Dieing breed

okay, some people are going to find this a great thing ... personally, I will miss it - like being able to tell where someone is from by their accent (have you noticed that people are all starting to sound alike on tv?) -

I wonder how many of you remember the tv series "Night Court" on NBC ... it had these great bailiff characters Bull & Selma. You probably remember Bull - tall, bald headed, gentle giant; but its Selma I want you to think of....

crusted, worldly, gravelly voiced.

It came from years of smoking ... and there was a time when that voice quality was considered the ultimate in sexy. Lauren Bacall tells/told a story of when she went into acting...the head of the studio asked her if she smoked and she said no, so he told her to start if she wanted to go far - it took the 'girliness' out of her voice.

why do I bring this up? Well I just got off the phone with Herrschners about the order I mentioned earlier with the holiday yarns with the sparkle thread ... I never got a confirmation email from them but they swear the order went thru -- well, I stopped by the site today, punched in the order # which I got last time I called, and the website said the order didn't exist.

So I gave a call just to make sure -- and the operator I got had this great gravelly voice. She was about an octave lower than most women ... perhaps she just had a nasty cold ... but I thought immediately of the lunch counter at the old Woolworth's at my mom's favorite strip mall (the one kept alive by the Montgomery Wards behind it) ... the Woolworth's where I would take my $15 I saved all year and was able to buy presents for everyone in the family (I came from a family of 9) .... I recalled the wooden floor boards which seemed to bend under your step, but were so strong that they had lasted since the store's opening ... the Woolworth's with the pet area in the back of the store (oh I could reminisce about that too!)

then I thought of Selma ... she is the best example I could think of for a model of the voice quality.

Well -- with all the bands on smoking ... the push to force people to kick the habit (by people who don't realize that the taxes that they put on each pack will dwindle if everyone quits smoking - leaving the programs paid for by that tax, broke) .... there won't be any more of these ladies.

Advice/wisdom from these women always sounds more sage .... they just seem to 'know' about life .... now they will be gone -- forever.

well one bright spot -- well kind of, since I'm against it -- most of the people who complain about cigarette smoke have absolutely no problem with marijuana smoking ... perhaps in a couple of generations to come the gravelly voices will be attributed to bongs instead of cigs.