Day: September 19, 2021

Who Won the Week — 9/19/2021

Fandango13 Comments

The idea behind Who Won the Week is to give you the opportunity to select who (or what) you think “won” this past week. Your selection can be anyone or anything — politicians, celebrities, athletes, authors, bloggers, your friends or family members, books, movies, TV shows, businesses, organizations, whatever.

I will be posting this prompt on Sunday mornings (my time). If you want to participate, write your own post designating who you think won the week and why you think they deserve your nod. Then link back to this post and tag you post with FWWTW.

My Who Won The Week pick for this week is a couple, the Cromers, Craig and Kimberly. Craig is a facilities manager at the University of Miami and he and his wife have Miami Hurricanes season tickets. At every game, they hang an American flag over the railing right in front of their seats.

Early in the second quarter of Miami’s home-opener last week against the Appalachian State Mountaineers, a murmur rose up from the student section at Hard Rock Stadium. Some students noticed a cat dangling from the upper deck. The Cromers, who were sitting below, turned around and looked up. Once they realized what was happening, Craig ripped his flag free from his zip-ties, and he and his wife stretched it out to create a landing pad for the terrified cat.

Eventually, the cat lost its grip and tumbled down toward the suite level. The Cromers’ flag did just enough to break the fall and let a group of students in the section below grab it as it fell to the ground. The entire corner of the stadium in Miami Gardens erupted in cheers as one student raised the cat in the air like it was Simba from “The Lion King.”

What about you? Who (or what) do you think won the week?

Song Lyric Sunday — Pleasant Valley

Fandango16 Comments

For this week’s Song Lyric Sunday theme, Jim Adams (via Paula Light) has given us Delightful, Pleasant, and Sweet. I’m going with the first song that came to mind, even though my guess is that a lot of others will select this song as well: “Pleasant Valley Sunday.”

“Pleasant Valley Sunday” was written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin. The Monkees recorded the song in June of 1967 and released it a month later. The single peaked at number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was featured in the second season of the Monkees’ television series. The song also appeared on the fourth Monkees album, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd, in November 1967.

The song was inspired by a street named Pleasant Valley Way in the Manhattan suburb of West Orange, New Jersey, where Goffin and King lived at the time. The two wrote the song about their dissatisfaction with life in the suburbs.

According to Carole King’s autobiography, her then-husband Goffin disliked their suburban life and wrote lyrics to document this feeling. The lyrics were a social commentary on status symbols, creature comforts, life in suburbia, and “keeping up with the Joneses.”

The tempo and some of the lyrics in the Monkees recording of the song were fairly different from King’s original 1966 demo recording, which is presented here.

Interestingly, I was working in midtown Manhattan and lived in West Orange from the late 70s to the mid 80s, only about a quarter of a mile west of Pleasant Valley Way. I actually thought life in that New Jersey suburban community was, indeed, quite pleasant.

Here are the Lyrics to “Pleasant Valley Sunday.”

The local rock group down the street
Is trying hard to learn their song
They serenade the weekend squire
Who just came out to mow his lawn

Another pleasant valley Sunday
Charcoal burning everywhere
Rows of houses that are all the same
And no one seems to care

See Mrs. Gray, she’s proud today
Because her roses are in bloom
And Mr. Green, he’s so serene
He’s got a TV in every room

Another pleasant valley Sunday
Here in status symbol land
Mothers complain about how hard life is
And the kids just don’t understand

Creature comfort goals, they only numb my soul
And make it hard for me to see
(Ah ah ah) ah thoughts all seem to stray to places far away
I need a change of scenery

Ta ta ta ta, ta ta ta ta
Ta ta ta ta, ta ta ta ta

Another pleasant valley Sunday
Charcoal burning everywhere
Another pleasant valley Sunday
Here in status symbol land

Another pleasant valley Sunday (a pleasant valley Sunday)
Another pleasant valley Sunday (a pleasant valley Sunday)
Another pleasant valley Sunday (a pleasant valley Sunday)
Another pleasant valley Sunday (a pleasant valley Sunday)
Another pleasant valley Sunday (a pleasant valley Sunday)

FOWC with Fandango — Exception

Fandango14 Comments

FOWCWelcome to September 19, 2021 and to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).

Today’s word is “exception.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. You will marvel at their creativity.