Happy Craig Day!
Those who know me personally or have been following me the past several years know that I celebrate the first week of December as a memorial to my late, great big brother Craig, who passed away at age 49 in 2002.
Craig was born on Dec. 4 and died on Dec. 6 — much too soon — of colon cancer. Now, it has been 18 years and I can hardly believe it.
We grew up in Kansas, and at the time, you could drink 3.2% beer (or tavern beer as opposed to 5% beer from liquor stores) and buy cigarettes at age 18. To really make myself feel old, I’ll tell you that Craig and I could buy a six-pack of beer and a pack of cigarettes for $5.00 and havea great Saturday night! Ahhh those were the days.
But Craig is gone now, beer and cigarettes are expensive, and I’ve quit both vices over the years. Yes, the times change.
One strong bond Craig and I had was music. Being two years (and a few months) older, he led the way. He was a music fan from an early age, and the early 60s were the golden years of American pop music.
It was also the era when transistor radios were relatively new, but the prices had gone down. He had a small radio that would fit in his shirt pocket and with an ear bud (music was all mono, not stereo), he could listen music any time he wanted.
Craig carried the local paper after school, and while walking his route, he had his radio plugged into his ear.
One sweet old lady on his route knew our grandmother, and told her, “It’s a shame that someone so young has to wear a hearing aid.” Such innocent times we lived in.
Of course, if Craig got interested in something, then I got dragged in (or went willingly most of the time). We talked music a lot, bought the magazines like Hit Parader that printed the lyrics (with horrible typos), and we bought records — 45 RPM singles.
Most songs were called by the first line of the lyrics, even if that wasn’t the title. For example, it’s Christmas season now, and everyone knows “Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire.” But that’s not really the title of the song — it’s “The Christmas Song” (creative, huh?).
Craig had a wacky sense of humor, so he would refer to songs by some lyrics that might be deeply buried within the song. Usually I knew what he was talking about. But he would really try to stump me by calling a tune by an obscure rhyme in the last verse. When we started playing guitars, he’d say something like, “Let’s do ‘Loudmouth Yankee.'” I knew he meant the Monkees ‘song “What Am I Doing Hanging ‘Round” that started out with the lyrics:
“Just a loud-mouthed Yankee, I went down to Mexico.”
He could get a laugh out of me by doing something silly — like calling the Elvis Presley song “All Shook Up” by the title “Itching Like A Bug On A Fuzzy Tree.”
With all the transitions in his life, there was always music as a constant. I believe I got my love of music genetically, but it was one of the very strong bonds I had with my brother.