a little bit of heaven

 

        Kris Kristofferson, singer, musician, songwriter, actor - passed on about a week ago.  

        I first heard his name from my eighth-grade history teacher in Rootstown, Ohio.

I kind of don't want to speak (write) about death - (I'm against it!) - but it's a reality, and I guess I cannot wish it away with "positive thinking."    Kris Kristofferson died last week at the age of 88.  What more do we want?  That's a long life.  (He was living in Hawaii...)

        Maybe I have to try and make my peace with death.

Kris Kristofferson songs to listen to on You Tube, if you would like...

"Me And Bobby McGee"

"Watch Closely Now"

At the end of the "E True Hollywood Story" Bewitched documentary (on You Tube), the actor Bernie Kopell ("Get Smart," "That Girl," "Bewitched") says, that Bewitched 
"of its time - was just a little bit of Heaven".

        I think Kris Kristofferson songs are also "a little bit of Heaven."

        Listen, and enjoy.

actor Bernie Kopell

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Sunday mornin' comin' down

 

Kris Kristofferson, writer of the song "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down"

When I first heard the song title "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", I loved the title, but when I looked up the song and started listening to Kris Kristofferson's recording of it, I didn't like it that much.

But I knew I wanted to listen again when I learned it was awarded 'Song Of The Year' - twice - in 1970, for the Johnny Cash recording of it, and in 1971 for Kris Kristofferson's recording.

A viewer comment under one of the You Tube videos of the song:

Randall Sundeen

        My grandmother was a very prim and proper Swede, however She loved this song.  Back in the early seventies when I was a child, She would make beef stroganoff for Me.  When she did this She would play this record and We would sing this song together.

...On a Sunday mornin' sidewalk

I'm wishin', Lord, that I was stoned

'Cause there's somethin' in a Sunday

That makes a body feel alone

And there's nothin' short of dyin'

That's half as lonesome as the sound

Of the sleepin' city sidewalk

And Sunday mornin' comin' down...

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...the line, "something in a Sunday that makes a body feel alone" - I remember having that feeling once when I was a little child - sometime between the year before kindergarten and the beginning of third grade, when we lived in Mineral City, Ohio.

        On a Sunday afternoon my mother was busy doing something and my dad was  asleep, and I was just - outside, at our house, and my friend-from-across-the-street Jackie was not around, and I had that feeling of empty alone-ness.

I didn't feel really upset or anything, I just felt like - Oh.

early Johnny Cash, on the Ed Sullivan Show

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a thirty-five year old man is not easy to live with

 

It was interesting to me, to read that JFK told his family about Jackie's newspaper column.  And later in an interview Jackie's first fiance, John Husted, referred to her work as an "insipid little column."

Insipid is one of those words that you hardly hear in conversation - I don't think I've ever heard anyone say it - but you read it sometimes.  

- - - - - - - Definition:  lacking in qualities that interest, stimulate, or challenge; dull, flat

LOL.  Nice guy.  When he said that, was 26 years later, in 1978.

        So - after starting out a career in a somewhat unique way, she quit when she married Jack Kennedy in 1953.  ...Having initially assured her employer she wasn't just marking time until marriage...

        It was a 1950s thing, many people thought you couldn't do both.

Also, reflecting on the situation - Kennedy was a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts; if his wife continued her newspaper column, political competitors might have jumped all over anything she wrote, I don't know...

        Meanwhile, during their engagement, one of Jack's friends counseled Jackie, saying, "A thirty-five year old man is not easy to live with."

        They were 12 years apart in age.

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