All in good fun

I have a strange, quirky relationship with the accordion.

There. I said it.

My contemporary, humorous affair with the oft-maligned instrument began a bunch of years back, when I was editor of Columbia Patch. In August 2012, Howard County public safety officials issued a press release stating that a suspicious, unattended suitcase had been found near the Owen Brown Interfaith Center. A nearby day care center was evacuated and the appropriate first responders were dispatched to handle the situation.

It turns out that, after the bomb squad did its thing, it was determined the suitcase contained an accordion.

But as funny — and as relieving — as that final result was, the most humorous part of the ordeal was the series of press releases issued throughout the day. The initial statement disclosed the discovery of the case and encouraged citizens to avoid the area. A phone number for media members to call for more information was published as well.

A followup statement corrected the previously offered phone number. Subsequent statements updated the results as new info came available and media outlets covered the event ad nauseum. Toward the end of the day, I received a press release stating the suitcase was found to contain a musical instrument. A little while later the final release landed in my email box. Paraphrasing here, all these years later, the statement said something along the lines of, “In case anyone is interested, the musical instrument was an accordion.”

I immediately had some fun with that information, as did most outlets that had been covering the event.

Over the years, I have had fun remembering AccordionGate. These days, it pops up once a year in my Facebook memories. And I’m not alone in my HoCo accordion mocking. My friend Julia Jackson McCready, a prolific Columbia blogger who I met through Columbia Patch, has had her own fun with the abandoned instrument. We usually tag each other annually when the memory pops up.

But here’s what else happens when the memory pops up and gets shared back and forth. The omniscient Facebook God sees those posts and assumes I am an accordion fan and that I want to see all things accordion. For days, I will get videos of performances, ads for musical instrument stores, musical instrument repair and jokes and memes centered around the hinged instrument.

More recently, I discovered a delightful comedian named Bo Johnson. In one of his routines, he discusses the merits of public transportation, namely buses. He has a funny bit about how the vehicle’s exterior advertisements appeal to a completely different audience than the ads inside the bus. Look it up if you need a good laugh.

But in the same routine, he announces he has an idea that would improve the bus experience. He mentions the extra-long buses that have the accordion-like center piece that allows the vehicle to make tighter turns.

I’m paraphrasing here, but he says something along the lines of “Wouldn’t it be great if it made the sound of an accordion on those turns?”

I immediately sent this bit to Julia and it didn’t take her long to respond. She has this innate ability to find a meme, a GIF, a video, a cartoon or a quote to fit every scenario you could ever imagine. Within seconds, she sent me a photo of a guy on a street playing an accordion. Directly behind him is the accordion portion of a bus.

Julia-1, Marge-0.

I’ve experienced many chuckles and snorts at the expense of the accordion being humiliated. I roared when I came across a picture of shelves and shelves of accordions, ostensibly at a thrift shop, with a sign that stated “Limit 2 per family.”

For the sake of this column, I did an internet search for “accordion fun." Google assumed I made a mistake and was instead searching for accordion fans. Just for the record, the choices there are endless, in case you’re interested.

Who knew there was such a thing as the Maryland Accordion Club? The organization is headquartered in Catonsville (which probably means that’s where the founder or current president lives) and strives to share the delight in playing accordion, improve musicianship attract new students and showcase the versatility of the instrument. The group meets the first Saturday of the month from September through June, at Catonsville United Methodist Church.

And to prove my point about Facebook spying, this popped up as I was writing this blog post:

I guess any essay about the accordion would be incomplete without a mention of Lawrence Welk. Welk, an accordionist and band leader, hosted the Lawrence Welk Show on television from 1955-1982. The program was a variety show and featured many well-known, popular acts, including the Lennon Sisters, accordionist Myron Floren and dancers Bobby Burgess and Cissy King. His band's style came to be know as "champagne music" and viewers could often see bubbles in the background.

Should you be so motivated, the world of the accordion is surprisingly large and quite visible on the internet. If you search, choose carefully, knowing that your feeds will be clogged with accordion-related topics for a while.

"Wunnerful, wunnerful!"

A legacy reborn

A couple days before the Winter Olympics began, I was putzing around, tinkering with this and that, with the television providing background noise, when the melodic notes of a nostalgic tune yanked me back into full alert mode.

“See the USA in your Chevrolet,” a woman sang out, ushering in a 2026 revival of an iconic commercial that had its heyday in the 1950s and ‘60s — in the days when television was king. After getting over the initial but pleasant shock of hearing the jingle again, my mind was instantly transported to an afternoon shared with colleagues in the editorial cubicle of the East County Times office.

In a self-deprecating manner, editor Devin Crum was joking about how he was the slacker among his siblings. One brother is a mechanical aerospace engineer and the other is a civil engineer. A half-brother is a nuclear engineer. Devin was “just” a writer. But, he said, he thought he got his creative gifts from his grandfather, who worked for a big ad agency back in the day. Think “Mad Men.”

