I have this very cool cockatiel yellow bird named Buddha.  She flew in our yard one day 12 years ago and she has been one of our pets every since. You could almost say she fell out of the sky. I know that birds can be very social, but I work a lot so we got her TV to watch. The TV bit it and we got her a radio. Seems she likes the oldies station a great deal. The other day she was bopping away at a tune called Glad All Over and it got me thinking…

The Dave Clark Five band did the song Glad All Over, which was a song, that not just birds like to dance to, but people too. I caught myself bopping my head with the bird and dancing with her. Then I heard the DJ say that Rick Huxley, who was a founding member of the Dave Clark Five died on Monday at the age of 72.

No wonder they have been playing Dave Clark Five music. What? You have not heard much about Dave Clark Five? They were a British band back in the day with The Beatles, in fact, their song Glad all over topped the charts in the UK and the song was so popular that it knocked the  Beatles song I Want to Hold Your Hand off the chart.

So who was the Dave Clark Five? They were part of the British invasion. Some people in the early days compared them to the Beatles. I personally could never do that, however, there were some comparisons mainly because of their songwriting skills and they wrote most of their own material, which by the way at first, the Beatles did not.

I do not want to compare Dave Clark Five to the Beatles, not by far, in fact the only comparison would be that they were all part of the British invasion.  During their time they had  great songs that people enjoyed such as “Glad All Over,” “Do You Love Me,” “Over and Over,” “Catch Us If You Can,” and “Bits and Pieces.”

They, like many of their counterparts in that time period even had a movie called Having a Wild Weekend. The band started in 1961 and broke up in 1970. The band never got the recognition I felt they should have had after all, Dave Clark Five sold 50 million records and had 30 hit singles worldwide.

The Dave Clark Five was formed quite accidentally. They were not planning on appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show and several coast-to-coast tours. No, they formed when a young Tottenham football player named Dave Clark needed to find money to help fund his team’s traveling expenses so he found Chris Walls, Rick Huxley, Stan Saxon and Mike Ryan.

No, the Dave Clark Five band could not be compared to by the Beatles, but for a few brief moments, when they knocked the Beatles off the chart, I have no doubt they felt compared, if only for a few moments. Sadly, when members of these 60s band pass on, I do indeed feel my age, and always am thankful I lived in a time where music was celebrated and not just downloaded. Yes, Dave Clark Five belonged to the great generation of British music.

I sit here today getting ready to take my spouse to the hospital for surgery almost two in a half weeks after a drunk driver hit them head on in a car collision. It was on that date that our lives changed. My spouse will always carry a certain fear of a driver heading right at them at 40 MPH, and the injuries will forever bother them. For me, my life stopped, as I became a caregiver and also deal with the paperwork that a drunk driving accident that caused serious injuries can create and it got me thinking…

I will never know why people get in cars drunk and drive. Clearly the laws will never be strict enough, as far as I am concerned, first offense you should lose your right to drive period. No questions asked. Who knows maybe one day our laws may protect innocent people. This made me want to do some research and go down retro lane and look at the history of our laws around drinking and driving.

It all began in 1897 when a London taxi driver named George Smith was the first arrest for drunk-driving was made. This poor old chap slammed his cab into a building while he was intoxicated, who knows if he had people in that cab. He was the first recorded person to be arrested, plead guilty and pay a small fine. It was recognized that perhaps drinking and driving was not the smartest thing.

Meanwhile, back in the USA, in 1910, New York became the first state to have drunk-driving laws. Right behind New York was California and soon everyone else followed. Then in the 1930s committees were formed to try to make American roads a little safer, in the process  the National Safety Council set up a study to develop tests that could be used to determine intoxication and in 1938  blood alcohol concentration (BAC) was developed and in 1939, Indiana became the first state to enact a BAC law. The Blood Alcohol Content level to determine a drunk driver was set at a .15 or nearly twice today’s .08 national legal limit.

In 1953, Robert Borkenstein, a former police captain as well as a university professor helped develop the “Drunkometer” which then became the breathalyzer. With all this wonderful technology, you would think that people would have understood it was not safe to drive. It wasn’t until the late 70s that people began to understand the dangers of drinking and driving.

In 1980, Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD) was founded by Candy Lightner after her 13-year-old daughter was killed by a drunk driver. Lightner discovered that the driver had three previous DUI convictions. She was so angry and wanted to do something she not only formed MADD, she and her organization helped with tougher laws for those convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol as well as pushed to have the legal drinking age raised to 21.

Every since man could drink there have been drinking with transportation issues whether it was drinking and walking, drinking and driving a stage coach or a horse, or drinking and driving a car. What we have yet to learn from history is people drink and get behind a wheel people can die, in fact every 39 minutes someone dies because a drunk got in a car. It is interesting to watch the progression of laws and will be more interesting as laws, we hope, become stricter.

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I was at my relatives house this Christmas Eve and my Uncle was getting ready to turn the TV off when the new announced that actor Jack Klugman had just died. We all sat there for a brief moment saying, “Really?” None of us really pictured him as being 90 years old, and I think for a brief moment, as I looked at my cousin with whom I had watch the Odd Couple with for years, made me realize that we are indeed getting older as the people we grew up with are passing on and it got me thinking…

When I was a teenager, TV comedies were great. They were great for many reasons. I thought they had solid storylines, unlike the sitcoms of today. The writers had a wonderful sense of humor and laughter came easy for shows like the Odd Couple.

I loved watching the Odd couple because it was believable. It was just downright funny, and what made it so funny were the two actors, Jack Klugman, who played Oscar Madison, the slob who was the roommate to Felix Unger, the guy with OCD and hypochondria who was played by Tony Randall. The funny part of this was not just the storyline, but how the two men were able to adlib with each other during the filming of the show.

I recall as a teen watching interviews with these two men talking about how well they could adlib with each other and stray from the script. These two were comedians at their finest and the show The Odd Couple, which aired from 1970-1975 was able to capture the essence of true comedy.

The other thing I liked about this show and shows of these times was they often had guest stars on them. Many TV sitcoms had great guest spots and on the Odd Couple people like Monty Hall, Richard Dawson, Hugh Hefner, James Millhollin, Bobby Riggs, Billie Jean King, Deacon Jones, Allen Ludden, and Betty White played a guest role on this show.

Klugman left the show and soon become Quincy, M.E. I never cared for the show too much because I always felt he did not fit in as a medical examiner, but if I could get past my own stereotyping, he did a good job as Quincy. That is because Klugman was a great character actor. He was so good that he had over 100 television credits on his resume which I recall several episode of The Twilight Zone,  and a 1964 episode of The Defenders which he won an Emmy Award for his performance. In fact, he won two Emmys for the show the Odd Couple. Klugman was also a wonderful actor in the movies such as Goodbye, Columbus, The Detective, Days of Wine and Roses and 12 Angry Men.

Jack Klugman dead at 90 will be a veteran actor that will be missed by us baby boomers. RIP Jack…