A reprint of “Dwight Dingle, Sgt. Pepper, and a Bathtub”

Which appeared in the Westminster Eagle – http://www.explorecarroll.com/ June 6th, 2007 by Kevin Dayhoff

Click here for a larger image: http://twitpic.com/ra9by or here: http://kevindayhoff.tumblr.com/post/260544005/heres-dwight-dingle-in-collage-i-did-of-him-for

Dwight Dingle will be greatly missed in the community.

He was a tireless community supporter and had a great sense of humor.

November 27, 2009 November 27, 2009 [20070606 Dwight Dingle and The Mamas and The Papas]

For more on Dwight Dingle go here People Dingle Dwight and here: Media Radio WTTR

Wayne Carter, writing for the Carroll County Times is reporting that “Longtime WTTR radio personality Dwight Dingle has died.” Read Mr. Carter’s article on the death of Mr. Dingle here: http://www.carrollcountytimes.com/articles/2009/11/28/news/local_news/3_dingle.txt http://tinyurl.com/yfrx9tb

“Dwight Dingle, Sgt. Pepper, and a Bathtub”

Westminster Eagle – http://www.explorecarroll.com/ June 6th, 2007 by Kevin Dayhoff

It was 40 years ago, last Saturday, June 2, 1967; when the Beatles released their eighth album, “Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.”

Although musical taste can be fiercely debated; many music critics and publications consider this album to be one of the most influential of all time. “Rolling Stone” magazine lists it as the number 1 album in their 2003 list of “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.”

To put music in 1967 in context, the top songs that year were: "Kind of a Drag" by The Buckinghams; "Ruby Tuesday" by The Rolling Stones; "Love Is Here and Now You're Gone" by The Supremes; "Penny Lane" by The Beatles and "Happy Together" by The Turtles.

In its rating deliberations, apparently Rolling Stone did not consult the Sam Greenholtz household. In a recent conversation with Mr. Greenholtz, a former Westminster City councilmember and now chair of the GWDC, he said that although “there were a couple of good songs, the album was for the most part - not appreciated.”

But his wife, Janice did not like the album at all. True to form, Mr. Greenholtz, a tireless downtown-Westminster cheerleader reminded me that in those days, Stu’s Music Shop on Main Street in Westminster carried all the Beatles’ albums and “forty-fives” and was “the center of our musical world.”

Vivian Laxton, Carroll County public information administrator, said she actually has a copy of the “Sgt. Pepper” album in her car’s CD player at the moment. But she promptly volunteered that she wasn’t even born when the album was released… Ms. Laxton, a French horn player, also called to my attention that the album begins with a French horn quartet.

Westminster councilwoman Suzanne Albert said she remembers the album well. She especially “appreciated the energy of the Beatles. Their music made people happy and brought a smile to their faces.”

Westminster Police Chief Jeff Spaulding, who shares my love of heavy metal volunteered, “The Beatles were a little mild for my taste. I was more a Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix fan.”

As far as the “Sgt. Pepper” album, Chief Spaulding said, “he appreciated the change from the pop orientation…to a more eclectic style of music.” Currently in his iPod is music that “runs the gamut from Nirvana to Extreme to Elton John to U2.”

Carroll County commissioners’ chief of staff, Steve Powell said “I listened to the Beatles growing up. And still have a moderately extensive collection of the Beatles on vinyl.” Currently in his CD player is “Four Seasons” by Vivaldi and The Silver Bullet Band but he “listens to all kinds of music, from country music, to “Meatloaf” to John Cougar Mellencamp.”

I reached Dwight Dingle, a radio personality with WTTR since 1974, on the phone last weekend, while he was in Ocean City with other station staff members, where WTTR was receiving five Associated Press awards.

He said that he was a “The Mamas & the Papas” fan. He was a student at Towson State College when the “Sgt. Pepper” album came out. However, he remembers well that his roommate, “Buck” Jones, the former principle of East Middle School and now the principle of Carroll Lutheran School, was a big Beatles Fan…

Mr. Dingle thought the album cover for “Sgt. Pepper” was fascinating but “it doesn’t compare with “The Mamas & the Papas” album cover with the all the members of the band in a bathtub…”

Hmmm. Perhaps someone may want to call Dwight up at WTTR and ask him “on-air” to explain his affection for that “The Mamas & the Papas” album cover…?

