Mark Bishop
Singing News Article
July 2007
I was sitting at the dentist office,
waiting for Haley to get her teeth cleaned, when I noticed a penny
on the floor. I watched several people look at the penny as they
passed by, but none of them would stop to pick it up. For some
reason, it made me think of how the times have changed. I'm sure
there was a day when that penny would have made some child's day.
When I was a young boy, I would have
reached into a puddle of mud to pick up a penny. I have told
about how we used to walk up and down the roads of our
neighborhood, finding pop bottles to redeem at the country store
down the road for popsicles and candy bars. If there was a penny
on the path, we would knock each other down trying to get it.
Yet here I am today and I am watching
everybody make the decision that that penny is not worth the
effort it would take to stoop down and pick it up. And to be
honest, I have noticed the penny too, yet here I am, still sitting
and reading my paper.
My mind begins to wander and I start
to remember some other changes from my childhood. I remember when
dad gave us boys a dollar allowance. That seemed like a fortune
when we went to the Grants Department store on Friday nights. We
would pace up and down the aisles of the toy department, trying to
decide how to best spend our dollar.
Oh yes! That reminds me... did
anyone else collect those green trading stamps that the grocery
store gave out? My mom did. I remember us pasting them into a
collector book to redeem later for record albums, towels and other
stuff. It's funny, but my own kids don't know how much I used to
love to sit and listen to records. I could listen for hours. I
would position a speaker in the window so I could listen out on
the front porch swing. I would run in and start the record, as
the next record was cued up on top of the spindle (remember that?)
and then run outside to the porch swing to listen. I think my
first exposure to Gospel Music was on mom and dads records of the
Rambo's, The Swanee River Boys and that Ray Stevens Gospel Album
where he sang all of the parts.
The first movie that I ever saw was
at the Richmond Drive-In. I remember dad taking us boys to the
barber shop on Saturdays, after the cartoons were over. This was
before cartoons were commercials for toys and when they were
really funny. I remember dad pulling into the gas station and the
attendant would pop the hood, check the oil and bring the dipstick
around to my dad to show him the level. The fellow would then
clean the windshield as he pumped the gas. All of this for free.
He never had to leave the car.
I remember that it was a treat back
then to get to go out to a restaurant. Maybe once a week,
sometime on the weekend, we would get to go to Dairy Queen or
Kentucky Fried Chicken. When the family met at the park on
Sundays, someone would bring a bag full of Scotties Hamburgers.
They were new in town and were only fifteen cents each. They were
small like White Castle burgers are now. The soda-pop machine at
the park dispensed Cokes in glass bottles. It tasted mighty good
on a hot summer day. We played ball in the park and the adults
weren't looking over our shoulders to tell us the rules. We
figured out what was fair on our own.
I guess that a lot has changed. I am
only forty two so I can imagine the things some of our readers can
remember. I will tell you this. On my way out of the dentist
office, I stooped down and picked up that penny.
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