Hi everyone! I wanted to thank everyone for stopping by today and joining in the fun discussion of mondegreens on the blog. Those are so funny and just crack me up every time.
I chose two winners today, and they are…
KAREN JENNINGS and CONNIE LEE!
If you ladies will email me at fabkat_edit@yahoo.com and include WINNER in the subject line, just let me know the title of the digital copy of the book you’d like to receive and also please verify the email address where you would like it sent (some people have different email address for that than the one they use for correspondence.) I will get your prizes off to you as soon as possible!
Again, thanks to everyone for chiming in and playing along!
I had posted this a few years back, but reading through it made me laugh all over again, and I’d forgotten so many of the mistaken words and phrases in Dr. Barber’s link. I just had to share it again. I’m so fascinated with the English language, and the “ins and outs” of it. They say laughter is the best medicine, and boy, this sure made me laugh all over again, and brought back some great memories.
I know you are wondering–just what IS a mondegreen? Mondegreen is a word that means the mishearing of a popular phrase or song lyric. (BOY, have I been there many times!)
I found this information and a wonderful list of Mondegreens on Dr. Michael Barber’s link on the web. Here’s what he has to say about the origin of the word Mondegreen.
The word Mondegreen, meaning a mishearing of a popular phrase or song lyric, was coined by the writer Sylvia Wright.
As a child she had heard the Scottish ballad “The Bonny Earl of Murray” and had believed that one stanza went like this:
Ye Highlands and Ye Lowlands
Oh where hae you been?
They hae slay the Earl of Murray,
And Lady Mondegreen.
Poor Lady Mondegreen, thought Sylvia Wright. A tragic heroine dying with her liege; how poetic. When it turned out, some years later, that what they had actually done was slay the Earl of Murray and lay him on the green, Wright was so distraught by the sudden disappearance of her heroine that she memorialized her with a neologism.
I have never heard of a Mondegreen before just about three days ago, and then, in the space of those three days, I saw it used twice in internet postings. I had to find out exactly what it was.
We’ve all done this, haven’t we? We want to sing along but we aren’t sure of the lyrics so we just…sing what it sounds like, even though it might not make the best sense. Later, we find out what we were singing was, well, not right, and didn’t make the best sense, as we’d always thought!
I’ll go first. When I was about 8, the James Bond movie Thunderball came out. The theme song was sung by Tom Jones. Here’s the verse I always sang wrong:
He knows the meaning of success,
his needs are more so he gives less, they call him the winner who takes all,
and he strikes like Thunderball.
Well, in my defense, I was 8 years old and what I actually sang made sense to ME: Instead of “they call him the winner who takes all” I sang, “the cold in the winter who takes all”—see? Perfect sense! Summer days were gone.
When Garth Brooks’ song Shameless came out, my sister and I happened to be talking on the phone one day about music and she said, “There is one song I don’t get. That song by Garth Brooks… “SHAVING”—why is he singing about shaving?” I thought she was putting me on, but no. She really thought he was singing SHAVING instead of SHAMELESS.
My mom told me one time that when she was young, she and her sisters would go buy a Hit Parade magazine and gather round the radio listening to the “hits”, hoping they were in their magazine. They’d find it quickly in the magazine and try to memorize the lyrics along with the music. But there was one song that had some Spanish words in it and they just had to try to mimic the sounds, because none of them had a clue about Spanish, and I’m guessing that even if that song was included in the magazine, there would have been very little chance they’d have figured out the pronunciation on their own. I said, “Weren’t you embarrassed to be singing the wrong words?” She said, “No, because no one else could do any better.” HA! I have laughed and laughed about that through the years. The problem with a Mondegreen in another language is there are so many possibilities of what you might accidentally be singing about.
The artist is Elton John (Rocket Man), the Mondegreen is: Rocket man, burning all the trees off every lawn. The actual words are: Rocket man, burning out his fuse up here alone.
The artist is Don Henley (Boys of Summer). The Mondegreen is: after the poison summer has gone. The actual words are: after the boys of summer have gone.
How about Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams”? Mondegreen is: when the rainbow shaves you clean you’ll know. Actual words are: when the rain washes you clean you’ll know.
And here’s a good one too, from Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Bad Moon Rising. The Mondegreen is a choice this time, with: There’s a bathroom on the right, OR There’s a baboon on the rise. Of course, it’s actually There’s a bad moon on the rise.
