WEBVTT 00:00:18.140 --> 00:00:21.719 Hi and welcome back to Tell Me What Happened, 00:00:21.859 --> 00:00:24.239 the podcast that teaches folks from all walks 00:00:24.239 --> 00:00:27.379 of life telling us one formative story from their 00:00:27.379 --> 00:00:31.280 childhood. I'm your host, Jay Rehack, and like 00:00:31.280 --> 00:00:34.759 you, I've had my share of childhood experiences. 00:00:35.359 --> 00:00:39.320 Some of them great and some of them not so great. 00:00:39.840 --> 00:00:42.259 But I'd like to think that everything that happened 00:00:42.259 --> 00:00:45.039 to me as a child has helped make me who I am 00:00:45.039 --> 00:00:48.079 today. Tell Me What Happened is sponsored by 00:00:48.079 --> 00:00:50.820 Sideline Ink Publishing. Publishers of quality 00:00:50.820 --> 00:00:53.579 books, including Susan Saldar's classic, One 00:00:53.579 --> 00:00:57.259 Little Act of Kindness, available on Amazon .com 00:00:57.259 --> 00:01:00.090 or wherever quality books are sold. Tell me what 00:01:00.090 --> 00:01:04.430 happened is also sponsored by laughsaver .com. 00:01:04.629 --> 00:01:08.069 Visit laughsaver .com and record your laughter. 00:01:08.609 --> 00:01:12.370 We'll keep it for you now and forever. It's free 00:01:12.370 --> 00:01:15.849 and your children and your grandchildren and 00:01:15.849 --> 00:01:18.909 your great grandchildren will appreciate it. 00:01:18.950 --> 00:01:23.530 That's laughsaver .com. All right. I have as 00:01:23.530 --> 00:01:27.030 my guest today a good friend of mine, a former 00:01:27.030 --> 00:01:31.390 colleague actually. Ed Zedzik. Ed Zedzik taught 00:01:31.390 --> 00:01:34.390 history in the Chicago public schools and worked 00:01:34.390 --> 00:01:36.450 on the trading floor of the Chicago Board of 00:01:36.450 --> 00:01:39.629 Trade. He is a great believer in the power of 00:01:39.629 --> 00:01:44.450 music and serendipity to change lives. Welcome 00:01:44.450 --> 00:01:48.269 to the show, Ed. Hi, Jay. Ed, are you ready to 00:01:48.269 --> 00:01:52.090 tell your story? I am. All right. I'm going to 00:01:52.090 --> 00:01:56.329 meet myself and listen to it. Great. Well, I'd 00:01:56.329 --> 00:02:00.480 like to talk about how strange little things 00:02:00.480 --> 00:02:04.079 can end up affecting a whole life, in this case, 00:02:04.180 --> 00:02:09.560 my life, and how a little event can end up impacting 00:02:09.560 --> 00:02:13.759 all of my adult perspectives on life and changing 00:02:13.759 --> 00:02:18.159 several things. In this case, the finding of 00:02:18.159 --> 00:02:21.199 a couple of little things that most people would 00:02:21.199 --> 00:02:24.909 pass over or even maybe throw out. I come from 00:02:24.909 --> 00:02:27.889 a musical family that always found great joy 00:02:27.889 --> 00:02:31.650 and even spirituality and connection with music, 00:02:31.689 --> 00:02:35.610 but also different musical instruments that others 00:02:35.610 --> 00:02:39.110 might not find particularly enchanting, but I 00:02:39.110 --> 00:02:42.669 did. And one of those instruments was our harmonica. 00:02:43.030 --> 00:02:46.930 And my older brother, when he got married and 00:02:46.930 --> 00:02:49.409 moved out of our house, and that left a whole 00:02:49.409 --> 00:02:53.680 lot of more room for me. but also he left behind 00:02:53.680 --> 00:02:56.680 a bunch of his old stuff because he was moving 00:02:56.680 --> 00:03:01.280 into a kind of a small place and needed to find 00:03:01.280 --> 00:03:05.080 a way to move into that without carrying everything 00:03:05.080 --> 00:03:07.199 else that he owned and so that left behind for 00:03:07.199 --> 00:03:10.639 me one thing was a bunch of his old record albums 00:03:10.639 --> 00:03:14.360 and another thing was a couple of old beat -up 00:03:14.360 --> 00:03:17.659 harmonicas that I found again those wouldn't 00:03:17.659 --> 00:03:21.599 be Much too many people, they're interesting 00:03:21.599 --> 00:03:23.539 looking. If you ever have seen one, they're kind 00:03:23.539 --> 00:03:26.139 of small and have some etchings into the metal 00:03:26.139 --> 00:03:28.759 of them. And so they've got an interesting look, 00:03:28.919 --> 00:03:31.520 but the ones he left behind were kind of beat 00:03:31.520 --> 00:03:34.699 up. But I found them and for some reason they're 00:03:34.699 --> 00:03:37.620 