The album, “If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears” debuted in March 1966 and it has one of my all-time favorite songs on it – “California Dreamin’.” The first of ultimately three covers for the album, (now a valuable collector’s item) was banned in the United States “as indecent,” (for the silliest reasons – by today’s standards; and not because it contained errors in grammar.)

Have Dwight tell you the story…

Kevin Dayhoff writes from Westminster Maryland USA.

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20091127 sdosm A reprint of “Dwight Dingle, Sgt. Pepper, and a Bathtub” Dayhoff Art, Dayhoff writing essays, Dayhoff writing essays people, Media Radio WTTR, People Dingle Dwight

http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/2009/11/reprint-of-dwight-dingle-sgt-pepper-and.html http://tinyurl.com/y9w5txg

[20070606 Dwight Dingle and The Mamas and The Papas]

Here’s Dwight Dingle in collage I did of him for col I wrote 6Je2007 http://tinyurl.com/y9w5txg #art #writing http://twitpic.com/ra9by http://kevindayhoff.tumblr.com/post/260544005/heres-dwight-dingle-in-collage-i-did-of-him-for

*****

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Funeral Service for Laurell Taylor to be held today

Funeral Service for Laurell Taylor to be held Saturday, October 24, 2009 at 1 pm

A funeral Mass for Westminster City Clerk and former county attorney for Carroll County Laurell Elizabeth Taylor, 58, of Westminster will be held at 1 p.m. Saturday at St. John Catholic Church, 43 Monroe St., Westminster.

She died Thursday, Oct. 8, 2009, at Carroll Hospital Center in Westminster of natural causes. (See also: Westminster city clerk dies - Laurell Taylor was also former county attorney; By Charles Schelle and Kevin Dayhoff Posted http://explorecarroll.com/news/3514/cityclerk/ 10/09/09 [@CarrollEagle Westminster city clerk dies http://tinyurl.com/ygnyc9a]

According to a published obituary: Taylor was born Aug. 23, 1951, in southern California. She was the daughter of Valerie Trousdale Brown, of Washington, and the late Jack Reynolds Brown; and stepdaughter of Richard Mailander, of Washington.

She was a graduate of Towson University and the University of Baltimore School of Law, where she graduated with honors.

She was admitted to practice law in Maryland in 1985. Before her work with Carroll County and Westminster, she served as an appellate judicial law clerk with Alan Wilner, then on the Court of Special Appeals.

Surviving, in addition to her mother, are children James "JR" Taylor, of College Park, and Miles Taylor, of Westminster; niece and nephew Laura and Alex Brown, both of Washington; and a brother, Lance Brown, of New York City.

Submitted by Kevin Dayhoff

20091024 WE Funeral Service for Laurell Taylor to be held Sat

Dayhoff writing essays people, People obituaries, People Tributes, Westminster Employees

http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/2009/10/funeral-service-for-laurell-taylor-to.html http://tinyurl.com/yfmwfhz

http://kevindayhoffwestgov-net.blogspot.com/2009/10/funeral-service-for-laurell-taylor-to.html http://tinyurl.com/ykhrq5o

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Dr. Art Peck, Carroll County community leader dead at age 86

Art Peck, WWII veteran of the Vosges Mountain Campaign, local veterinarian, conservationist, church and community leader, dead at 86

By Kevin Dayhoff August 5, 2009

(For a larger image, click here: http://twitgoo.com/248bn)

http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/2009/08/dr-art-peck-carroll-county-community.html http://tinyurl.com/ng6rba

Dr. Arthur Howard Peck, 86, of Westminster, died Sunday, Aug. 2, 2009, at his home.

He was a community leader who wore many different hats in Carroll County.

Many folks will recall that he was the popular veterinarian who came to Westminster after he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine in 1950.

