The Sweetest Sounds

By Larry Teren
rogers&hammerstein
“The Sweetest Sounds, I’ll ever hear are still inside my head” invokes a special memory for me. It was written for a musical play called “No Strings” which debuted in 1962. It is the opening line to just another in a series of many great songs put together by the team of

Rogers and Hammerstein

.
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Dearth of The Salesmen

My father was from the old school of salesmen. He had the gift of gab and believed in his product while it seems today as if everyone pushing something is out just to make a buck.

I recently went to a men’s clothier to buy a new suit which had been long overdue. Six months earlier the store used to be across the street from my condo building. They moved away to a more obscure but not too far distant location. At the old place, the entrance was as if going into a speakeasy. One had to drive to the back parking lot that was much in need of repair and enter through a very nondescript and almost unmarked door. Once inside, there were a handful of salesmen eager to grab the next sucker, I mean, prospect entering through the ugly portal.
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Jack Benny and Dad

jack bennyJack Benny was in the top five of all-time show business personalities. As a kid in the late 1950’s and early 60’s , I watched his tv show and laughed like everyone else. Jack was beloved by all his peers which is unusual in a competitive world. His stage persona was that of a vain cheapskate. This was a scriptwriter’s dream and it did him well for close to sixty years. He died in 1974 at the age of eighty after pretending to be 39 for so many years.

My father celebrated his own eightieth birthday in October, 2002 by falling down and breaking both ankles. He had just left his car and had walked up the stairs to his townhouse. Once inside, he tripped in the foyer and that was that. Somehow my mother helped him into a chair and she called me to come over. I did and it was in the late evening time. A private ambulance service brought him to the hospital of choice. We waited in the emergency area and by 11pm the doctors had done their thing. They bandaged him up as best as possible and told me to take him home.
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