SINGING ALONG WITH, "MITCH"..........

In the early 1960's my most vivid, childhood memories of Friday nights are the fish sticks, Campbell's tomato or vegetable soup, and the Shasta sodas in the original tin cans, with the picture of a snow covered Mount Shasta on it, that were our no meat on Friday dinners in my South Sacramento home. Then there were the television shows my family watched on our 1956 Magnavox TV, bought at Breuner's Department Store, in downtown Sacramento. The then new, prime-time, 'Flintstones' cartoon show, 'Sing Along With Mitch', a popular musical show, with record producer and songleader, Mitch Miller, and then my father's choice, the, 'Friday Night Fights'. Sing Along With Mitch was not only jaunty and breezy, it had the novelty of a bouncing white ball and printed lyrics to all the songs, so we could all sing along. Each of the three tv programs woven together, made for a fun filled night for the whole family. Mitch Miller died last Saturday at age 99. A man whose musical talent and discovery of recording artists such as, Rosemary Clooney, Tony Bennett, Patti Paige, and Frankie Laine, will forever dot the annals of popular American music in the 20th Century, and will not be forgotten. Surely, his Sing Along With Mitch, will become one with the heavenly chorus and he will be there on Judgment Day, with his bouncing white ball and floating lyrics, to lead us in, "As The Saints Go Marching In", as the curtain goes up on God's Eternal Kingdom..........A Musical Adieu To A Good And Talented Man, Fr . Troy