the dominant daily entertainment medium that it had been, was forced to find a new incarnation or cease to exist. It did so by converting to more local programming and became a source of music, local news, sports, and weather.

Finally, “One Man’s Family,” a program that my grandparents had listened to faithfully from its debut on NBC on April 29, 1932 until its final broadcast on May 8, 1959, was gone. Soon after that my grandparents were gone also.

Getting Older is not for Wimps!

Are the Golden Years really laced by lead?  That’s a quote that I recently heard attributed to the late President of the Mormon Church, Gordon B. Hinkley.  And, since he survived to the ripe age of 98. I presume that he knew what he was talking about.

As someone  who now inhabits the Sexagenarian age category, I find myself thinking about what the future (what there may be of it) holds for my own experience.  Something else that continues to both dismay and fascinate me is the fact that time seems to be speeding up!

Yes…..Time is definitely going faster by my perception.  And, when the years left to you start to be fewer and Time pulls this trick of speeding up on you, it can be disconcerting if you let yourself think about it…..so I try not to.  I’m making an exception for this article. 

I have a theory as to why this perception that time speeds up as you get older happens.  It’s very simple, really.  When you are very young, all of the processes that go on in your body are much faster.  Everything runs faster…your heart rate…your metabolism…Everything!  As you get older, everything gradually slows down.  That’s why someone who is older can contract a disease…like Prostate Cancer for example, and it is left largely untreated.  Why?  Because their body processes are running slower and the chances are the individual will die from Old Age before the Cancer gets him.

I maintain that this slowing down also affects your perception of Time.  In the first place Time is only just that…a perception….it doesn’t really exist….(Did you know that?).  As you get older and continue to slow down, then time, all the while going forward at the same rate, appears to speed up.  Remember when you were 6 years old and an hour seemed like a year?  Then, at 66 years old, a year almost seems, at least in some ways, like an hour.

Anyway, that’s my take on Time and aging and the main problem seems to be that as you get older and have fewer years left, the years that you DO have left seem to be shorter than they used to.  Kind of an ironic and vaguely cruel joke that Life plays on you as you age.

Now…doesn’t that give you something to look forward to? lol