very interesting to me. And especially the fact 00:03:37.620 --> 00:03:41.439 that I could listen to some of these old albums 00:03:41.439 --> 00:03:44.379 that he had, not real old, but kind of old. They 00:03:44.379 --> 00:03:48.500 played... I played the music of people like the 00:03:48.500 --> 00:03:52.719 Rolling Stones, John Mayall and the Yardbirds, 00:03:53.319 --> 00:03:57.060 Paul Butterfield, all these old British blues 00:03:57.060 --> 00:04:01.759 bands, British rock bands that found their roots 00:04:01.759 --> 00:04:05.280 in American blues music. And interestingly, they 00:04:05.280 --> 00:04:08.639 seemed to discover it and reintroduce it to a 00:04:08.639 --> 00:04:12.240 large segment of the young American population. 00:04:12.520 --> 00:04:16.040 And so I was able to listen to some of these 00:04:16.040 --> 00:04:21.360 albums and hear some of that blues music. And 00:04:21.360 --> 00:04:25.199 it just grabbed me. And I also noticed that a 00:04:25.199 --> 00:04:29.379 lot of it had the blues harmonica in it that 00:04:29.379 --> 00:04:32.420 nobody really plays very much in current day 00:04:32.420 --> 00:04:36.019 music. But at the time, there were a number of 00:04:36.019 --> 00:04:39.000 groups like the Rolling Stones and others that 00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:43.660 I mentioned that had this blues harmonica sound 00:04:43.660 --> 00:04:46.199 in it and I thought I'm gonna I've got a couple 00:04:46.199 --> 00:04:48.519 here I think I'm gonna try to learn how to play 00:04:48.519 --> 00:04:51.040 these things and so I started messing around 00:04:51.040 --> 00:04:54.100 with them started playing these blues harps as 00:04:54.100 --> 00:04:57.000 they're called just to see what the sound was 00:04:57.000 --> 00:05:02.879 and I also walked down to our local record emporium 00:05:02.879 --> 00:05:07.889 in the neighborhood where there are just That's 00:05:07.889 --> 00:05:10.029 something that modern day young people don't 00:05:10.029 --> 00:05:11.889 have the joy of. And that's looking through the 00:05:11.889 --> 00:05:14.589 old bargain bin of a record store and finding 00:05:14.589 --> 00:05:17.470 all sorts of interesting old albums and things 00:05:17.470 --> 00:05:20.550 that will introduce you to music you might not 00:05:20.550 --> 00:05:24.790 have otherwise found. And they also had a little 00:05:24.790 --> 00:05:27.290 section of books related to music. And one of 00:05:27.290 --> 00:05:29.949 the books was How to Play the Blues Harp. And 00:05:29.949 --> 00:05:32.790 so I started reading this book about how to play 00:05:32.790 --> 00:05:35.279 it. I noticed that my brother didn't really have 00:05:35.279 --> 00:05:38.399 the ability to play it very well. So I thought, 00:05:38.639 --> 00:05:41.860 well, I can maybe do better than him. And I started 00:05:41.860 --> 00:05:45.819 to learn how to play the instrument as it is 00:05:45.819 --> 00:05:49.180 supposed to be played by some of the guys I was 00:05:49.180 --> 00:05:52.939 listening to who played the blues harmonica. 00:05:52.939 --> 00:05:56.420 And after listening to that and reading a little 00:05:56.420 --> 00:06:00.600 bit, I started to discover my 13, 14 -year -old 00:06:00.600 --> 00:06:04.829 self. that the music was not originally made 00:06:04.829 --> 00:06:07.910 by British blues artists. I mean, I kind of knew 00:06:07.910 --> 00:06:11.189 this, but then I found out who the original artists 00:06:11.189 --> 00:06:14.350 were, and it started to really open my eyes to 00:06:14.350 --> 00:06:19.329 this music and this incredibly soulful, meaningful, 00:06:19.610 --> 00:06:22.970 moving to me music. And so I started to hear 00:06:22.970 --> 00:06:26.689 the originals of this stuff and hear people like 00:06:26.689 --> 00:06:31.709 Muddy Waters and Little Walter. and Elmore James 00:06:31.709 --> 00:06:35.790 and all these guys that just had this great blues 00:06:35.790 --> 00:06:39.290 sound. And I wanted to find out more about that 00:06:39.290 --> 00:06:42.930 and really immerse myself in it as much as I 00:06:42.930 --> 00:06:46.730 possibly could being the 14 year old kid here 00:06:46.730 --> 00:06:49.870 in Chicago. But Chicago is kind of a great place 00:06:49.870 --> 00:06:52.290 for that. And I and some of my friends would 00:06:52.290 --> 00:06:56.170 go down