He joined the veterinary medicine practice of Dr. Charles Kable in Westminster. After Kable retired, Peck maintained the practice until he retired and sold the practice in 1985.

He was born Sept. 23, 1922, in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains in Worcester, Massachusetts. He was the oldest son of the late George Newberry and Lillian Howard Peck; who made a living farming and raising their own livestock, food and vegetables.

He was married to Barbara Cole Peck for 62 years.

Before he enlisted in the Army in 1942, he attended school in Barre, Massachusetts, the Wilbraham Academy in Wilbraham, Mass., and went on to Massachusetts State College before World War II interrupted his studies.

During World War II he served in the 100th (Century) Infantry Division, commanded by Colonel John M. King, 397th Infantry Regiment of the Seventh Army, commanded by Gen. Alexander Patch, in Europe.

He was seriously wounded on November 30, 1944, while fighting in harsh winter weather and rough terrain in eastern France.

The Seventh Army was advancing on the well-established fortifications of Vosges Mountain portion of the Maginot Line - near the Rhine River and the German border, just above Switzerland. His unit was up against Hitler’s own Wehrmacht's Army Group G in the “Vosges Mountain Campaign,” (October 1944--January 1945.)

The Vosges Campaign was on the southern periphery of the Battle of the Bulge, which began on December 16, 1944, and is studied to this day.

Gerhard Graser, a German combat veteran of the Vosges Campaign, and the author of “Zwischen Kattegat und Kaukasus,” 1961, the official German history of the German 198th Infantry Division; wrote:

“The fighting [in the Vosges] always consisted of small battles in the underbrush, man on man. The American infantrymen, accustomed to the protection of superior air power and artillery, and used to advancing behind tanks, suddenly found themselves robbed of their most important helpers. The persistent bad weather hindered their air force, and the terrain limited the mobility of their armor to a significant degree. Here the individual soldier mattered the most… both sides fought with unbelievable bitterness andseverity.”

Another debated, but relatively definitive account of the battle has been written by Keith E. Bonn, a West Point graduate who wrote, “When the Odds Were Even: The Vosges Mountains Campaign.”

For his part, Peck earned the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star for meritorious service and the Combat Infantryman Award for skill and heroism while engaged in active ground combat. Peck received a medical discharge in June 1945.

Over his many years in professional veterinary practice in Carroll County, he served as state president of the Maryland State Veterinary Medical Association from 1973 until 1974 and president of the Maryland State Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners from 1974 to 1984.

From June 17, 1988 until 1993, he served on the Board of Review of the Maryland Department of Agriculture, having been appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Maryland Senate.

He was also a member of the American Veterinary Medical Association, the American Association of Equine Practitioners, the Maryland Wildlife Administration, the Science Advisory Board, and the National Wildlife Health Foundation.

Aside from his many accomplishments in the field of veterinary medicine, he once served as President for the Carroll County PTA and was a life member of the Carroll County Farm Museum. He helped set up the display of Veterinary Surgeon's office at the museum in 1985.

He served on the Hashawha Environmental Center board; the Environmental Affairs Advisory Board, and a county solid waste disposal committee in the 1990s.

The Carroll County commissioners appointed him to the Carroll County Farm Museum Board of Governors in 1984 where he served as chairman from 1986 until 1989.

The commissioners appointed him to the county Industrial Development Authority (IDA) in 1989, where he served as chairman from 1994 until he retired from the IDA in 2008.

He was honored on February 5, 2009 by the commissioners with a proclamation which recognized his 19 years of leadership “advancing economic Development in the county,” according to the Carroll County office of public information.

The county, “in cooperation with the City of Westminster, named a street in the Westminster Technology Park after him. Arthur Peck Drive will serve as the gateway entrance into the park from Maryland Route 97.”

Peck also served on the Board of Trustees of the Raymond I. Richardson Foundation for 14 years and was president of that group from 1988 to 1992.

He was a member of the Westminster Rotary Club since 1952, served as president in 1958, and was elected a Paul Harris Fellow in 1988. He was honored, with his wife, as Outstanding Citizens of the Year in 2001.