What about you? Do you have a Mondegreen to share with us today? Leave a comment for a chance to win a digital copy of any of my books or my latest story LANDON — your choice! Now, don’t be shy–tell us a mondegreen you’ve used, or that someone else has said that made you giggle. I really do love these!
Hi everyone! As a writer, I love to be able to use my imagination and come up with wonderful (I hope!) ideas for stories that are entertaining, no matter what genre I’m writing in. As a reader, I feel the same way—a reflection of the writer side of me. I want to read about characters and situations that are not cardboard “cookie-cutter” stories. I’m sure most readers feel that same way about the books they choose to spend time reading.
Since I’ve delved into trying to learn more about my ancestors (and believe me, I have not spent nearly the time on that I wish I could spend!) I’ve discovered some interesting things about people in my own family line from the past that would make great “fodder” for some very interesting tales.
Ancestry . com has a feature now called “stories”—and the stories are about people they believe are related to you! I haven’t gotten all that far on my family tree, but this story feature of theirs really makes me interested to just drop everything else and work on nothing but learning about my family of the past. These stories are put together in a way that is kind of generic, and tells about things that were of great importance to the people of that time in general.
For instance, one of their stories mentions things like, “Josie Belle Walls—your great grandmother. Your great-grandmother’s right to vote was recognized nationally with the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920.” It goes on to give a few facts throughout the story about how many women voted, who the candidates were, and has a picture of the census page with my great-grandmother’s information on it, along with her family. Further information calls to our attention that it was indicated on the census page that she could read and write. It even tells what the weather was like at the place where she would have voted that day, Bentley, Oklahoma, in Atoka County! Some pictures are included in this story, but none of her specifically—more general pictures of people of the times, women with suffrage banners, and so on, but the stories have some good information in them that might not be gleaned elsewhere without really digging for it. At the time, there were 12 people listed living in her home—she and her husband and a passel of kids—she was 38. I wonder if she found time to go vote! I do wish there had been pictures of her as a younger woman. I only have one picture of her in her 20’s, and after that, most all the pictures of her were after she was much older. The picture below is the earliest one I have of her, and I think she was in her mid-twenties when this was taken. At that point in time, she had married, had four children, lost her husband and remarried a widower older than she who had several children. They had children together as well, for a total of seventeen kids in a “yours, mine, and ours” situation.
This picture is one of my great grandmother, Josie Bell Walls McLain Martin (also pictured above), with grandkids of her own. She looks absolutely worn out, doesn’t she? I wonder what hopes and dreams she had as a young girl, and I wonder what moments made her heart happy as she grew older. The grandkids from left to right are my mother, El Wanda; the current baby in the family, my mom’s (at the time) youngest sister, Betty; their sister, Opal, who is third in that line of siblings; and Mom’s just-younger sister, Joyce, with whom she was always so very close to. This picture was taken in 1930, so my mom was 8 at that time, Joyce only about 19 months behind her, and Opal around 4-5, with Betty being around 2 or so. My great grandmother Josie was born in 1882 and had her first child (my grandmother) at age 16. In this picture below, she was 48 years old.
My other great-grandmother (both of these were on my mom’s side of the family) was 53 at this same time, 1920, and only had she, her husband, and one daughter (age 19) living at home—a huge difference in family situation and age for two peers. She was born in 1867. I’ve seen one picture of her. (SEE BELOW) Her name was Emily (Emma) Christiana (Ligon) Stallings—all her grandkids called her “Mammy”, and my mom has told me so many stories about her and her life. My mom was the oldest of 11 children, so she spent a lot of time with Mammy, since they lived across the street from one another as my mom was growing up. Much of the information provided in this “story” from Ancestry about both my great-grandmothers here is the same—the talk about voting, the weather, and so on. But the interesting part to me is being able to have all the facts in one place to compare the two of them side by side, since, by that time, they were both living in fairly close proximity, and not much later, both lived in the same small town.
I’ve mentioned before how my Aunt Marilyn did a lot of genealogy research, and something my sister and I still laugh about is my mom’s reaction to learning we were related to Lyndon B. Johnson. She begged my aunt to “Please don’t tell anyone, Marilyn!” (Mom didn’t feel nearly as awful when she found out Benedict Arnold was also a past relative…)
I’m really loving learning about my ancestors because there are so many interesting ‘bits and pieces’ of their lives that I can incorporate into my writing—including a few skeletons in the closet, which I’m so excited about getting to learn more about! Next time I’ll talk about some of the men from our ancestry line –there seems to be a lot more about their escapades than the women, and I can’t wait to read what’s in their “stories” too.