on Sunday mornings to a place called 00:06:56.170 --> 00:07:00.189 Maxwell Street. Just down around uh, no longer 00:07:00.189 --> 00:07:03.589 exists now, really down around Halsted and Roosevelt 00:07:03.589 --> 00:07:06.509 Roads. And you could go down there on a Sunday 00:07:06.509 --> 00:07:11.910 and it was just this amazing open -air bazaar 00:07:11.910 --> 00:07:15.870 that was almost like a Moroccan open -air meeting 00:07:15.870 --> 00:07:19.949 place for people to buy and sell stuff. And the 00:07:19.949 --> 00:07:23.149 food was amazing. It was these Polish sausage 00:07:23.149 --> 00:07:26.069 and pork chop sandwiches that they would sell 00:07:26.069 --> 00:07:30.920 at a... world famous now that you can see the 00:07:30.920 --> 00:07:34.120 Maxwell Street, Polish and go down there and 00:07:34.120 --> 00:07:36.379 walk around and see people buying and selling 00:07:36.379 --> 00:07:39.199 stuff. It was a place for relatively poor people 00:07:39.199 --> 00:07:42.560 to interact with each other and sell things where 00:07:42.560 --> 00:07:46.339 and make a buck more or less honestly and have 00:07:46.339 --> 00:07:49.360 an interesting interaction with people. I never 00:07:49.360 --> 00:07:51.360 all the times I went down there, never saw a 00:07:51.360 --> 00:07:53.920 fight, never even really saw a serious argument. 00:07:54.189 --> 00:07:57.389 and it was just an amazing, amazing place, but 00:07:57.389 --> 00:08:00.170 probably the most amazing thing about it was 00:08:00.170 --> 00:08:03.589 the music. You would go down there and on several 00:08:03.589 --> 00:08:05.930 of the street corners, there would be somebody 00:08:05.930 --> 00:08:09.430 who would just set up shop, had talked one of 00:08:09.430 --> 00:08:11.990 the businesses into letting them plug in their 00:08:11.990 --> 00:08:14.569 amp, and they would just start playing this most 00:08:14.569 --> 00:08:18.709 amazing, often blues music. through their little 00:08:18.709 --> 00:08:21.810 amps and play some electric guitar and some amplified 00:08:21.810 --> 00:08:25.649 blues harmonica and have a drum set set up and 00:08:25.649 --> 00:08:28.850 they would play this and people would gather 00:08:28.850 --> 00:08:31.870 around, throw a few bucks into the hat and listen 00:08:31.870 --> 00:08:35.450 to this and get along with each other in a way 00:08:35.450 --> 00:08:38.669 that I thought was just amazing really. We saw 00:08:38.669 --> 00:08:43.009 people of all sorts of different races, ethnicities, 00:08:43.750 --> 00:08:47.580 religions I suppose and would meet together and 00:08:47.580 --> 00:08:51.019 talk with each other and laugh and have a great 00:08:51.019 --> 00:08:55.519 time. And so this experience of Maxwell Street 00:08:55.519 --> 00:08:59.639 for me was really eye -opening. And it introduced 00:08:59.639 --> 00:09:02.659 me to an even greater understanding of this blues 00:09:02.659 --> 00:09:07.220 music. And I was able to then go into their blues 00:09:07.220 --> 00:09:10.799 emporium there, one of which was a great big 00:09:10.799 --> 00:09:13.940 blue bus that was parked on the corner of Maxwell 00:09:13.940 --> 00:09:17.480 and Halstead. and that I could go into and it 00:09:17.480 --> 00:09:20.039 was what it was called was the blues bus and 00:09:20.039 --> 00:09:22.860 it was a record store in an old school bus and 00:09:22.860 --> 00:09:25.539 you would walk in and there were cassette tapes, 00:09:25.740 --> 00:09:28.639 old albums, all sorts of things of these great 00:09:28.639 --> 00:09:31.200 blues artists that you could walk in there and 00:09:31.200 --> 00:09:34.080 just be introduced to this thing for the first 00:09:34.080 --> 00:09:37.539 time in my life and there was also another at 00:09:37.539 --> 00:09:39.720 the end of the block around Peoria Street there 00:09:39.720 --> 00:09:42.799 was a an old record store that would sell all 00:09:42.799 --> 00:09:46.580 these and had a great big speaker out front playing 00:09:46.580 --> 00:09:49.059 all this wonderful blues music that I was able 00:09:49.059 --> 00:09:53.360 to be introduced to. And so this allowed me to 00:09:53.360 --> 00:09:56.919 develop a real love for this music that has such 00:09:56.919 --> 00:10:01.340 a, like I said, a soulful spiritual quality to 00:10:01.340 --> 00:10:03.960 it and that I could play and that my friends 00:10:03.960 --> 00:10:06.080 and I could get together and play. I had a couple 00:10:06.080 --> 00:10:09.320 of friends who played guitars and drums and we 00:10:09.320 --> 00:10:13.570 were not. great. But we had a lot of fun with 00:10:13.570 --> 00:10:17.009 it. And as my dad said of us, you guys don't 00:10:17.009 --> 00:10:18.970 have much talent, but you sure got a lot of nerve. 