Long Long Trail (eBook)

William & quote; Bill& quote; Peterson (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
412 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-8477-4 (ISBN)

Infos

Long Long Trail, is about Bill Peterson's life and his development as a trumpet player, his life-long love of wire-haired terriers, and his experiences with many of the big name singers he performed with, including Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darrin, Stevie Wonder, Neil Young, Glen Campbell and many more. Bill has unique stories to tell, often accompanied by his drawings.

A native-born Angeleno, Bill Peterson found his trumpet took him into the US Air Force, to UCLA, to all the clubs on the Sunset Strip, to the Cal Neva Lodge, to the Cocoanut Grove, into studio work ¬doing record dates, and to Hanna Barbera Studios, where he also wrote cues and themes for various shows. As president of Musicians Local 47, he inaugurated the Musicians' Referral ¬Service and developed Studio 47. His first book, ShowBiz From the Back Row (the title refers to the trumpets' location in the band), is full of stories about famous people such as Sid Caesar, Nat 'King' Cole, Blondie, Lena Horne, and many more, stories you won't find anywhere else. This second book. A Long Long Trail, is about Bill's life and his experiences shows his development as a trumpet player, his life-long love of wire-haired terriers, and his experiences with many of the big name singers he performed with, including Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darrin, Stevie Wonder, Neil Young, Glen Campbell and many more. Bill has stories to tell about all of them...

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Bill Peterson's Long Long Trail is both an autobiography and an opportunity for him to share more of the stories about people he has known and worked with, and the wire-haired terriers who have also shared his life. With a background as a lead trumpet player, president of Musicians Local 47, music and dog lover, appreciator of people and their quirks, he loves to talk about his experiences and the personalities he has encountered, and often to draw pictures of them. Reading the book feels like you're sitting there chatting with him. Get his first book, Show Biz From the Back Row, to get even more of his stories - which you will never find anywhere else.

Textauszug

SIXTH CHORUS: A HOUSE OF OUR OWN, AND THE TERROR OF CRIDGE STREET

It’s August, and we are house-hunting in Riverside, California. Dad still has bronchitis from working in the Wilson Meat Packing Company’s basement in Los Angeles, but he’s getting better. Mom tells us after three days in the hotel,

“We just can’t stay here very long. I know you like it, but hotels and eating out is expensive.”

She talks about how little money we have, and says that Dad’s twenty-five dollar a week salary won’t go far. So my mom and dad and I go house-hunting for some place to rent.

We find a big old two-story frame house on Cridge Street. It’s painted gray like a battleship and I like it because it has a lot of really neat things, like a covered porch that wraps almost all the way around it. The overhang of the roof of the porch rises up to the windows of the second floor bedrooms.

Now this is just great because we just left our apartment on Reno Street in Los Angeles, where we had a three room apartment, and here’s a whole house of our own, with my own bedroom and everything. There is even a great big back yard with what looks like a forest of blue flowers Mom says are larkspur. I think it’s like my own Sherwood Forest where Robin Hood and his Merry Men play around that I found out about when Mom read me the whole book, Robin Hood. I also find out very quickly that if I open the window of my room, I can climb out onto the roof and survey the whole front yard and way down the street too.

I meet a kid of about four who lives next door. His name is Georgie; he has yellow hair, he is a couple years younger than me and he talks a kind of baby talk that drives me crazy. He has what my mom calls an ‘angelic face.’ I think he looks like James Cagney, who we saw in a movie called Public Enemy Number One, but for some reason he and my mother seem to really like each other.

He follows her around, and constantly asks her things like, “Whawer you doin’ now?” and, “Why?” and eating cookies and stuff Mom gives him.

I don’t like this, but Mom explains that Georgie’s mom works, and he doesn’t have a dad, and he needs some attention. That is why she lets him spend so much time at our house. This kid is a terror—it seems to me that my mom lets Georgie get away with stuff that I never can. However, there is one really neat thing about Georgie—his dog. Mom tells me,

“Now Bill, Bridget is a special breed of terrier, called an Airedale. We had one when I was a girl on the Gang Ranch in British Columbia, Canada …”

I need to know about this, so I ask Mom,

“D’ya mean there was a gang at your ranch, like Mr. O’Riordan was in?”

She says,

“No, there wasn’t a gang there, it was just the name of the ranch.”

I can tell she just wants to talk about the dog, so I don’t ask more.

“His name was Sport, and he came all the way from Ireland. He was mostly white, with brindle colored patches on his back, same color as Bridget here.”

Bridget is about as tall as me, and way taller than Georgie. Why, Bridget comes up past the bottom of Mom’s apron. She looks up at my mom, and it looks like she is smiling. Maybe it’s because my mom gives her a cookie every once in a while.

Bridget stays with Georgie all day long. My mom says,

“That Airedale, that Bridget, is almost like a nursemaid to that little boy.”

Lots of times I wish Georgie would just go home and stay there, but leave Bridget. I like to play with her. She has big brown eyes almost like a real person, and once in a while she gets a kind of crazy look to them, almost as if she is thinking about something funny.

