Ray Shasho has quite a memory, especially when it comes to
what songs played on the radio during important times throughout his
youth. Combining his nostalgic recant of Billboard’s Top 100, like some
infomercial for a Time-Life Oldies CD collector’s set, along with
his detailed whimsical recollections while growing up, and you have the
“soundtrack ” for a truly enjoyable story called Check the Gs: The True Story of an Eclectic American Family and Their
Wacky Family Business.
Spiraling like a 33 rpm vinyl record around his father’s
retail gift store in Washington DC, a block away from the White House, Ray
began his career at the age of 6 (going on 16), when he put down the Windex and
paper towels to sell a pair of shades to his first customer. “Ale-Say,” Pig Latin for “sale,” was said by the
guy’s comical and secretive comments hollered around the store owned by his dad
and his uncle ~ both identical twins. Between Cuban slang, Spanish, mathematical pricing algorithms, made up
words, and yes, “Ig-Pay Atin-Lay,” the atmosphere in the store was as clouded
with unrevealed slang to thwart customers’ understanding the pricing of
merchandise as the perpetual second-hand smoke laid a fog from the owner’s
cigars. What a tumultuous time in this
country’s history. The babies were
booming, the racial tensions post Kennedy’s and Martin Luther King’s assassinations
threw the USA into a riot driven country. However the dollar had value. The store had
radios, TVs, cameras, binoculars, rings and jewelry, souvenirs and “you name
it” all stocked behind sparkling clean glass cabinets, with shelves higher than
can be reached without a ladder and items displayed in the front window precisely
as a masterpiece of jigsaw placement.
Ray, raised by a Cuban Catholic mother and a Syrian Jewish
father was 100% street smart. What impressed
me most was when Ray was older, so did his style of writing change into a more
mature written voice. For example, his
early years, the first third of Check the
Gs, had observations as seen through a kid’s perspective. I actually felt a kid was narrating the story
in first person! Yet as Ray matured, his
storytelling had more to do with his meeting all sorts of people, falling in
love, but still selling gadgets, and making a PR (profit).
Ray Shasho is a product of the second half of the 20th
century, made in the USA from parts around the world, and within him is every
trend in music, television, politics and culture contributing to his
philosophical and comically analytical reflections collected in his fine book
of memories. I found Check the Gs to be pure entertainment,
fantastic fun and a catalyst to igniting so many memories of my own life, as I too
am within a few years of Ray. So to all,
I say if you have a bit of grey hair (or no hair), buy this book! It’s a great gift for your “over-the-hill”
friends, or for their kids, if they are the history buffs of younger
generations trying to figure out why we are the way we are.
