ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK.

It was one of those visits for my wife Roe and I dropping by our son Nathaniel’s condo. I said something about old songs I remember but haven’t heard for quite a while.

Nathaniel grinned at me. “‘Rock around the Clock’, Pop. I remember as a kid, you working on another book. Singing out loud and ‘way off-key.”

We were on his condo deck when ‘Rock around the Clock’ burst out from inside.

He joined us. “What else from your past? ‘Shake, Rattle and Roll’? Or from Bill Haley’s Greatest Hits?”

“You asked for it,” I said. “Erroll Garner’s ‘The Nearness of You’? Some Beatles’ originals.”

Then it hit me. “You’ve got all these packed away somewhere?”

“Not packed away,” he said. “Google Smart speaker They’re all there. You just say aloud, 'Hey Google,' and mention the song you want to hear.”

I tried it. “Hey Google, play something from Erroll Garner’s Concert by the Sea.”

And there it was, coming loud and clear.

Author’s comment: Can you believe it? Google works with Apple Music. For six bucks a month. Thousands of tunes and one you can hear by calling out, ‘Hey, Google…”

For those working at home alone wanting something to break the silence, this is it. ‘Hey Google, I want to hear ‘Rock Around the Clock again.” You want something classical? It’s all yours.

A QUEEN REMEMBERED

(I wrote this shortly before she died. I thought it worth keeping it as it is).

It was back in the late 1970s when Queen Elizabeth visited parts of Canada including the Maritimes and Montreal. She was there to open the summer Olympics. I was a staff writer with Weekend Magazine in Montreal, which came out on weekends and delivered in newspapers across the country.

I was given the assignment to fly to Halifax to write a piece about her visit before she moved on to other parts of Canada.

There were two of us making the trip, the other a staff photographer. He was more important, the piece kept mostly to photos of her doing her thing. I would write notes enough to pull the photos together.

If you wonder how it looked back then, you have only to see photos of her before she died. Nothing had changed, the same routine, other than she was older, a little more frail.

At age 96 there was vitality in those blue eyes. In the way she talked and moved around under her own steam.

Author’s comment: If you think I was close to her during that visit, you’re wrong. If she glanced at me among the gaggle of press, I missed it. Queen Elizabeth right there. So close I could’ve touched her.

She passing away gracefully in Scotland, a country she loved to visit. A woman who left a wonderful impression of herself that will last a lifetime.