One thing for sure—she does love to play. She will chase a ball and always bring it back. Sometimes we tie a rope around her big strong neck, and she pulls Georgie and me in my Radio Flyer wagon. That is why I put up with Georgie always hanging round; it is because Bridget is more fun than he is.

One day even my mom has had enough of Georgie’s questions and pranks. Georgie has hidden her cleaning stuff. It is only after she tells him,

“If you don’t show me where you hid the mop and broom, my daddy will give me a spanking when he gets home.”

This makes an impression on the terror of Cridge Street; he understands about spankings all right. He and Bridget trot off to fetch them from the shed out back.

When he comes in Mom gives him a cookie, and one for Bridget too, and says,

“Now that’s a good boy, Georgie, and Bridget too.”

At least Bridget says, “Wharf!” for a thank-you.

The cookie for Bridget is okay — she pulled us around the block in my wagon, but Georgie? All he does is cause trouble. He looks at me and asks,

“Biwee, do you wanto pyay?”

“No Georgie, I want to listen to my best radio program.”

“Whadat, Biwee?”

“Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy, Georgie. Now go home, okay?”

Mom looks at me, sees I’m not going to explain every word that Jack Armstrong says, or what he’s doing, to this little kid. She sighs like she’d really like it if I would, but she tells him,

“Georgie, you’d better go back to your house. I think your mom is home.”

Georgie gets this real wide-eyed innocent look on his face, and says,

“Oh—otay.”

We are rid of him, and I’m glad; now I can listen to Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy, on the radio, in peace. Mom goes out to water the grass.

Today’s installment is very important—today Jack Armstrong, his Uncle Jim, and I will find out the real identity of the cursed Gray Ghost, who has tried to get Jack and his friends for weeks and weeks.

But, oh no. Just as soon as I get settled in the big mohair chair by the Philco console radio with a glass of milk and some of Mom’s chocolate chip cookies, I hear her yell,

“Bill, is Georgie in there with you?”

“No!”

I take a bite and get mostly chocolate chips, when my mom calls frantically from outside,

“Georgie, you stay right there! Don’t you move!”

She yells at me too.

“Bill Peterson, get out here.”

“Now what did I do?” I think to myself, as I get up slowly, and grudgingly leave the cookies as I hear the show’s theme song,

“Wave the flag for Hudson High, boys, show them how we stand,” blasts out.

Mom shrieks at me,

“Hurry up!”

“Oh, all right!” I think to myself.

I don’t want to get in trouble so I rush outside, and follow Mom’s frantic eyes up onto the porch roof.

Out on the roof is good old Georgie, who grins and calls down to Mom,

“My mom in’t home, so I comed back. I wike it up heah.”

Oh great, this little brat gets away with everything, and now I have to miss my best radio program to watch him prance around.

There is one kind of neat thing though, and that’s what Bridget is doing.

See, the only thing that keeps Georgie from falling off the roof and down onto the lawn is Bridget. She just walks out between Georgie and the edge of the roof.

Georgie seems to think it’s funny — every time he moves forward or back, Bridget just moves right with him. My mom pleads with him to stand still.

“Georgie, now you stay right there … No, no, Georgie honey, don’t go backwards, baby … Oh God, please just stand still.”

Georgie grins at her. He’s sure got her attention—all of it. Even mine. I want to go back in to hear listen Jack Armstrong, but I really want to see what happens with Georgie the Terror—maybe he will fall off.

Well, the more Mom pleads, the more he grins and dances back and forth, but Bridget moves right with him.

 

 

Every time he goes forward, she goes forward. If he goes back, she goes back, and always between him and the drop off at the edge of the roof. Mom turns to me and says,

“Just keep telling him to stay put—I’ll go up and get him.”

As far as I am concerned, he can just go ahead and jump, but I figure I’d better do what she says. I say something at him; he yells,

“I can’t heah ooh!”

Georgie moves closer to the edge. I scream at him,

“Georgie, go back!”

Georgie dances around like he has to go to the bathroom, back and forth, but Bridget uses her big body to block him. By now Mom has raced upstairs—she is through the window and out on the roof in a flash.

She sneaks up behind Georgie, and grabs him. She picks him and yells,

“I gotcha! I gotcha now, you little dickens.”

Mom hustles back through the window with him, as she scolds,

“Don’t you ever do a thing like that again. I’ll give you a good spank if you do!”

Georgie doesn’t seem to care. He grins at my mom like an idiot. She’s gotten him safely inside when she remembers Bridget.

With Georgie in her arms, Mom looks back out the upstairs window at Bridget, who is ambling around the roof edge, sniffing. In a panic, Mom calls,

“Here Bridget—here girl!”

But I guess that Bridget, in her own terrier way, figures that Mom has Georgie under control, and so she is free to do whatever she wants now.

She looks down at me; I can see that crazy wild look in her eyes, like when she plays really hard with us. She ignores my mom. Bridget just wags her tail, barks twice and springs off the roof.

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Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 13.12.2024
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3509-8477-4 / 9798350984774