About this project
Saturday, November 28, 2020
Kay's Peers: A Violinist
https://www.thestrad.com/news/american-violinist-camilla-wicks-dies-aged-92/11495.article?fbclid=IwAR3X0i7RYOPZETi54juUzqvmPdC3PBFBZw98pnVieYax2j3DREKfdnaPDYk
Friday, November 20, 2020
Teeny's Cartoon Corner
Teeny Stockton, Kay's life partner was a big fan of cartoons. Betty Boop was fine, but Teeny really loved Pudgy the dog.
Here's Pudgy in "Swing School":
Wednesday, November 18, 2020
Monday, November 16, 2020
Kay's partner Teeny was a cartoon lover
Teeny cartoon hound https://www.newsfromme.com/iaq/iaq12/#:~:text=Disney's%20%22Silly%20Symphonies%2C%22%20the,cartoons%20built%20primarily%20around%20music.&text=Apart%20from%20that%2C%20the%20other,%2Dand%2Dwhite%20until%201943.
Sunday, November 15, 2020
Monday, November 9, 2020
In Kay's era: The Kalamazoo Gals at the Gibson factory
https://www.michiganradio.org/post/best-gibson-guitars-were-made-kalamazoo-gals?fbclid=IwAR2VwpQYNz4QdxoBVSy3fhLfk1QscCFyAG98v4b6x927_HkOI2sfEtpsNIk
Friday, October 23, 2020
Drummer Viola Smith, born in 1921, has passed away
A contemporary of Kay's. Kay lived till the late 1980s but Viola stayed with us until October. 2020.
Thursday, October 8, 2020
What does it say about America that there were seven (7) Francis the Talking Mule movies?
The release of "Francis" in 1950 coincided with the start of Kay's growing dissatisfaction with the way popular culture was headed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_(film)
Wednesday, October 7, 2020
Kay and military communication
Kay fell into situations both as a WAAC member and as a civilian worker at an airfield in which she helped with communications technology. She'd had to learn on the job and quickly in the year when she'd been a high school band director, as managing the school's radio club was part of the job.
I'm sure she had experience with teletypes, working properly and otherwise. I have only been through about a third of the archival material I have so who knows what will turn up on th topic in the future?
http://taipeisignalarmy.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-model-15-by-teletype-corporation.html
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
The terrors of traveling by bus in the South of the 1940s
Kay and Teeny, with a band, toured the South to promote Enchanted Nile Pomade, a hair product marketed to men and women of color. The company couldn't support the cost of a touring bus, so the band traveled in a motley array of second- and third-hand vechicles, which of course occasionally broke down. A few times, one or more members of the band had to take a Greyhound bus to get to the gig while others tended to a disabled vehicle.
While I don't know if Kay or Teeny were aware of the brutal beating of honorably-dischanrged serviceman Stt. Isaac Woodard, I'm sure they had heard similar tales of punishment meted out to people of color who were perceived to act "above themselves."
https://carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu/isaac-woodard-a-forgotten-story-that-changed-history/