By the way, there is also a feature where relatives, friends, and so on can contribute memories and stories about ancestors as well, and some of those are really fascinating, too. I do remember my great-grandmother Josie that I mentioned above. She passed when I was young, but I have pictures of her and I remember meeting her and being around her. I would love to have known her when she was young.
It’s wonderful to just think about how, in the historical stories we write, we are writing about people just like these women (and men) from our own past bloodlines. Amazing to think about, isn’t it?
Is there someone in your ancestry line that you would like to have met, or like to have been able to spend more time with in your lifetime? Tell us about it! Did any of you know your great-grandparents? I love to hear your stories about the past, and the people who lived it.
Hi everyone! I wrote a short series of blog posts called Learning History Through Songs a few years back, but since we are just past the 190th anniversary of the Battle of the Alamo, I thought I would re-run this, the 2nd of the series, in memory of that battle. Can you believe that in just ten years, on March 6, 2036, it will have been 200 years since that fateful day happened?
In the first post of this series (The Battle of New Orleans—Learning History Through Songs #1) I mentioned that these ballad-type tunes were popular in the 1950’s and 1960’s, with Marty Robbins and Johnny Horton being two of the best-known singers of this type of songs.
The Battle of New Orleans was penned by an Arkansas school principal, Jimmy Driftwood, who wrote it in the hopes of making learning more fun for his students.
But what about The Ballad of the Alamo?
This theme was written by Ukrainian-born composer Dimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin (May 10, 1894 – November 11, 1979). He was a Hollywood film score composer and conductor. According to “Lyrics”, he is considered “one of the giants of Hollywood movie music.” Though he was musically trained in Russia, he is best known for his westerns, a genre “where his expansive, muscular style had its greatest impact.” Tiomkin received 22 Academy Award nominations and won four Oscars, also according to “Lyrics”.
I can see why! He also wrote The Green Leaves of Summer (also from the John Wayne BATJAC production of THE ALAMO, as well as the theme for the movie Do Not Forsake Me from the movie HIGH NOON, and among other favorites, the theme song for Rawhide!
Tiomkin had a way of putting sweeping musical scores together with some “killer” lyrics—and with Marty Robbins recording The Ballad of the Alamo, it was a sure-fire winner! Though this song has been covered by other artists, and inspired other songs about the Alamo as well, the original Marty Robbins version is incomparable. Recorded in 1960, it became a “crossover” hit, spending 13 weeks on the pop charts and ranked high at #34, at one point.
THE BALLAD OF THE ALAMO–Marty Robbins
Imagine, telling the entire story of the Alamo in one story-song. With its haunting melody combined with unforgettable lyrics, this piece stands tall among these songs that teach history through music.
“In the southern part of Texas/Near the town of San Antone/ There’s a fortress all in ruins that the weeds have overgrown…”
The words go on to describe what’s left of the battle scene briefly and the men who were there, as they “…answer to that roll call in the sky.”
Switching gears to what actually happened, the next verse takes us to the action: “Back in 1836/Houston said to Travis/Get some volunteers and go/Fortify the Alamo…”
The story is told in full—how Santa Anna called for surrender and Travis “answered with a shell—and a rousin’ Rebel yell.” Santa Anna issues his decree: “ ‘Play Degüello,’ he roared/ I will show them no quarter/Every one will be put to the sword!”
I still get chills at this line: “One hundred and eighty-five/Holdin’ back five thousand…” The days are counted off to mark time quickly, and then the sad fact that the “…troops that were comin’/ Never came, never came, never came…”
FALL OF THE ALAMO by Robert J. Onderdonk
By Robert Jenkins Onderdonk – 1. transferred from en.wikipedia, original is at the Texas State Archives2. A Glimpse of History in Modern San Antonio., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7843901
Of course, we know how the story ends. But Tiomkin brings the lyrics full circle when he starts the final verse with the same lines as the first verse, then diverges and lets us see what the cowboy sees, as if we are there with him.
In the southern part of Texas
Near the town of San Antone
Like a statue on a pinto
Rides a cowboy all alone,
And he sees the cattle grazing where a century before
Santa Anna’s guns were blazin’ and the cannons used to roar
And his eyes turn sorta misty,
And his heart begins to glow,
And he takes his hat off slowly…
To the men of Alamo.