Peck was active in his church, St. Paul's United Church of Christ, as deacon and elder, chairman of the Consistory, Building and Grounds and co-chairman and member of the Finance and Investment Committee.

He was a member and past president of the Forest and Stream Club in Keymar, which is one of the oldest conservation groups in the United States.

In 1979, he was instrumental in starting the Carroll County chapter of Ducks Unlimited, the nation's largest nonprofit wetlands conservation group, and served as a past chairman.

At the Carroll County chapter’s annual dinner at Pleasant Valley Fire Hall, in early 2002, Peck was recognized for his decades of outstanding volunteerism for Ducks Unlimited.

Surviving, in addition to his wife, are a sister, Joyce P. Riffenburg, of New York; daughters and sons-in-law Linda Bloedau, of North Carolina, Babs and Jerry Condon, of Westminster, and Sue and Chris O'Dell, of Colorado; grandchildren Katherine Bloedau, of North Carolina, A.J. and Gregory Condon, of Westminster, Erin and Kelley O'Dell, of Colorado; and a great-grandson, R. J. Haney, of North Carolina.

He was predeceased by a brother, Dr. Donald E. Peck. Friends may call from 2 to 5 and 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday at Pritts Funeral Home, 412 Washington Road, Westminster.

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday at St. Paul's United Church of Christ, Bond and Green Streets, Westminster, with the Rev. Marty Kuchma officiating.

Private interment will be held at Arlington National Cemetery.

Memorial contributions, for a scholarship for a Carroll County student to attend veterinary school, may be sent to the Dr. Arthur H. Peck Scholarship Fund, c/o Community Foundation of Carroll County, 255 Clifton Blvd., Suite 203, Westminster, MD 21157.

20090806 d1 WEArt Dr Peck

Animals veterinary medicine, Veterinary medicine, People Peck Art, People Carroll Co, People Tributes, Dayhoff writing essays, Dayhoff writing essays people,

*****

Kevin Dayhoff Soundtrack: http://www.kevindayhoff.net/ Kevin Dayhoff Art: http://www.kevindayhoffart.com/ Kevin Dayhoff Westminster: http://www.westgov.net/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevindayhoff Twitpic: http://twitpic.com/photos/kevindayhoff Kevin Dayhoff's The New Bedford Herald: http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/ YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/kevindayhoff Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1040426835 Kevin Dayhoff Banana Stems: http://kevindayhoff.tumblr.com/ Blip.fm: http://blip.fm/kevindayhoff_soundtrack

Margaret Mitchell wrote what she knew; the rest is gone with the wind

DAYHOFF: Margaret Mitchell wrote what she knew; the rest is gone with the wind By Kevin Dayhoff, Posted on www.explorecarroll.com 7/02/09

Of all my recent columns on various “weighty” topics – I really liked this little ditty of a column… I always enjoy reading and learning about the story behind the story and I especially enjoy learning more about the circumstances which a writer was experiencing when a particular story was written…

Some of my favorite writer vignettes from the past are:

R.I.P. Tony Snow: “Last Saturday former White House press secretary, Fox News commentator and well-known columnist, Tony Snow, died of cancer at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington. He was but 53 years old…”

Jim McKay, “Last Tuesday morning the spotlight of the sports world was focused on the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Baltimore as folks came together to pay their last respects to Maryland’s own Jim McKay.

“Mr. McKay passed away last Saturday on his horse farm in Monkton, in northern Baltimore County. He was 86 years-old.

“For many of us who grew up watching early television, Mr. McKay was one of the first recognizable television celebrities in our lives.

“One of the driving forces of television in its infancy was sports programming and many a youngster learned manners, poise, integrity, and speaking skills from Mr. McKay…”

Who was Oriana Fallaci? October 15, 2006 “On September 15, Oriana Fallaci, the Italian lioness of letters, died of cancer.

Although Ms. Fallaci was one of the world’s greatest artists of letters; she is today, relatively unknown in the United States.

“A prolific – quite controversial - journalist and existential writer with an aggressive and indefatigable approach to life, she had been shot several times and left for dead, had torrid affairs and put on trial.

