Little Feat

I’ve been a Little Feat fan since there first record came out in 1971. There are 4 eras of Little Feat. # 1. Is the Lowell George era, and my favorite era of the band. This was 1971 to 1979. During this time they made 9 LP’s! My favorites were “The Last Record Album”, “Time Loves A Hero” and there Live Double LP “Waiting for Columbus”! What I loved about Little Feat were the songs Lowell George wrote! His Slide Guitar playing and his vocals were such a joy to listen too! Plus Richie Hayward is still one of favorite drummers, the guy was amazing! Lowell George died in 1979 and the band broke up.
The second era, 1987 to 1993. In 1987 Little Feat got back together with Craig Fuller and Fred Tackett, taking the place of George. This lineup’s first LP “Let It Roll” was my favorite!

Check out the rest on my Little Feat Page.

Mr. Mitchell

“You’re going be playing bass this year” said Mr. Mitchell. During the school year 1970 – 1971, my eighth grade year, I was looking forward to band class. Mitchell was my band teacher during my 6th and 7th grade years and I enjoyed how he could work with a group of kids, teach the parts to each kid so he or she could understand what they were doing. Then he would have them play the parts over and over, and when they got it right, he would praise them. His praises were the kind that would make a kid do anything to get. He always had complete control over his class, and he always made the music fun.

I had fun learning snare drum in 5th grade with Mr. Sanders. My parents bought me a snare drum, which they regretted doing later. I practiced all the time and drove my family and neighbors crazy. I got to be friends with Steve Sanders who was a drummer too, and to this day still walks circles around me when he drums! Playing snare with him during my 7th grade year was a lot of fun. He was always showing me and teaching me, cool things to play, and little tricks here and there. I was thinking this year that Steve and I would be on the snare drums again, and I had my drumsticks ready.

I walked into the classroom, which was up on the stage, with my 2B drumsticks, and let Mitchell know I was ready to play snare! “Put your sticks away, you’re going be playing bass drum this year.” said Mitchell “No way!” I said, “Steve and I were on snare this year!” “Mr. Cummins, you are my bass drummer this year” Mitchell responded smiling. “Not going to happen!” I said, “Get one of those other guys to play bass.” ”Look at the other drummers” Mitchell said pointing at the other guys, “now look at the bass drum.” The bass drum was taller than all the other drummers except Bob Leary. I could see where Mitchell was coming from, we were a marching band and a concert band. When we marched we needed a big guy to carry the bass drum.

“Have Leary play bass” I said. “No, I’ve got something else in mind for Mr. Leary” Mitchell countered. “Mr. Cummins, you’re playing bass because you’re big, and you got the beat.” I was really upset, but when he said I had the beat, I calmed down, and agreed that I would play bass. Mitchell always knew how to pull my strings! I played bass all year, and I had a blast doing it! Mitchell was a great teacher, and I’m so glad I got to play for three years under him!

 

Nov 25, 2015

Thankful # 25: I’m thankful for my Chubber Cheekers! That’s what I call my grandson Faythe! He was a very large baby, with big cute cheeks, he is 15 now, and still has big cute cheeks! When he was a baby he would cry all the time! When his parents were about to go crazy, they would bring him over to me, and grandpa always got him to go to sleep! When he was around 2 or 3 he would sit at my computer and play games, his dad even set him up with his own password. One day I sat down at my computer, and I could not log in. His dad figured out that Faythe reset my password with his own password! He would call me on the phone and say Grandpa let’s play Battleship. We played over the computer, so we could see and talk to each other. I thought he was pretty good at battleship, until his mother told me he would move his ships when I hit one of them! I don’t like soccer, but I enjoyed watching him play! I coached his baseball team one year. The last game of the season, I had him in center field. A high fly ball was hit and headed straight towards him. You could see the fear in his eyes, but he caught the ball!! The runner on first base was between first and second base, and I was yelling throw it to first, throw it to first! Faythe threw a strike to the first baseman to complete a double play! This kid is good at everything he does accept rappelling, him and rappelling, not a good mix! Faythe loves watching all the old TV shows MASH, A-Team, Hogan’s Hero’s with his grandpa! The Man from UNCLE series is next on our list! He his such a great kid, but he has one fault, he doesn’t like grandpa’s music! But I’m still working on that!

Nov 24, 2015

Thankful # 24: I’m thankful for Teachers! I wasn’t a big fan of going to school. Many of my teachers I thought were boring, and not interesting at all. Then there were the teachers that caught my attention, and made learning interesting and fun! Here are a few of those teachers: Mrs. Partington Kindergarten, Mrs. Chapman 2nd grade, Mrs. Merchant (my favorite teacher) 5th grade, Mrs. Cohee 6th grade, Mr. Mitchell, Mr. McGuigan, Mr. Cohee, Mr. McLaughlin, Mr. Pasch and my favorite PE teacher was Coach Gary Musick! I had Coach Musick two years in High School. We played a lot of basketball! Coach Musick always made sure I was on one team and he would play on the other team. He and I played a lot of man on man basketball. He taught me that when you got knocked down you got back up. My best times in high school was playing hard tough basketball against Mr. Musick! I also had some great teachers in my church, but I am just going to talk about one, Sister Hamilton. Not only was she excellent at teaching me about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She taught me how to be a gentleman, to respect women, to be kind to others, and she taught me how to have fun without getting into trouble! She was a great lady! I’m Thankful for all the wonderful teachers I had throughout my life!

Nov 23, 2015

Thankful # 23: I’m thankful for my beautiful granddaughter Evelynn! She loves horses, and when she was younger, she had all these little plastic horses! I enjoyed watching her play with her horses, and she is really good at drawing pictures of horses! She likes skate boarding, she doesn’t do the fancy tricks, she just likes to cruise around on her board! One of her many talents is writing and telling scary stories. She has scared many who have sat around the campfire with her! Her parents haven’t bought a coloring book in years. Evelynn draws pictures and gives them to her brothers and sister and they sit and color her pictures. She hands her pictures out to the little ones at church. They love to color her pictures, and it keeps them quiet during church. She loves going to this place where they raise goats, they have her feeding the baby goats! Now they are going to train her in helping with the birth of the goats. She is on the Youth City Council for the town of Sunset. They do all kinds of Service Projects, and they pick a Hero from there town to ride on a float in the 4th of July Parade! They help plan Carnivals for the Elementary Schools, and they help work the different booths! What is cool about Evelynn is, she has no problem reaching out and holding grandpas hand as we are walking down the road! Love you Evelynn!!