To the thirteen days of glory
At the siege of Alamo…
Here’s the YOUTUBE link if you would like to hear this wonderful retelling of this battle. I can’t even imagine having to perform this in a concert setting as I’m sure Marty Robbins had to do quite often. It’s very difficult to sing, though the logical progression of events make the words easy to remember.
Here’s a favorite memory. When my son was in elementary school in fourth grade, his teacher called me one night to tell me that when they’d started talking about the battle of the Alamo in class in history, Casey seemed to already know all about it. She said, “Well, what do you know about it, Casey?” Having heard this song about a million and one times in the car, he said, “Back in 1836, Houston said to Travis…Get some volunteers and go fortify the Alamo!” After some questioning, she was amazed that he remembered so much, and it sure brought a smile to my face.
Have you ever been to the Alamo? We went one year when our kids were in elementary school and middle school, and it’s one of the most moving places I’ve ever been. You can definitely feel the presence of those men who fought and died there. What’s one place you’ve been that touched you deeply, just by being there? The Alamo is one place I will never forget.
I’m so glad you all came by to read and participate in my blog post today. That always means a lot to us here at P&P, and we appreciate each and every one of you! You all are the heart of our group.
I picked three winners today! They are….
LAURA MICHELLE DELGADO
CAROL FRITZ
JUDY SEXTON
Congratulations, ladies! If you will email me at fabkat_edit@yahoo.com and be sure to put “WINNER” in your subject line, and also let me know the email address you’d like your digital copy of ONE MAGIC NIGHT sent to, I will get it out to you as soon as possible!
Thanks again to everyone for stopping by and being part of our group! We love you guys!
Hi, everyone! Y’all know I’ve blogged several times before about my searches on Ancestry . com and some of the stories I had learned about my ancestors from my mom. But my dad was never one to talk much about his side of the family, I think because there was quite a lot of sadness in his upbringing.
Dad was one of five children, 4 boys and 1 girl. When he was very young, his ‘just older’ brother was killed in an automobile accident, and my dad was in the car when it happened. Back then, there were deep ruts in the roads and my granddad hit one, overturning the car. Dad’s brother, Walter, was killed. I learned from “family talk” in years to come that my grandmother came home and laid on the bed in her blood-stained clothes for days, mourning the loss of her young son.
Not long after that, Kenneth, their son that was younger than my dad, died of a malady known then as “summer complaint” — he was only 6 months old. There isn’t much more to be discovered on Ancestry about these deaths since they were so long in the past and the children were so young.
But what I DID learn from Ancestry recently was a real shocker–as some things on there are bound to be! Looking through old census records, I came across an unusual entry in the one for my great great grandfather’s family. His name was John Jenkins Moss. He had several children, but there were two sons– one born in 1859 and one in 1860.
He and my gr-gr grandmother, Jaritta Jane, were married in September of 1859 and the son born in 1860 was born in July. But…the one born in 1859? The census shows an “M” by his name–I discovered that stands for “Mulatto” — a reference to a light-skinned, mixed-race child in those days. His name was Ike. It’s a name that has never been talked about in our family.
This haunts me.
Yes, even though he is long dead, I wonder about him and whatever became of him. Why? Because it may mean we have other family members out there that we never were permitted to know or claim, nor they, us.
The thing that stuck with me the most was that on this particular census, both boys were listed as 8 years old, so they couldn’t have been a full year apart. Ike was living with the family at that point, claimed as part of the household, as a son, just as the other boy, William Francis was.
It raised so many questions in my mind. Did my 2 x great grandmother know about Ike when she married her husband? Did she agree to bring him to their home willingly? And when they did, I wonder how things were handled? How did she treat him? How were things between her and her husband? What were the circumstances of Ike coming to live with them? Well, y’all know my writer’s mind just went crazy when I figured all this out!
Something else that’s happened in all of this traipsing around in the past was that I came across some of the things I’d saved from our big attic problem of a couple of years ago (remember when it was buckling and I had to do the massive clean-out?) I had kept a box of letters that were written between my parents when they were engaged. At that time, Dad was in Arizona because his lungs were bad, and Mom was still here in Oklahoma, not having yet joined him.
