“Clement weather? What does that even mean?”

I’m still sifting through the thousands of Facebook posts from our recent weather events.  Students, parents and others waiting and wondering, “Is schools open tomorrow?”  My new favorite is this one, posted by an alleged parent.  “All the snow is melted on our road, but they keep saying schools is closed in clement weather.  What does that even mean?”

So as we enjoy this late February spell of clement (mild) weather, hoping there are no more cancellations due to inclement (severe, harsh) weather, here are a few other notes from the week gone by:

Here’s a “True Confessions” parenting tale.  I’ve had a lot of fun with sons Vince and Chris, pictured below.  I’m not sure when this started, but at some point during their childhood, we started a goofy tradition that we practiced when attending out-of-town sporting or entertainment events.  At the end of a game or show, when exiting the event, I would get a few feet ahead of them, turn around and yell two different first names.  They were always the actual names of celebrities, who have two first names.  For instance, if we were with a NASCAR crowd, I might say, “Jeff! Gordon!  Let’s go!” (“Mark! Martin!” would work too).

If it was more of an entertainment event, I might call out to them, “Kirk! Cameron!” Or “Bruce!  Lee!”   If we were leaving a pop music concert, I’d yell, “Paul!  Simon!” or “Ray! Charles!”   With a country music crowd, it would be, “Toby!  Keith!” or “Luke! Bryan!”   At baseball games, I’d yell out, “Tommy!  John!” or   “Nolan!  Ryan!”  With a football crowd,  “Eddie!  George!”  And sometimes, just to mix it up, it might be, “Andrew! Jackson! Let’s go!” That seemed to go over well with presidential scholars.  You can try it too: for example, if you have a girl and a boy, just yell, “Katy! Perry! Let’s go!” Trust me, you will get attention.

Finally, a musical trivia blast from the past.  What if you’re a singer, and you record a song that you think will be a big hit?  Then you turn it in to the record company, and they say, “You’re right, this is a great song.  There’s just this one problem: we think it would be better without you on it.”  What?  That’s exactly what happened to Cliff Nobles in 1968.  He recorded “Love Is All Right,” which featured his vocals.  Here is the original recording.

The “B” side of the record was the instrumental version of the song.  Record labels would occasionally do that, just to save money.  Rather than record two different songs by a new artist, they might put the instrumental track on the flip side.  The record company even gave it a name, “The Horse.” A disc jockey somewhere played the wrong side, and people loved it.  No wonder, it’s awesome!  Listen:

That version went became the number two song in the nation in 1968, and for more than 45 years, has been a favorite of high school and college bands.  All these years, it’s been credited to Cliff Nobles, the singer whose name is on the label.  So even though he didn’t play an instrument, didn’t write the song, and his voice isn’t heard, deejays all over the world have said his name every time this song is played.  Hopefully he made a lot of money from the record’s success, but that would be a bit embarrassing, wouldn’t it?  “Honey, guess what, my record’s a big hit!  There’s just this one little problem.  They don’t want me on it!”

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