Ronald SInclair's horseshoe Stickpin or The Font of Unimportance

Among the many 'things' that I've gotten from obscure auctions.......During an auction that I was attending with a friend who was bidding on some campy props from Elizabeth Taylor's CLEOPATRA,  I had only a few bucks in my wallet....and settled for Ronny's stickpin and an old photo of Ronald Coleman.....as I dug the stickpin from an old shoebox, I wondered "what happened to Ronald Sinclair, one of the many 'child actors' of the 30's, now largely forgotten?"  He, incidentally, became an actor in 1950's  THE SHE CREATURE as well as a few Roger Corman "B" movies.......Roger Corman's THE TRIP.....and  Mario Bava's  DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE BIKINI MACHINE........

Ken Burns Series about Country Music

Excited to view another Ken Burns Series on Public Television, I returned from the 'nothing much happening' Scott Show last night, unpacked all the show paraphernalia and went supine with an antique chicken feather pillow under my aching feet and a memory foam collar around my neck, clicked 'now playing', and voila....there was 'some Ken' for me.......'Growing up' in Alabama, I was...and it seems odd to me now....not exposed to Country Music....my parents were still 'hooked' on Big Band music and dumbed down classics, played by....you got it....big bands! A couple of trips to 'The Record Store' when I was 10 or 11....where one could 'pre-listen' to a 78....and later, a 45, before shelling out quarters or bucks to purchase it.....Arnold Hornbuckle, the Store's proprietor and arbiter of popular tastes, indulged a privileged few, myself included, with samples of all kinds of music....Classical European for the more educated German scientists...and there were enough of these to warrant a 16" bin of recordings........The usual 'pop-slop' for teenagers, "on to" the latest musical fads.....lots of Big Band music for the older folks, with money to spend, and what I now call "Mouseketeer Music".....Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalonish fare.......Always a 'shopper', I always perused the 'Bargain Bin' of recordings that languished, unheard and unpurchased....that didn't seem to 'fit' a popular category, or were made by glimmer-in-the-jar, not even 1-hit wonders......Arnold sold me a stack of recordings.....for a buck.....and I rushed home, to my room, to play them on my red/yellow/orange swing-out arm, enameled tin, electronic-less 'record player'......How about Hylo Brown & The Timberliners....or a warped, skipping recording of Red Foley's "Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy" or Hank Williams with His Drifting Cowboys, 'moaning the blues'? None of this 'did much' for me, who...still in 6th grade'....was more interested in Burl Ives' "Big Rock Candy Mountain", and whose musical tastes gravitated....with exposure....more toward the music of Stravinsky, Orff, Cage and Schoenberg.....1955 did introduce 'country music' into the mix.....coincidental with the Sesquicentennial Celebration that had enveloped Huntsville Culture then......However, "That" was more about "Grab your partner, dosey doe, swing them ’round and don’t let go!" than about the sentiments of 'country folk'.......and I preferred Patsy Cline to Mother Mabel Carter, then.... and African Tribal Music to Bluegrass strumming and foot-stomping......Well, that's another 'stuck jar lid' on some old pickles, isn't it?...and the contents, a bit saltier and sweeter than I remembered......Gene Autry, anyone?