“My grandfather was on the team that created a pretty big ad campaign for Chevrolet,” Devin told me.

“Are you telling me your grandfather worked on the ‘See the USA in your Chevrolet’ campaign?” I asked after picking my chin up off the floor.

“Yeah,” he said. “You’ve heard of it?”

Heard of it? Heard of it??? Anyone who was alive and aware in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s knew of that commercial! It was iconic. It was gold. It was on a par with “Plop, plop, fizz, fizz” and “Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce, special orders don’t upset us.”

It was genius, pure and simple.

Internet research shows that the original “See the USA” campaign was created by Campbell-Ewald, a Detroit-based ad agency. Leo Corday and Leon Carr, members of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, were credited with the music and lyrics, and the jingle first shot to stardom thanks to Dinah Shore singing it on her television show.

While Howard Crum’s name is nowhere to be found in online information, we all know how things like this work. Anyone who has worked in an office environment knows all too well that many people work on a project and one or two people get the credit.

After I first saw the new commercial, I immediately sent Devin a text and asked if he had seen it. He hadn’t, and was surprised that I had remembered his grandfather’s story.

Devin said he was “pretty excited” to learn of the updated version.

“Unfortunately, I only learned about my grandfather’s involvement with the original after he died (I was pretty young at the time),” Devin wrote in a message. “But it was gratifying to learn that we had that kind of family history, and then the revival made me feel a renewed connection to that history and my grandfather.”

Howard Crum died at age 84 around 1998, according to Devin. He would have been about 34 when the original campaign was created. Online records show that the Chevrolet Division of General Motors owns both the song’s 1948 unpublished and 1950 published copyrights.

In the new version, country singer Brooke Lee strums a guitar while singing the familiar tune from the bed of a Chevy pickup truck, which is perched atop Castle Rock in Colorado. Filming from that location is another Chevy tradition, with previous shoots done in 1964 and ’73.

If you’re interested, there’s a great YouTube video that shows the process of getting the truck up on top of Castleton Tower. A narrator brags that there’s no artificial intelligence or other digital sleight of hand involved; that a very complex and potentially dangerous process led by the “very best” people made it possible.

With performances from artists like Dinah Shore and Pat Boone to Brooke Lee (with many pop culture takes between, including a production by the cast of “Glee”) a simple yet brilliant jingle serves as a bridge from one generation of a family to another while providing a good story to boot.

 

Welcome to the Commoners Games

Eight days into the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics, we’ve seen longshots capture gold with the races of their lives and we’ve seen “sure things” crash and burn. We’ve learned of the personal stories behind the athletes, we’ve met their parents, we’ve appreciated their sacrifices, we’ve celebrated their joys and we’ve cried over their injuries and crushing defeats.

But as great as these Games have been so far, some of the best action, best laughs and the most amazing level of creativity and unexpected surprises have come from what I call the Olympics of the People. I truly had forgotten how many of us “commoners” and armchair athletes get involved in the Olympic movement.

Just a quick glance at social media shows that the Olympic movement serves as inspiration to schoolchildren, married couples, librarians, accountants, office workers, senior citizens and even cats and dogs.

Curling is proving to be as popular with the people as it is with Olympic athletes. Folks have posted videos showing kitchen floor curling being performed with tea kettles, pots and pans and bowls along with Swiffer mops, brooms and long-handled scrub brushes.

Schoolchildren hold mock opening ceremonies, complete with music, skits and torches that “light” the Olympic flame. Three-level podiums are built and ceremonies are held to award medals to event winners.

Photo courtesy of @thelittlegan Instagram page.

Facebook and Instagram in particular are treasure chests of videos that passionate, creative people (apparently with way too much free time) have published, showcasing their efforts to participate in the games. There’s hockey, skiing, snowboarding, speed skating, figure skating and curling in versions never quite imagined by serious athletes who have committed a lifetime to landing a spot on the Olympic team.

There's a Facebook page called Skeletons on Kerth Road, based In St. Louis, the owners of which create skeleton displays throughout the year, with a variety of themes. To say the Olympic displays are hysterical is an understatement. Nothing like skeletons skelleting (I might have made up that word)! One display was a two-fer, as it incorporated a Valentine's message with the Olympic rings. I encourage a visit!

Photo courtesy of Skeletons of Kerth Road Facebook page.

I’ve included a few examples for your viewing pleasure, but you can do a simple search and get pages and pages of similar efforts.

It’s great entertainment and all in good fun, and I’m  sure even Olympic athletes are enjoying our efforts. The vast majority of us will never achieve the level of excellence displayed by the “least” of the Olympic athletes gathered in Italy, and these fun, mocking efforts allow us all to feel a part of this global experience.

I for one sure enjoy the efforts of our every day athletes! I hope you do as well!

An almost life-long affair

I fell in love with the Olympic Games around the same time I fell in love with the Baltimore Orioles.

