Jackie's Radio by Jeff Strickland

The following was read at a memorial/wake held in Northridge, Ca. July 20, 2008 in memory of Jack (Jackie) Terrell, Hapeville class of '67, who passed away in Salt Lake City Utah on July 10, 2008

Jackie's Radio by Jeff Strickland

As I always must do I know I’ll be putting a lot of faith in music to get me through these next days and weeks. And even though it feels too soon and too sudden for the fortifying classical stuff or the bedrock Southern gospel that always abides and sustains I am already sorting out a mental memorial tape of 'Jack Songs'

'Georgia' by Ray Charles is the obvious leadoff. Followed by James Brown ‘live at the Apollo’, some Otis, some Booker T and Wilson Pickett, some Stones and Beatles and Byrds, some very early Allman Brothers and, well, there's a lotta eras to cover and I've still got to leave space for some jazz and blues and a touch of Merle Haggard toward the end. As I say, I'm just forming the concept in my head, the only place it needs to be for now.

The musical era I keep returning to when I think of my life-long friend is a brief lost period in the mid '60's, Just before the ‘Psychedelic’ era. Most of this music I first heard in jack's car. Well, actually not Jack's car, but Jackie’s car, Jackie Terrell as he was known then (and still known and grieved for today) in Hapeville, our little hometown just south of Atlanta.

As a kid I practically lived at Jackie's house in the summers, or those long sweltering afternoons we'd retreat to his air-conditioned bedroom and switch on the little tiny portable radio that was always tuned to WQXI. QXI played it all, but what we really liked in those days were the 'novelty' songs like `Ahab the A-Rab’, ‘Alley Oop’ and ‘The Monster Mash’, the strange, unexpected stuff you had to wait hours and hours to hear. "Turn it up, Jeff! Turn it up!” Jackie would yell when one of our songs came on. I'd leap across the room and crank the volume full tilt until Jackie's mother, Gladys, came banging on the bedroom door to make us turn it down. She was never really mad, just felt she had to do it for the cranky old neighbors next door.

In sixth grade Jackie was shipped out to the hated Georgia Military Academy and we lost touch for a few formative years. But he was back for high school in 1962, his head still shaven to the quick, but very eager to merge back into the co-ed population.

It was good to have Jackie back, but we'd both developed new friends and survival skills since the sixth grade. He started hanging with the older greasers who gathered in a closed forbidding circle at the Dwarf House Grill, always talking cam-shafts and hemi-heads and other impenetrable car lore.

Still, Jackie and I always stayed friendly and cordial in the hallways. He always invited me down to Panama City for Spring break. I never could go. He had an extra ticket for the Beatles at Atlanta Stadium I missed that too (and never lived it down). Jackie and I were just moving in different circles during those years.

Then late one afternoon in 1965 about a week into summer vacation, there was a sharp, nagging car horn blaring outside my house. Cussing under his breath, my father jumped up from his chair and peeped out the blinds “Oh it's just that crazy Jackie. Go out there Jeff, and tell that boy to quit that racket! And don't you get in that car.” he warned, as I flew out the front door.

Outside, idling loudly a perfect piece of Detroit street art: a gleaming, metallic gray classic 1955 Chevy with a jet-black roof. And skinny Jackie was at the wheel waving me on. “Hey, get in man I just got it. I want you to take the first ride.” I leaped into the shotgun seat and we peeled off down Walnut Street.

We didn't really say much at first as Jackie drove. Both of us just sat back enjoying the steady soothing rumble of the engine and the sophisticated four-speed gearshift that Jackie handled with the grace and cool of a NASCAR pro. I thought the car was fantastic, but I didn't have a clue what to ask him about it (“uhh, what you got under the hood, man? those headers Mickey Thompson?") But Jackie didn't care. He knew I didn't know cars. "Hey, dig this, Jeff” he yelled over the engine. "This is why I wanted you to take the first ride. It’s really why bought this car." He reached toward the dash and flicked on the radio.

Now, I'd be lying if I said I remember what that first song was. I want to say ‘it's my Life (And I'll Do What I Want)' by the Animals, Most likely it wasn't, but it should have been. Jackie's radio was a wonder of the times: state of the art mono with a wide, sweeping bass and clear separated treble that picked up every last guitar lick and cymbal tick. I felt like I'd never really heard music before, or not how it's really supposed to sound. We grinned like the young idiots we were and bobbed our heads in knowing, rock-geek rhythm., some thirty-odd years before 'Wayne's World.’ For the rest of the day the car really drove itself while Jackie and I soared on a wave of sound miles and miles above our sleepy Georgia town. At least eight miles, maybe higher.

That '55 Chevy was our real home from then on and we used any excuse to get it on the road. We both loved the car, but I think our real purpose was to stay immersed in the incredible music explosion that was bursting out of Jackie's radio that summer. Like when we were kids in his bedroom, we waited for the good stuff, the rare rough 'nuggets’ that hardly got played And when the DJ finally spun Them's original 'Gloria' or The Standells' 'Dirty Water' or `Pushin' Too Hard’ or 'Talk Talk' or 'Psychotic Reaction,’ Jackie would yell, "Turn It Up, Jeff! Turn It Up!" and I'd leap forward to ratchet the volume knob to 'max.’ These were our perfect moments that summer. And somehow through our bond with these terse male songs of passage, some of them bitter, some of them angry but all of them honest and fearless, Jackie and I gradually re-built the bond of our original childhood friendship which lasted, this time, through the Summer, into the Fall and for another forty-three years afterward.

I've already reserved a whole side of my mental 'Jack Tape’ for the music of that summer and also left a space at the end for Dylan. We drove up to Atlanta that October for his first electric tour and I still have the ticket stub to prove it. I'm holding it right now. It set us back $2.50 each. The rest of Jack's tape, the other eras, will come together of its own design in its own time. I'm not worried about the quality. Jackie (and Jack) only had time for the good stuff. He always knew it when he heard it. So, wherever my friend and brother may be now, there better be a damn good soundtrack.