warrin with an i

Music and Me Bottom Row:  Me at 4 with my Mom, My Sister and my Grandmother Top Row: My Grandfather, Aunt Lynne, and my Dad F or those of you who have been following this blog, I'm still on my way to California. It's not a short drive and I am taking my time. So, in the meantime I have decided to post a few music based stories. When I first thought about doing a blog about me it was with my nephews in mind, since they mostly knew me through my brother's or sister's eyes but it was just something I thought about from time to time. A number of my friends told me one evening that they just did not get the Beatles so I wrote a piece on why they shouldn't dismiss the Beatles and sent it to them. They knew of course that I really liked music and after they read my piece they suggested I do a podcast on music. I've never thought I spoke very well and if I was going to be talking about music I would want to play it as well. I wasn't sure what ...

Toujours Eugene A last lunch with Frank - an expression of my thoughts about leaving Eugene E ugene was the first place I lived other than where I grew up on Long Island that I thought of as home, and in some ways I still think of Eugene as home. My decision to move to Oregon was partially based on talking with some people I knew from Oregon along with a long strange weekend I spent there up in the hills somewhere east of Medford. That was my lone visit to Oregon and it was when I was in the Air Force stationed at Beale AFB in Northern California. I picked the University of Oregon in Eugene strictly on faith. My research included a write-up about it in a book titled “The Underground Guide to The College of Your Choice”. W hen I arrived in Eugene in 1974 to attend the University there I had never seen Eugene and did not know anyone who lived there but I was eager to claim Eugene as my new home. My first impression of the town and University was positive and I fo...

Invasion of The Long Hairs – Summer of 78 G rease, Saturday Night Fever, Animal House, and Dear Hunter, were among the notable movies in the theaters in 1978. Devo's “Are We Not Men”, The Police's “Outlandos d'Amor”, and of course the Bee Gee's “Saturday Night Fever” were among the notable albums. It was the year of the first cell phone, the Jim Jones led mass suicide in Guyana, and the start of what would become the video game craze with the release of Space Invaders. A nimal House was filmed in Eugene and the surrounding area the previous fall. The famous food fight scene was done in the U of O student union. I happened to be sitting in the union when they started setting up to film that scene. The actors entered and there was a big crowd wanting to get into position to watch. I saw big trays of what looked like hamburgers being moved into the room. That was when I decided to leave. I'm not big on crowds and had not really paid much ...

Joe, My Childhood Bestie Me & Joe - must have been taken our senior year.... I n 1957 I was deemed worthy of entering the 3 rd Grade. The just completed West Hills Grade School opened for business less than a mile from my house. My new teacher was a man, Mr Zaccaria. He was my first male teacher. But the more significantly that was the year when I met Joe. Joe was very friendly and always open to doing things. He would talk freely and openly about most anything. He had a certain street sense about him that you typically did not find in white suburbia. I had never met anyone like him. He was a hard guy not to like. He was Italian and his father was a builder with a reputation for building quality homes. He had built some of the homes in the neighborhood next to ours. Joe's father was a self-made man. He didn't have much formal education and came across as rather gruff but he was no dummy. Joe lived up the hill on the edge of Rollingwood in a house ...

Too Serious playin' hackey sac I was working at Frank's bike shop and had recently rekindled my love of playing sports. When I first moved to Oregon (1974) the only sort of athletic activities I was engaging in involved either a frisbee or a hacky sac. I was not that good at frisbee and to say I was not that bad at hacky sac would be a lie. Hacky sac is really the ultimate counter culture game. It's non-competitive, everyone gets a fair chance, and everyone's supportive with no criticism. In fact, I think that last part could be a rule, although rules are not something us “Peace Love Dove” counter-culture types tend to endorse with rules being so bourgeois and all... I n 1976 I started playing pickup basketball with Frank. I had hardly played any sports since the spring of 1968, the end of my Freshman year at Valparaiso. By the fall of '68 I viewed sports and games as empty diversionary activities that ate up too much of my time. There was to...

