Lincoln High's Alumni Association's first meeting for 2012 is Tomorrow.

The Lincoln High Alumni Association will be haaving a busy meeting tomorrow with a recap of the last years events and plans for upcoming events.   The meeting will be held in the "Cafe in the Heights"at 9:30 a.m.  located directly across the street from the school's electronic marquee.  Increased membership is sought and dues are payable by mail (see the LHAA details on the LHS official web site  LHS Website 


A Spring Dance is planned for April 14, 2012 at Maggie's Pub in Santa Fe Springs.

A Lincoln High Centennial Celebration in 2013 is among the long range plans that will be shaped up this year. An assortment of Angels Fund arts contests this spring will be discussed as well as Texas Hold "em poker tournament.

NEXT Month's meeting, Feb. 25, 2012: The membership attending the meeting will be included in the annual group photo that will be taken on that date.

Singer Etta James Dies

Singer Etta James died this morning in Riverside, California at the age of 73.  She's best known for singing "At Last" which is one of the songs that you will hear at about any wedding reception.  The L.A. Times has a news item on this at http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-etta-james-20120121,0,1608543.story .

The life of Etta James included the difficulties of drug use and addiction that was not unusual among many of the artists in music encoutered in their lives, sometimes cutting short those lives  She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and has a star on the Hollywood Boulevard "Walk of Fame."  

I remember her songs as part of the sounds of the 60's but more with lively tunes, ubeat songs, if you will.  The rendition of "At Last" that James made all her own is nothing of that, but a very earthy, very sincere love ballad.  I think that the L.A. Times may have a longer obituary coming up for her aside from the announcement now online.

What's happened on this date, January 9th- in radio, music and entertainment- from LA Radio.com

Don Barrett's L.A. Radio.com provides a little something for our memories today. It is a little bit of flashback kind of energy that is what I want to share as a sampling of what was published every day until a few months agos http://www.laradio.com/   If you have some years on you, you might recall some of the items from experience.

The following is from is column today for January 9th- "on this date" -

"LARP Rewind: January 9. On this day in 2006, Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, who in 2005 had starred in a new version of the 1968 movie, The Producers, were honored with stars on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame. On this day in 1992, Sting played himself on the "Radio Bart" episode of The Simpsons. On this day in 1979, Kmart pulled Steve Martin's Let's Get Small album for being in "bad taste." On this day in 1973, the Rolling Stones had to cancel a planned tour of the Orient when Japan refused to grant a Visa to Mick Jagger because of a 1969 drug bust. On this day in 1963, drummer Charlie Watts joined the Rolling Stones after leaving Blues Incorporated. On this day in 1922, 82AE in Pittsburgh changed call letters to KQV. (This was before a rule change that required stations east of the Mississippi River to have callsigns beginning with W.)


Today, January 9, 2012, sportscaster Dick Enberg is 77, Joan Baez is 71, Roy Head is 69, Yardbirds/Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page is 68, Buster Poindexter (David Johansen) is 62, Crystal Gayle is 61, Smash Mouth lead singer Steve Harwell is 45, singer/guitarist Dave Matthews is 45, Backstreet Boys vocalist A.J. McLean is 34.

On the KFWB Fabulous Forty Survey 50 years ago today, January 9, 1962, number one was The Twist by Chubby Checker, followed by the Tokens' The Lion Sleeps Tonight and Gene Chandler's Duke Of Earl. Biggest jumpers were Norman by Sue Thompson and Dear Lady Twist by Gary U.S. Bonds."


Roy Head sang "Treat Her Right" in the mid-60s, a one-hit wonder, popular and a lively tune.  Crystal Gayle had "We'll Sing in the Sunshine" as her principal 60s hit.  Sue Thompson's "Norman" was yet another one-hit wonder from the early 60s.   Hard to believe it, maybe, but all part of the pop music we heard in high school years way back.

Don's daily column appeared on the web since about 1997, first as a free site and than as a daily subscription website, now appears "occasionally" for subscribers as he's now spending more time on other things including family.  This break is not complete yet as he leave us with some once in a while postings to ease the radio information vacuum.  What I show here is just a small part of what we had as daily presentations.

A Return to Classes in LAUSD today.

The holiday break that we used to call "Christmas Vacation" is over now.  Lincoln students started the school year earlier than the rest of the District in August for the second year as a pilot program.  The rest of the district was to follow that change last August but there was so much commotion stirred up that that the change was postponed for another year to August 2012.


So be on the lookout for students on foot and more on bikes, as well as the increased traffic to deliver and pick up students by schools.    Does anyone remember way back when we used to walk to and from school from Jr. High and on?    Getting a ride to school was more like a treat but now it's more like the routine.  

It's a different time now but the mayor again is saying that crime is down and L.A. is as safe as it's been since the 1950's.  I disagree with that conclusion.  I think it's a less safer than the 50's but that's for a different discussion.

That's just one bit of exercise that has been cut back a lot.   I don' t know if there was any obesity trend like there is now, but when you have the technology advances, there's a lot more sitting around time happening than we had. 

We had it a little more different than now.   And that's all without having to add in hardships like walking in the snow to get to school- it would have been a real story if that happened even once for us in L.A.

But even with all that we didn't have then, I seem to recall that more came out of school with some better education than we see today.  I remember that we had drop outs but even then there was not what we see now.   And you have to think about all this happening in the pre-Walkout days.  This was what I saw generally, working with an "inferior" education still gave us a lot for our time in school.  But that's just my interpretation and the people with the statistics may be able to produce a different scenario.

Oh, and "Happy New Year" to all.