00:10:19.070 --> 00:10:21.710 And so that's you're having some fun with that 00:10:21.710 --> 00:10:24.210 music. And that's really what it's all about. 00:10:24.570 --> 00:10:28.789 And so we found our little niche of playing this 00:10:28.789 --> 00:10:32.409 sort of blues music and being more and more interested, 00:10:32.549 --> 00:10:35.370 learning more about it, learning how to play 00:10:35.370 --> 00:10:37.690 it and how to appreciate it and who all the great 00:10:37.690 --> 00:10:41.340 artists were. many, many who had Chicago connections. 00:10:41.860 --> 00:10:45.980 And so much so that when Chicago started having 00:10:45.980 --> 00:10:49.259 something called the Blues Festival in the summers, 00:10:49.259 --> 00:10:52.639 I would go religiously every year, often with 00:10:52.639 --> 00:10:54.960 my older brother, and we would go there and appreciate 00:10:54.960 --> 00:10:58.860 the music. And one year I was waiting in line 00:10:58.860 --> 00:11:02.539 to get in to see this, this wonderful blues player 00:11:02.539 --> 00:11:05.840 called Solomon Burke. And I was waiting there 00:11:05.840 --> 00:11:09.230 and saw this attractive woman standing a couple 00:11:09.230 --> 00:11:11.490 steps in front of me and I made a joke with a 00:11:11.490 --> 00:11:13.909 t -shirt vendor and she laughed at it and I thought 00:11:13.909 --> 00:11:15.789 well now I really have to get to know this woman 00:11:15.789 --> 00:11:18.429 she laughs at my jokes and we started talking 00:11:18.429 --> 00:11:21.269 with each other both realized we appreciated 00:11:21.269 --> 00:11:24.590 this music and how much we both loved it and 00:11:24.590 --> 00:11:28.049 understood it and that woman is now my wife and 00:11:28.049 --> 00:11:31.769 you know that enabled me to make this strange 00:11:31.769 --> 00:11:35.500 connection maybe that these two little harmonicas 00:11:35.500 --> 00:11:38.019 that I discovered and just sort of following 00:11:38.019 --> 00:11:42.039 my interests, following my bliss, as it's called, 00:11:42.559 --> 00:11:46.100 were able to follow that up and eventually meet 00:11:46.100 --> 00:11:50.019 the love of my life and the woman that I eventually 00:11:50.019 --> 00:11:54.120 married. And so that's my story, how my two little 00:11:54.120 --> 00:11:59.019 harmonicas enabled me to meet my wife and make 00:11:59.019 --> 00:12:02.539 that all a part of my life. I love it, Ed. I 00:12:02.539 --> 00:12:05.179 love it. Listen, I know you for a million years 00:12:05.179 --> 00:12:08.980 and I know that you've actually played that harmonica 00:12:08.980 --> 00:12:12.340 or used to play it occasionally at Whitney Young 00:12:12.340 --> 00:12:15.940 when we used to teach there. So have you got 00:12:15.940 --> 00:12:19.740 a harmonica nearby? I'd love to hear it. I'd 00:12:19.740 --> 00:12:21.820 love to take us out of it. I do, in fact, have 00:12:21.820 --> 00:12:24.299 a harmonica that I could play a little something. 00:12:24.500 --> 00:12:27.519 I could improvise a little something called Blowin' 00:12:27.620 --> 00:12:30.529 the Blues here. I would love it. Before I do 00:12:30.529 --> 00:12:32.269 that, I'm going to say goodbye to everybody. 00:12:32.889 --> 00:12:35.110 But we're going to end a little differently this 00:12:35.110 --> 00:12:37.409 week. We're going to end with you giving us a 00:12:37.409 --> 00:12:39.809 little bit of the blues. But I do want to thank 00:12:39.809 --> 00:12:42.149 you because I know the impact and it's happened 00:12:42.149 --> 00:12:44.309 because I know your wife and I know how long 00:12:44.309 --> 00:12:46.429 you've been married, by the way. We've been married 00:12:46.429 --> 00:12:50.870 26 years. All right. So those harmonicas definitely 00:12:50.870 --> 00:12:55.929 paid off. All right. I'm going to end this show 00:12:55.929 --> 00:12:58.490 with my good friend Ed Zedzik taking us out. 00:12:58.559 --> 00:13:00.299 Thanks again for being on the show Ed.