Merle Haggard Was a Friend of Mine (eBook)

Raymond H. McDonald (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2021 | 1. Auflage
326 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-0983-5308-7 (ISBN)

Infos

Author Raymond H. McDonald wrote this book as a tribute to his lifelong friend, Merle Haggard. Merle had millions of fans who were passionate about his music. This memoir chronicles the life a humble man from humble beginnings in California. His legacy is well established in hundreds of articles written about him in major publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, Rolling Stone Magazine, USA Today Newspaper, The Los Angeles Times, and dozens of others. His 50 plus year career garnered Merle the highest awards that are given to an artist, ie; Lifetime Grammy, Country Music Hall of Fame, Kennedy Center Honors, Songwriters Hall of Fame. This is a positive book that Merle's fans will enjoy. He was a kind and ornery man, very funny and very serious. He was a proud American and loved every State and the people in it. This memoir is meant as a tribute to a lifelong friend and country music icon, Merle Haggard.

Textauszug

 

 

Going to California

CHAPTER 1

 

Top steps: (LtoR) Raymond and Danny Joe

Bottom: (LtoR) Jolene, Mikey, Dad, Connie, and Mom

Photo courtesy of Raymond McDonald

 

BACK IN JULY 1950, I was born in the Sunflower State, Kansas. My father, Joe McDonald, was a Native American Indian; his father, Henry McDonald, was three-fourths White Earth Chippewa from Minnesota. Joe’s mother, Alice (Shipshee) McDonald, was seven-eighths Prairie Band Potawatomi; and my mother, Mary Sayler (her maiden name), was a descendent of English and German immigrants. My siblings and I became enrolled members of the great Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation of Mayetta, Kansas.

Halfway through the twentieth century, just about halfway through the year, I was born about halfway across the country. So I guess it makes some sense to say I’m about halfway ‘nuts,’ although seven decades later, it’s still not clear which half. Maybe it’s the half presuming interest in stories about my good friend, Merle Haggard, and my simple yet eventful life.

Posts about old folks shocked to find their life nearly over without much to show for it flood social media. This fear prompted me to put my brain and fingers to use and get these stories down on paper (or onto the internet) where others can read and enjoy them. Fear of eventual death is a great motivator!

Now you might wonder how I came to live in California and how I ended up in the same town that would lead to my friendship with Merle Haggard. When I was about eight years old, our sweet mother told my three brothers, two sisters, and me we would be moving to California. Our dad was a Linotype machine operator. His hands weren’t as big as they were dense, from years of slamming the heavy metal keys used to create typesetting for the Topeka, Kansas newspaper. One day an opportunity arose that would soon lead our family to Hollywood! Even in Kansas, we knew about Hollywood. I was ready!

We rode a train for what seemed like forever, arriving in California on my ninth birthday in 1959. The day I saw palm trees for the first time was warm and sunny. There were movie stars, brand-new cars, and rock ‘n’ roll music piping from Hollywood windows into the streets. It felt like an entirely different world, and I fell in love with it right away.

We moved into a one-bedroom apartment above a drugstore near the intersection of Sunset and Vine. My two older sisters and one of my younger brothers shared a bed with me in the lone bedroom. My mom and dad slept on a foldout couch in the living room with my three-year-old brother, Mikey. Bob, my oldest brother, was a full-grown man in the Navy who lived with his wife nearby in San Diego, and I assumed one reason my mother wanted to live in Southern California.

My most vivid memory of that summer feels like a dream. It wasn’t. Danny, my younger brother, was standing with me on the sidewalk just outside the drugstore, directly beneath our new home. A woman in a brand new Ford Thunderbird convertible pulled up to that famous corner of Sunset and Vine and stopped right in front of us.

“You kids want to go for a ride?” she asked. It was the late fifties. She was blonde and beautiful, probably in her early thirties. We were two kids under ten years of age, with no adult supervision and without a care in the world. Hell yeah, we wanted to go for a ride around Hollywood with a pretty lady in a convertible! (But mainly because our family NEVER even owned a car.) With absolutely no hesitation, Danny hopped in back and I, as the older brother, took my rightful position in the front passenger seat.

Off we drove westbound on Sunset Boulevard. Our chauffeur had the appearance of a movie star: iconic sunglasses, perfect sundress, scarf blowing in the wind, and a magical smile. I peeked back to make sure Danny was in the moment - he was! I can’t imagine the look of a more comfortable and smitten seven-year-old. In a stranger’s car, he was sitting dead center on the bench seat with arms extended to either side atop the backrest, wearing a radiant smile with sunlight beaming off his glowing face.

