My Sister, Ruthie.

I was searching through some pictures in Flickr and then i found a very interesting account. This guy, has uploaded hundreds of pictures from his good ol' days. Mostly from the 50s, 60s and 70s but there are also pictures from the 30s and such. In every picture of it, there's a story. One of my favorite one is this:

the story:
In July of 1964 Ruthie, Alicia, and I took a train to London to see the enormous pictures of the Beatles in Picadilly Circus (where "A Hard Day's Night" had recently premiered) and do some shopping. Afterwards we were in London's Paddington Station waiting for the next thing smokin' to take us back to Reading and home when we stopped at one of these little portable recording booths near the ticket kiosks, where for a mere five shillings ($.70) we could record a 3-minute record. All three of us crowded into this tiny recording booth and made two records, one for our father's birthday on August 9 (when he would turn 50) and another for Big Sis for her 21st on August 1.

Daddy's begins with an intro from me: "Daddy, this is our birthday present - from Alicia and Ruthie and Will - to you!" Then Ruthie and Alicia sing the "We Love You, Conrad" song from "Bye Bye Birdie" as "We Love You, Daddy":

"We love you, Daddy,
Oh, yes, we do.
We love the things you say
And we'll be true.
When you're not near us, we're blue!
Oh, Daddy, we love you!"

I stepped in to say how good that was and - without a shred of irony - what a "swell" birthday present this was. Alicia suggested we do a Beatles song - "You know how he hates them!" - so Ruthie started singing the opening verses of "Things We Said Today" before we cut her off. Then Ruthie suggested "A Hard Day's Night" and my sisters began singing instantly. They had just managed to get through the first verse when the recording stopped.

Afterwards we made another record of Beatle songs for Big Sis (singing "I Should Have Known Better", yours truly as off-key as he's ever been).

We gave the record to Daddy for his birthday, and he thought it was the funniest thing ever. For days afterward he played it for every person who walked in our house.

In 2005 Big Sis' son and I were looking through drawers for photos at their house in South Carolina when I stumbled upon the record posted above. I was convinced it was the one we'd sent Big Sis for her birthday; but to my surprise it turned out to be the one we'd given Daddy. I had it transferred to cd and gave copies to Ruthie and Big Sis. For a 40 year old record, it's held up pretty well.