My mom, Elwanda, and dad, Fred, as newlyweds in 1944
Oh, my goodness. I didn’t know what to do with those letters, as you might imagine. I started reading them, but after the first couple, though they were very sweet and heartfelt, I felt as if I were intruding on some very private moments that were never supposed to be shared. I put them back in the box, but I couldn’t bear to get rid of them. I still have them, but will I ever read them? Maybe when I’m 90, if I live that long.
Do any of you sleuth through your genealogy? I wish so much I’d written down all the stories my mom told me. Too late now. I swore I would write everything down for my kids, no matter how mundane it might seem, and I started that, but I must admit, I have not kept it up like I should have. I don’t make New Years’ resolutions, but if I do have any wish to “keep to” something, I think this would be it.
I know I have a long way to go with the genealogy research, and it has been so much fun so far–but finding that entry about Ike has really stayed with me, and made me think about someone I never knew existed, and certainly never knew was part of my family. There’s no date of death, not so far, anyhow, but maybe in my progress it will show up and I might be able to at least find where his grave is.
Here’s kind of a lighter story about my family before I sign off–my dad’s sister, my Aunt JoAnne, told my sister and me this story when we were at her house a few years back drinking our Sonic drinks on the sweltering heat of summer on her front porch. This same gr gr grandfather who had the two boys so close in age that I mentioned earlier was also a cattle drover. But he didn’t want to travel too far from home there in Texas, close to the Indian Territory border. They lived SO close that they were near Apache, Kiowa, and Comanche territory. As I said, Grandpa John didn’t like to travel a long way on the cattle drives, so he stayed within a 20-30 mile radius of his home, just joining up with certain trail drives and working that area of the drive as the came and went.
One day, he was bitten by a mule in the back of the leg. It became infected. Luckily, he was befriended by the Kiowa chief, Lone Wolf. Lone Wolf took him to his village and they cared for him and made him well, and he was able to live a long life because of this. Lone Wolf was a war chief, known for preserving his tribe’s auntonomy and way of life, so in my mind, this was a real show of friendship and trust for him to take a white man to his camp and care for him. Aunt JoAnne told us that they remained friends for the rest of their lives. A town named for the chief was founded in August 1901, on the opening of the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache Reservation to settlement. (Wikipedia) It’s in the southwestern part of Oklahoma. This is picture of Chief Lone Wolf and his wife.
Have any of you ever learned family secrets that you never knew growing up, through working on genealogy or finding a letter or journal, or in some other way? I would love to know, big or small, what that secret was–(without getting you into trouble!) LOL Do you have any unique family stories that have been passed down?
I’m giving away a digital copy of my novella, ONE MAGIC NIGHT, which is loosely based on another ancestor’s background, and I knew he needed his own story! It’s an oldie but a goodie! Be sure to comment for a chance to win!
Genealogy is so interesting, but you must be prepared for what you learn–and decide if you’ll pursue it, or leave it where it lays–at least, until you’re 90.
Hi everyone! Thanks so much for stopping in today to talk with me about our favorite westerns from days gone by–I was blogging about my favorite, LANCER, and really enjoyed seeing what everyone else loved to watch!
I picked two winners from my drawing for tonight, and they are….
NAOMI SHORES
JULIE BULLOCK
CONGRATULATIONS, LADIES! Please send me an e-mail at: fabkat_edit@yahoo.com and be sure to put WINNER in the subject line. Let me know your choice of any of my western romances and the email you want it sent to and I’ll get those off to you as soon as possible! Again, thanks to everyone for participating!
I’m waxing nostalgic today, pining for the days of yesteryear when good westerns were on practically every night of the week! Today, I thought I’d remember my favorite of them all, the western television series LANCER. It’s one of those shows that didn’t last long enough, and still has many, many followers in the fan fiction world who continue to write stories using these characters in just about every scenario you can imagine. If you’ve never explored fan fiction, it’s pretty amazing, and there’s a fan fiction group for virtually every movie and TV series that ever came down the pike.
My not-so-secret “secret” is that I was so totally in love with Johnny Lancer when that show was airing that it stayed with me for all these years. So in my mind, there are different attributes of his that just about every one of my heroes in my books have “inherited”–and that’s a good thing, except for the fact that most of them are as reckless as he was and that can cause a good deal of anxiety for me! They say that writing is throwing rocks at a man to make him climb a tree and then he has to figure out how to get down unscathed. With those “Johnny Lancer” qualities in my heroes, that makes it doubly hard, but also, soooo well worth it!