“She never skipped a beat…”

Playing Chess with God August 8, 2007 “Last week the art world of cinematography lost two of its great artisans in one day. On July 30 Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman and Italian modernist film director Michelangelo Antonioni passed away.

“Both directors, in their own, but different and often controversial, methodology, helped bring the world of the big screen to an elevated appreciation in the world of art, at a pivotal moment when film was in its awkward adolescent years. They proved that the art of film could be as meaningful, relevant, and poetic as literature.

“Their loss is the endnote of a bygone era of gravitas only matched by the likes of Federico Fellini, Akira Kurosawa, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder – all now gone…”

Gordon Parks - An American Cultural Icon passes Away at 93 April 5, 2006 “A tribute to the life of a man, in which love, dignity and hard work overcome hatred and bigotry. Last month on March 7, a cultural icon and one of America’s greatest artists, Gordon Parks, passed away at the too-young age of 93, in Manhattan…”

DAYHOFF: Margaret Mitchell wrote what she knew; the rest is gone with the wind By Kevin Dayhoff, Posted on www.explorecarroll.com 7/02/09

On June 30, 1936 the epic novel by Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell, “Gone with the Wind,” was first published. Most everyone is familiar with the story by either reading the book or watching the 1939 movie, which starred Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable.

Certainly Mitchell’s book is fascinating enough, but what has always been of particular interest to me is the life and times of Mitchell, and the story of how she wrote the famous novel.

So the other morning, when Garrison Keillor featured Mitchell in his “The Writer’s Almanac,” on WAMU, I found myself hanging on every word. (Of course, no one tells a story like Keillor.)

[…]

Read the entire column here: DAYHOFF: Margaret Mitchell wrote what she knew; the rest is gone with the wind

Kevin Dayhoff writes from Westminster. E-mail him at kevindayhoff AT gmail.com or visit him at www.westminstermarylandonline.net.

20090702 WE Margaret Mitchell wrote what she knew weked

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Kevin Dayhoff Soundtrack: http://www.kevindayhoff.net/ Kevin Dayhoff's The New Bedford Herald: http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/ Kevin Dayhoff Art: http://www.kevindayhoffart.com/ Blip.fm: http://blip.fm/kevindayhoff_soundtrack Kevin Dayhoff Westminster: http://www.westgov.net/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevindayhoff Twitpic: http://twitpic.com/photos/kevindayhoff YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/kevindayhoff Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1040426835 Kevin Dayhoff Banana Stems: http://kevindayhoff.tumblr.com/

Gordon Parks - An American Cultural Icon passes Away at 93

Gordon Parks - An American Cultural Icon passes Away at 93
April 5, 2006 By Kevin Dayhoff

A tribute to the life of a man, in which love, dignity and hard work overcome hatred and bigotry.

Last month on March 7, a cultural icon and one of America’s greatest artists, Gordon Parks, passed away at the too-young age of 93, in Manhattan.

Born in abject poverty, Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan Parks came into this world on November 12, 1912 in Fort Scott, Kansas, to a tenant farming family.

He was the youngest of 15 children. By age sixteen, at the dawn of the Great Depression in 1928, his mother died and he ended up homeless in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Kenny Irby wrote a poignant March 15, 2006 retrospective on “Poynter on Line” - “Gordon Parks: From Country Boy to Renaissance Man, A True Photographic Idol, IN MEMORIAM: 1912-2006.” In his essay, Mr. Irby called to our attention:

“Delores Johnson -- formerly with The Kansas City Star, now, with The Virginian-Pilot -- photographed Parks in April 2004, at what is believed to be his last extended photo session.

“Parks was the first black photographer to penetrate through racial barriers at Life magazine and many other agencies. During his photo session with Johnson, he recalled how some whites would not allow him to photograph them, how he was often turned away because of the color of his skin”.

There are many fascinating aspects of the Gordon Parks story, which spans many “revolutions” in the history of American public policy, scope and approach of government and social progress.

But, for an artist as prolific and accomplished as Mr. Parks, many folks are not aware of his name, although most are aware of his work.

