Roger Zee Memoirs
California Girls 05/13/20
On this sunny but chilly morning in the seemingly Endless Spring of Covid-19, I find myself reminiscing about growing up in beautiful, suburban Long Island during the Fabulous 60s. I actually learned to surf at Saddle Rock Elementary School in Great Neck when one day Coach Moss brought in a whole bunch of surfboards and dropped them into the indoor pool, LOL! Later on, I spent two summers at Coach Shulman's Camp Beaumont near Naples, Maine. We would take day trips to Ogunquit Beach where he taught us how to ride the wild, two foot high waves (ask Scott Menell about it)! Welcome to another excerpt from my memoirs, "Life and Times of a Pandemic Musician."
A few years later, a bunch of us would ride our bikes over to Allenwood Park after high school and hang out most afternoons. One day, my friend Paul Wexler sat down on the grass next to me and pulled out this 45 - "Live for Today" by the Grassroots." "You've got to hear this, man. They just released it and it shot right up to number one on the charts!" So we jumped on our Schwinns and peddled back to his house.
Did I mention that Paul's dad, Jerry Wexler, ran Atlantic Records back in the day? Paul played me the single and of course I loved it. I'm still a huge Grassroots fan! Then my eyes latched onto a test pressing of a 45 lying next to the record player -- "California Girls." I asked Paul to put it on. It just blew me away!
And now, all these years later, my daughter, Charlotte Mander, lives the life of a "California Girl" on Pacific Beach in San Diego teaching Yoga. Who knew? Meanwhile I'm living in solitary, urban confinement near the epicenter in downtown White Plains, NY spending the day learning the bass lines to the Beach Boys' "Endless Summer" album and studying Spanish on the Internet! One <3
YouTube - California Girls - The Beach Boys
©2020 Roger Zee