Johnny was raised very “rough and tumble” but he survived, and he learned how to read people very well. He’s brash, and he takes chances, but he calculates the risk and he has plenty of confidence–after all, he’s made it this far, growing up with not much supervision in the harsh border towns. Of course, this is what gives his entire character its intriguing quality–his will to take chances, defy the odds, and come out on top. But what if he doesn’t? As a writer, that’s what makes him so interesting!
Here’s a bit about Lancer, which was then, and still is, my favorite TV western ever—and that’s saying a lot, since I was a die-hard western fan from a very early age.
But what can be more exciting to a pre-teen girl than an action–packed TV western with two handsome hunky guys and a ton of family angst? The answer is…not one thing. I was glued to the tv screen every week when Lancer took off, and it was a very, very sad day when they cancelled it.
Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about it, in a nutshell, just so you can get the gist of the series:
Lancer is an American Western series that aired on CBS from September 1968, to May 1970. The series stars Andrew Duggan, James Stacy, and Wayne Maunder as a father with two half-brother sons, an arrangement similar to the more successful Bonanza on NBC.
Duggan stars as the less than admirable Murdoch Lancer, the patriarch of the Lancer family. Stacy appears as half-Mexican gunslinger Johnny Madrid Lancer. Wayne Maunder was cast as Scott Lancer, the educated older son (though he is younger than Stacy) and a veteran of the Union Army, in contrast to Stacy’s role of former gunslinger. Paul Brinegar also appeared as Jelly Hoskins, a series regular from season two after making a one off guest appearance during the first season. Elizabeth Baur (who later replaced Barbara Anderson in ‘Ironside’ from season five to eight) also was a series regular cast member as Murdoch Lancer’s ward Teresa O’Brien.
Lancer lasted for fifty-one hour-long episodes shot in color. The program was rerun on CBS during the summer of 1971.
The episode entitled “Zee” with Stefanie Powers earned scriptwriter Andy Lewis the Western Writers of America “Spur Award“, the first ever designated for a television script.
Pretty impressive! With the regular cast and the very solid and vivid portrayals each of them gave of their characters, and the stellar roster of guest stars, what’s not to love? I was eleven when LANCER made its appearance, and I thought I had never seen anyone as “cute” as half-brothers Johnny and Scott Lancer. But “cuteness” was not the only thing that held my interest.
As the storyline went, Scott’s wealthy mother took him back to Boston, and he was raised as a moneyed gentleman. He served in the Civil War. Johnny’s story was different. His mother took him south of the border, to the territory she was most familiar with, and he was raised in border towns. Life was tough for him, being half white, and as we say here, “the boy run into some trouble.” So much trouble, in fact, that the Pinkerton man Murdoch Lancer sent to find him barely got there in the nick of time, as Johnny was facing a firing squad.
Murdoch offered his sons “listening money”—to come meet him, hear what he had to offer them, and then stay, or walk away. Of course, both Johnny and Scott decide to stay after this stormy encounter.
The mix of the characters, with Johnny having fended for himself most of his life, earning his living as a fast gun, and Scott being raised with everything money could buy, added to every plot and their general interaction. Scott had known hard times too, during the War, and he had to remind his younger brother of that from time to time. But their growing relationship as brothers, and the respect that they had for one another – and in time, for their father, was what made the show special. Growth of the characters and the way that growth was portrayed kept me glued to the screen week after week—though I couldn’t have told you that’s what it was at that age.
The show is not in syndication here in the States, at last check, but don’t despair! Here’s a link where you can catch season one, at least!
Johnny Lancer has been a “main character” in my imagination from the time I first saw the show. He’d lived a hard life, done some bad things, but was trying to make amends and have the life with a true family that he’d always wanted…and a place to belong. He was the youngest in his family, and so was I. His character portrayal resonated with audiences everywhere, so it was quite a surprise to learn that the show was being canceled. Yet, today, there are still people who love the show and get together online to chat about it and the characters, and write more stories about them—many of which would make fantastic Lancer episodes if the show was still being written.
Do you have a memory of Lancer? Please share if you do! And if you don’t—don’t hesitate to click that link above and see what you missed!
What was YOUR favorite TV western from days gone by?
I’m offering a giveaway today of a digital copy of one of my books, reader’s choice, (USA ONLY) to one lucky commenter!