Mr. Parks credits his mother with having a profound influence upon his life. Isn’t it so with many of us? She taught him that he could do anything to which he set his mind to do.

Mr. Irby reveals, “In one of (Mr. Parks’) autobiographies, "A Choice of Weapons," he says his mother "placed love, dignity and hard work over hatred, she always told me that I could do whatever little white boys did and that I had better do it better."”

Indeed, it was by his work ethic and his enormous talent that he escaped the chains of poverty or simply becoming another sad statistic of the Great Depression.

It is reported that he was famous for being a workaholic and a taskmaster well into old age.

In an excellent 2,700-word memoriam in the New York Times, Andy Grundberg wrote that Mr. Parks was a “photographer, filmmaker, writer and composer who used his prodigious, largely self-taught talents to chronicle the African-American experience.

“But as an “iconoclast, Mr. Parks fashioned a career that resisted categorization.”

For most of the 1930s, he supported himself by playing piano in a brothel, basketball and working as a busboy. It was in 1938, while working on the Chicago to Seattle train as a waiter, Mr. Parks noticed a discarded magazine with photographs from the Farm Security Administration, and became interested in photography.

In 1937, he purchased a “Voightlander Brilliant” camera, for $12.50 at a pawnshop in Seattle. He began free-lancing as a fashion photographer at local department stores in St. Paul, Minnesota.

It was here that he happened to take a photo of the heavyweight boxer, Joe Lewis’ wife, Marva Lewis. Impressed with the photo, she encouraged him to move to Chicago, where he gained attention doing a photo-documentary series of the poorer black areas of town.

In 1941, he had an exhibition of these photographs that earned him a fellowship from the Julius Rosenwald Foundation. The fellowship paid him $200.00 per month so that he could find photography assignments. That year, he joined the photographic documentation project of the New Deal’s Farm Security Administration, in Washington, D.C., as an intern.

At the age of thirty, Mr. Parks found himself working with photographers such as Marion Post Wolcott, John Vachon, Jack Delano, John Collier, Dorothea Lange and Russell Lee, under the direction of Roy Emerson Stryker.

The photograph for which he may be the most famous was “American Gothic,” which he took while he was with the FSA, in 1942. Mr. Grundberg, describes it best in his New York Times article: “it shows a black cleaning woman named Ella Watson standing stiffly in front of an American flag, a mop in one hand and a broom in the other. Mr. Parks wanted the picture to speak to the existence of racial bigotry and inequality in the nation's capital. He was in an angry mood when he asked the woman to pose, having earlier been refused service at a clothing store, a movie theater and a restaurant.”

Landon Nordeman, in a May 1, 1997 paper written on Walker Evans and documentary photography, gives us an idea of the extraordinary fortunate consequence of the FSA photographic documentation project for generations of historians; in 1944, 270,000 negatives and 77,000 prints by FSA photographers was deposited with the Library of Congress in Washington.

The Farm Security Administration was discontinued in 1943, as the nation’s attention continued to focus on World War II. Mr. Parks transferred to the Office of War Information.

Numerous accounts recall, “One of his assignments was photographing the training of the first unit of black fighter pilots, the 332nd Fighter Group. Prohibited from accompanying them to Europe and documenting their participation in the war effort, Parks left in disgust…” (www.gale.com)

He resigned in 1944 and moved to Harlem in New York City and began free-lancing for Vogue magazine.

According to a biographical sketch by Sharisse Foster, “… He then shoots for the Standard Oil Photography project in New Jersey. It is here that he produces some of his most inspiring work including "Dinner Time at Mr. Hercules Brown's Home” (1944), and "Grease Plant Worker” (1946). In these images he depicts the industrial workers in small cities.”

After several years with Vogue, he was able to attract the eye of Life magazine. In 1948, he took a job as a photojournalist with Life that until 1972, took him all over the world, photographing everything from fashion in Paris to the slums of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil to celebrity portraiture.

In 1963, he wrote an autobiographical novel, “The Learning Tree,” in which chronicled much of his childhood in Kansas. In 1969, he adapted “The Learning Tree” into a screenplay, wrote the musical score and directed the movie, by the same name.