Our impromptu guide readied us for our Beverly Hills mansion tour. I recalled someone in Kansas saying, “There ain’t no mansions in Kansas; in Kansas, they call ‘em farms.” Well, I was quite sure there weren’t any farms in Hollywood, and to my surprise and delight, we saw authentic mansions on every block. Winding roads led us up to an overlook where we could view the entire city. It was surreal. Back in Topeka, I don’t remember a hill, let alone a lookout. I don’t even think there was a single building tall enough to provide a good town view.

After about an hour, we headed back down to Hollywood, where our kind and generous driver bought us ice cream cones. Being a chatter bug (even back then), we talked the entire afternoon. I don’t remember asking this all too kind woman her name, but I’ve always hoped it was Marilyn. That’s how I remember her. And for that day, for a few hours, she made two little brown boys from Kansas feel like California kings.

I love that memory and thank God for it because just two short months after we moved to glorious Hollywood, we learned we would move again - this time to the central valley farming destination of Delano. Cesar Chavez and the UFW (United Farm Workers Union) would soon bring fame to that little town, with the help of Bobby Kennedy and his brother, President John F. Kennedy.

In a little less than a year, opportunity knocked again, leading us to Bakersfield, California, a bigger town with a better salary to meet our family’s needs. My father would set type for The Bakersfield Californian, a newspaper that is still operating today after more than one hundred years.

I made many friends in Bakersfield. One of those friends, Jimmy Leon, was a hilarious Mexican kid whose parents owned a flower shop. They lived in a giant, two-story house near Emerson Junior High, where we attended school. My other best friend was a skinny and equally funny Black kid, Thomas Kennedy. I thought it was cool that he had the same last name as the President. Thomas’ house was tiny, but that didn’t stop us from going there some days for lunch. His mother was so kind, and you could spot where Thomas got his excellent sense of humor. My family lived in a big house on Truxtun Avenue. It was rundown, but you could tell that, at its peak, it was palatial. One day after school, Thomas and I decided we’d hang out at my house for a bit until he had to head home for dinner. When we got close, I pointed and yelled, “That’s my house!” I ran across the street then turned around to see Thomas staring at me like I was crazy.

“That ain’t your house!” Thomas yelled nervously.

“Yes, it is!” I yelled back. Thomas couldn’t believe it, and my friend wouldn’t cross the street because he didn’t think it was my house. His reaction completely surprised me, although, in retrospect, it probably shouldn’t have. Among all my friends, many lived in beautiful homes. Their parents had new cars, they had new bicycles, and always wore new clothes! I wouldn’t even think about letting them know where I lived - I was ashamed of our old house in such utter disrepair. The paint was peeling off everywhere. The yard was a patchy mess of dirt and holes without even enough grass to call it a lawn.

We had at least one family of rats we could hear stirring at night, living in the walls of our Truxtun Avenue ‘mansion.’ I saw one member of that rat family in our kitchen right before breakfast one morning. He was quietly sitting on the floor, enjoying a moment of solitude before the chaos of another day began. I jumped up on the counter as quickly as I could; he scurried away at my sudden movement, much to my relief. I rarely thought highly of that old battered house, but the rats certainly did.

“I’ll prove it’s my house,” I said, yelling across the street as I ran up the stairs to the large, welcoming porch perched about five feet above the ground. The stairway had seven steps; I’d count them almost every time I climbed them.

“Get off that porch, man!” Thomas was delirious at this point, screaming with fear. “I tell you, do not go in there, Raymond! That ain’t your house!”

I was getting a kick out of Thomas losing his mind and smiled at him as if his suspicions were correct. “I’m going in,” I hollered through my laughter.

When I opened the door and walked in, my mother greeted me, as usual. (Most moms didn’t work during that era and were almost always home.) She heard me yelling and asked what was going on. I explained the situation, and then we walked together out to the porch. I had done it! I had proved to Thomas this was my house! Mom and I waved him over. He was so relieved and now relatively calm though very surprised his best friend lived in a ‘mansion’!

Some of my childhood friends resided in mansions. Jim Brock’s dad owned Brock’s Department Store, and they lived in Westchester, an upscale part of town. I loved going over to his spectacular home. He never knew where I lived, and I never wanted him to know.

As beat up as that old Truxtun Avenue house was, I guess I still loved it. My brother, Danny, and I would spend hours throwing tennis balls at the steps. Those same seven steps, five feet up, about eight feet wide with a concrete walkway at the bottom, extending thirty feet to the sidewalk.

Danny and I would wear our baseball gloves and take turns throwing balls at the steps. Sometimes if the ball caught the edge just...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 12.1.2021
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• ISBN-10: 1-0983-5308-0 / 1098353080
• ISBN-13: 978-1-0983-5308-7 / 9781098353087