We had so much fun talking about Christmas songs today, I knew I couldn’t just give ONE prize away, so I’m giving three! A big thank you to everyone who stopped by to gab about Christmas songs today with me, and I want to wish each and every one of you all a very MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A JOYOUS NEW YEAR!
Winners are listed below, and may choose between digital copies of NOELLE’S CHRISTMAS WISH or THE DEVIL AND MISS JULIA JACKSON. Please e-mail me at fabkat_edit@yahoo.com and be sure to put WINNER in your subject line! (I get a LOT of emails, y’all!)
AND THE WINNERS ARE…
KARIN
DANIELLE B.
PATTI WHITAKER
Congratulations! Again, thanks to all for participating, and a very MERRY CHRISTMAS to everyone!
I love the music of Christmas. I could play it all year long if I weren’t married to someone who isn’t as crazy about it as I am. Those songs are so uplifting and beautiful that they make me feel good just to hear them, and you can’t help but sing along with them.
My dad always loved Christmas, and was a great practical jokester. He delighted in making phone calls to his grandchildren, pretending to be Santa. He’d call back later on for a rundown about what happened on our end—the looks, the comments, and the joy of getting a real live phone call from Santa!
One of the traditions in our house was the box of chocolate covered cherries that was always under the tree for him from my mom, a reminder of hard Christmases in years past when that might have been the only gift she could afford. Another was that our house was always filled with Christmas music.
I was a classically trained pianist from the time I turned seven years old. My father’s favorite Christmas carol was What Child Is This? Once I mastered it, I delighted in playing it for him because he took such pleasure in it, and since it was also the tune to another song, Greensleeves, I played it all year round for him. My love for playing the piano was one of the reasons I enjoyed writing my story NOELLE’S CHRISTMAS WISH for our Christmas Stocking Sweethearts series so much. Of course, her favorite Christmas song was The First Noel, for obvious reasons.
The tune known as Greensleeves was a British drinking song for many years, a popular folk song that was not religious. In ancient Britain, there have been more than twenty different known lyrics associated with the tune throughout history. It was first published in 1652.
Shakespeare mentions it by name in “The Merry Wives of Windsor” in which it is played while traitors are hanged. It has been attributed to King Henry VIII, and said that he wrote it for Anne Boleyn. How did this song become one of the best-loved Christmas carols of all time?
In 1865, Englishman William Chatterton Dix wrote “The Manger Throne,” three verses of which became “What Child Is This?” During that particular era, Christmas was not as openly celebrated as it is today. Many conservative Puritan churches forbade gift-giving, decorating or even acknowledging the day as a special day for fear that Christmas would become a day of pagan rituals more than a serious time of worship. Although Dix wrote other hymns, in the context of the times, it was unusual for him to write about Christ’s birth, since many hymn writers and religious factions ignored Christmas completely.
The words represent a unique view of Christ’s birth. While the baby was the focal point of the song, the point of view of the writer seemed to be that of a confused observer. Dix imagined the visitors to the manger bed wondering about the child who had just been born. In each verse, he described the child’s birth, life, death and resurrection, answering the question with a triumphant declaration of the infant’s divinity.
“The Manger Throne” was published in England just as the U.S. Civil War was ending. The song quickly made its way from Britain to the United States. Dix died in 1898, living long enough to see “The Manger Throne” become the Christmas carol “What Child Is This?”
Credit to Wikipedia Article for much of this information.
And here are THE PETERSENS singing WHAT CHILD IS THIS? (Lovely harmonies!)
WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE CHRISTMAS CAROL OR SONG? Mine is SILENT NIGHT, but gosh, to me they are all so beautiful. I can’t think of one I don’t like! Be sure to leave a comment for a chance to win a digital copy of your choice of NOELLE’S CHRISTMAS WISH or THE DEVIL AND MISS JULIA JACKSON!
Hi everyone! As a writer, I love to be able to use my imagination and come up with wonderful (I hope!) ideas for stories that are entertaining, no matter what genre I’m writing in. As a reader, I feel the same way—a reflection of the writer side of me. I want to read about characters and situations that are not cardboard “cookie-cutter” stories. I’m sure most readers feel that same way about the books they choose to spend time reading.
We had so much fun talking about Christmas songs today, I knew I couldn’t just give ONE prize away, so I’m giving three! A big thank you to everyone who stopped by to gab about Christmas songs today with me, and I want to wish each and every one of you all a very MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A JOYOUS NEW YEAR!