It wasn’t until the late 1960s, that the baby boomer generation started to take notice of his work, mostly documenting the Black Panther movement and the struggle for civil rights.

But it was when he burst into the world of commercial Hollywood in 1971, with what many refer to now as “blaxploitation films,” that he gained the attention of the emerging pop culture of the children of the 60s.

Yes, this is the gentleman who in 1971 directed "Shaft," starring Richard Roundtree as the cool, black leather jacket-clad private detective.

The movie was released on July 2, 1971. I saw it in Greensboro (or Burlington – as one gets older the mind is the first to go) NC, where I witnessed much of the audience get up and leave the theatre not too long after the movie began…

Remember the music score was by Isaac Hayes? Wikipedia confirmed some old notes that the “movie was adapted by Ernest Tidyman and John D. F. Black from Tidyman's 1971 novel of the same name…. It won an Academy Award for Best Music, Song for Isaac Hayes for "Theme from Shaft". It was nominated for Best Music, Original Dramatic Score…. In 2000, the United States Library of Congress deemed the original film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.”

Mr. Parks followed this up with "Shaft's Big Score!" in 1972. What is little known is that originally, “Shaft” was written as a straightforward detective movie with a white detective.

However, with the huge success of movie, “Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song,” a few months earlier, it was quickly realized that the money was in the neophyte genre of blaxploitation movies and the film was quickly adapted.

Many of the younger readers became aware of this genre of movies when Samuel L. Jackson starred in a remake of the movie in 2000.

Mr. Parks continued to write books, do films for television, pursuing photography and even composing music right up until his death.

Seldom do contemporary artists exhibit talent in so many different ways. His legacy is that of overcoming obstacles with hard work, focus, perseverance and determination.

He was an artist with a profound social conscious, who never lost track of his responsibility to the public, from which he earned a living.

He set the standards high and served as an example for many of us, that life is not about excuses. It is about taking personal responsibility for our lives, rolling up our sleeves and just going it.

Mr. Parks life is a tribute that love, dignity and hard work will always overcome hatred. One wonders what he could have accomplished if he didn’t have overcome the barriers of hatred and bigotry. Wouldn’t it better if we lived in a world, in which love, dignity and hard work could utilize the springboard of an enlightened society where color, race, religion or ethnic background didn’t matter.

Dr. Martin Luther King said, in his famous August 28, 1963, “I have a Dream” speech, “I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

In 1959, in “The Measures of Man,” Dr. King shared with us, “Man is man because he is free to operate within the framework of his destiny. He is free to deliberate, to make decisions, and to choose between alternatives. He is distinguished from animals by his freedom to do evil or to do good and to walk the high road of beauty or tread the low road of ugly degeneracy.”

History has fortunately judged Gordon Parks by the content of his character and his choice “to walk the high road of beauty.” We have been fortunate enough to benefit from the content of his character and the beauty he left behind.

Gordon Parks is an inspiration for all of us, whether we are artists or community leaders or whatever role we wish to play in making our planet a better world.

Gordon Parks will be missed. May he rest in peace. God Bless.

Author’s note: On March 29, 2006, I wrote a tribute to Gordon Parks in The Tentacle. This memoriam expands upon much of that column, but takes advantage of not having a word limit.

Kevin Dayhoff writes from Westminster Maryland USA.
He may reached at kevindayhoff AT gmail.com or visit him at www.westminstermarylandonline.net

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20060405 Gordon Parks

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Kevin Dayhoff Soundtrack: http://www.kevindayhoff.net/ Kevin Dayhoff's The New Bedford Herald: http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/ Kevin Dayhoff Art: http://www.kevindayhoffart.com/ Blip.fm: http://blip.fm/kevindayhoff_soundtrack Kevin Dayhoff Westminster: http://www.westgov.net/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevindayhoff Twitpic: http://twitpic.com/photos/kevindayhoff YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/kevindayhoff Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1040426835 Kevin Dayhoff Banana Stems: http://kevindayhoff.tumblr.com/