Clueless in Rollingwood 7 year old me I n the summer of 1956, between first and second grade, my parents moved our family from Levittown to a neighborhood called Rollingwood located in Huntington Station. Well, it was actually Melville, but Melville did not have a post office at that time so we were lumped in with Huntington Station. The area had once been called West Hills and its most famous citizen was Walt Whitman. Anyway, Rollingwood is a very nice suburban development. Don't take my word for it - you can ask them yourself. It is in the township of Huntington which meant it was officially on the North Shore (considered the upper crust side of the Island). The neighborhood itself was built on the east side of the highest hill on all of Long Island. My parents bought a house that was on a street at the bottom of that hill. Our backyard bordered Walt Whitman Road which was the main road running north and south into the town of Huntington at the time. On the other side...

East or West? East - Backus Clan circa 2015 I grew up on the East Coast, Long Island, but I have spent most of my adult life on the West Coast. While my brother Pete did move out here for a few years everyone in my family still lives on the East Coast except me. It's just me out here and for me, the West Coast is home and I do have Kris's family. A fter having quit the East Coast “Backus Clan” and joined with the West Coast “Chambers-Roth” Clan, the holidays always come with a little bit of mixed feelings. I've experienced 71 holiday seasons in my life. This past year marked the 32nd time I have spent the holidays on the West Coast with my wife's family, and those 32 would be 32 of the last 34. I spent 25 or so holiday seasons with my East Coast family with 20 of them being the 1 st 20 years of my life. That leaves 12 to 14. Two of those I spent with only my first wife, 2 with my second wife and her family and that leaves maybe 10 mostly by myself....

Basketball O nce you've been playing a sport for awhile you learn that there is both a physical and mental side to it. Initially you are just trying to master the skills but once you start competing against others you discover that equally important mental component. I am not an especially good athlete but what I am good at is recognizing my limitations and playing within my abilities. This may not sound like much, but it's a valuable skill and it turns out that many do not have it. Over the years it has enabled me to be at least competitive with others who were more physically gifted than myself. M y favorite sport has always been baseball but the sport I was best at was always basketball. I didn't shoot my first basket until I was in 4 th grade. It was at my friend Kenny's house. They had a hoop in the backyard and we ended up shooting hoops with his big brother. The following year I played on the grade school team and led the team in sco...

The Great Willamette Valley Cycle Works Christmas Dinner The Bike I Rode to and from the Christmas Dinner I was working at the Willamette Valley Cycle Works bicycle shop in the winter of 1976. My friend Frank was the owner and his shop was having a pretty good year after a couple of very iffy ones. Frank decided to splurge for a company Christmas Dinner for all the staff and their spouses or dates. He reserved a room at a nice restaurant in Eugene. A dinner at a nice place in Eugene at that time was under $10, in fact, that $10 would likely be close to covering both the dinner and a glass of wine. And it's not like we would be ordering the higher priced meals as we were almost all vegetarians. There were going to be 12 of us going and Oregon did not have any sales tax so even if we all had a couple of glasses of wine or beer the cost of the dinner looked like it would be easily under $150. I doubt any of us had ever spent anything close to $20 for a single meal...

Dating – Sounds Like Fun The W.O.W Hall @ 8th and Lincoln in Eugene T here was a time when I met and developed romantic relations with women rather easily. I was comfortable and self assured. Sadly that time was past. After hearing all that “inside information” living with the Barrington Gang all that confidence seemed to have left the building or at least the vessel that is me. I struggled with meeting and going out with women for the rest of the time I lived in Eugene. So, keeping my ego under control I will reflect on some of my failed romantic escapades in Eugene after splitting with Cyndi, aka Cyd. W hen Cyndi and I split up I moved into a house on 32 nd and Alder. I was now a free man. One of my first dates after Cyndi was with a woman I met at a bar, in fact, she was the bartender. When we talked at the bar it was free and easy. We decided to get together and when we did I kind of froze up. I was not sure what I should do. I was overly cautious bei...