I discovered the Birds in 1966, which, of course, was a magical time for the local boys of summer. The team was amazing and the season culminated in a World Series championship. As a 9-year-old baseball neophyte, I did not quite grasp the rarity of that achievement. I just took winning for granted and the Orioles of the next bunch of seasons did nothing to dispel that notion.

A couple years later, I became aware of the Olympics. The 1968 Winter Olympics were held in Grenoble, France, and the Summer Olympiad took place in Mexico City.

The Neal household was home to a single, 19-inch, black-and-white television that sat camped out on a squeaky, rickety metal stand with wheels (the better to move around in a vain attempt to get better reception).

I remember sitting on the hardwood floor in front of that TV, mesmerized by sporting events I had never witnessed. The skiing, the figure skating, the bobsledding, the ice hockey — I was hooked and I absorbed as much as my mother and my homework demands and household chores allowed.

But more than the sporting events themselves, I remember being drawn in by the concept of this innocent global gathering. I was in elementary school, still participating in duck-and-cover drills as the Cold War raged on. To have an athletic event that gathered the youth of the world to concentrate on peace and brotherhood in amounts equal to competition stuck with me. I have always been a sensitive soul (many still say too sensitive) and my 11-year-old brain was seduced by this concept that prioritized kids as the future hope of the world.

Looking back, I realize how naive that was, and how basically untrue it was even at that time, but I latched on to what I wanted to be my truth.

I don’t remember too many specific results of those first Games of mine, and the memories I do have are probably more media-induced than actual remembrances. I do remember seeing Tommie Smith and John Carlos raise their black-gloved fists on the medal podium, but didn’t understand the political significance of it at the time. There were many memorable American athletes, including Al Oerter, Bob Beamon and Dick Fosbury. I would be taught the Fosbury Flop just a couple years later in junior high school.

In France I — along with the rest of the world — fell in love with Jean-Claude Killy. He won all three alpine skiing events (downhill, giant slalom and slalom). I admit to having to look that up. I didn’t remember the results; I just thought he was amazing.

And for the record, Peggy Fleming won the United States’ lone gold medal. Yay women!

Four years later, in 1972, my heart stopped as the Olympic Village was the site of a terrorist attack carried out by members of the Palestinian terrorist organization Black September. Two Israeli athletes were murdered and nine others were taken hostage. Those athletes were all eventually killed by the militants.

So just four short years after discovering the games that were meant to bring the world together in the name of peace and honest competition, that image was shattered all to hell with the unthinkable.

So much has changed within the Olympic movement over the years that it barely resembles that ideal I fell in love with as a sixth-grader. The amateur concept is long dead and buried. College kids who used to dream of the Olympics being the feather in their athletic caps now don’t stand a chance in many of the sports that used to feature them — ice hockey, basketball, soccer, tennis and the like. Professional athletes win Wimbledon one month and Olympic gold the next. Training for the Olympics has become a full-time profession for many, including hundreds if not thousands of kids who train but never make the team.

But in defense of the professional movement, it almost had to happen, if nothing else to level the playing field. When the Olympics were supposed to be an amateur showcase, there were always countries who identified children at very young ages as potential winners, took them from their families and set them up in what were essentially Olympic training camps designed to produce winners. There were the countries that openly paid their “amateur” athletes and those that were notorious for illegal doping to gain unfair advantages. Doping remains an issue but at least the professionalism is out in the open.

 The loopholes couldn’t be closed or properly policed so they were cut open for everyone to drive through.

But here is the one thing I do remember most clearly from those early Olympiads. Before I even had an inkling that a journalism career could be on the far-away horizon, I was in awe of the broadcasters. This was the era of ABC being the absolute king of sports broadcasting. The network owned the U.S. Olympic broadcasting rights and also was home to the incomparable Wide World of Sports.

I could have listened to Jim McKay 24 hours a day. He was the face of the U.S. Olympic broadcasts from 1968 through 1988, after initially anchoring the 1964 Innsbruck Winter Games. In 1972, he held the heart of the world in his hands as he remained on the air for 14 hours, trying to keep people as informed as possible throughout the Munich tragedy.

In those early years, women announcers were rare and female anchors were non-existent. Donna de Varona called swimming events. Kathleen Sullivan was named a daytime host for the 1984 Games in Sarajevo and Los Angeles, becoming the first woman in my experience to have such a prominent role. Keith Jackson and McKay hosted the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, as ABC’s reign came to an end. NBC has been the main Olympic broadcaster since the Summer Games in Seoul (the exception being CBS in Nagano in 1998).

So, in letting my memories roam, I see that I am as drawn to the Olympic movement as much for the storytelling as I am the athleticism and the still hopeful philosophy of gathering the world’s youth in peace and brotherhood. I have broadcasting heroes and sports heroes and I’m sure these Milano-Cortina Games will create even more.

I’ll keep you posted.