Category: childhood

Saturday’s Theme Music

An old song is stuck in my head this Saturday morning, the last Saturday in January, 2021. In other news, the sun rose at 7:26 AM and will set at 5:23 PM here in Ashland. All those things happen every day, but at different times.

They call songs stuck in your head ear worms. I call them a diversion. I typically get trapped in one specific section. I call it a groove loop, a reference back to the time when we listened to records on vinyl, which had grooves.

The stuck song is “Spanish Harlem”. The stuck version is by Aretha Franklin and came out in 1971. I was about fifteen. The eternal question of why this song is stuck in my head can’t be answered today. It arrived as I decided to eat a banana as my breakfast’s second course. First course was oatmeal with cranberries and peanut butter, sprinkled with gluten-free maple granola.

The COVID-19 situation continues to alarm many, including me. We experienced a solid week of double-digit new cases, and the rolling three day average was dropping. Across the country, cases were dropping. Only two states were reporting increases on Thursday. Yet, dire warnings about the variations were increasing. Recommendations to wear two masks, or wear only N95 masks were issued. Then, last night, boom, our county reported triple digits again. It’s wave after wave. Like the ocean, some waves are larger than others, and you need to be mindful of sneaker waves.

Time for coffee. Stay positive, test negative, WAM (wear a mask), and get vaccinated, when it comes your way. Here’s the music.

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Monday’s Theme Music

Blue sky and sunshine are absent today. Snow and a 34 degree temp have control, though the snow is a mealy splatter pattern. Winter is taking control in Ashland, Oregon.

Today is January 25 of 2021. We’re racing toward the end of the first month of the year. Can the year still be called? How many miles must be acquired before we start referring to it as a gently used year? Sunrise came at 7:31 AM while sunset is expected at 5:16 PM.

Yesterday’s day of snow was entertaining. Snow sizes and styles morphed. I’d see little pellets shooting down, but a short period later would find fat flakes fluttering past. The consistent question shared between me and my wife was, “Is in sticking?” No, too warm.

I went out back, barefoot, in my jeans and shirt, to do a spin in the snow, catch some on my tongue and hands, watch them crash toward me, and breath in the frosty ambiance. After coming back from that, when I looked out later, I saw a person walking their dog down the street through thickening flurries. I thought, I see myself in the falling snow, remembering all the times when I’d walked through such snow, reflecting on the different periods of life and those locations. My mind provided background music by starting “South Side” by Moby with Gwen Stefani (2001).

It was an amusing twist on my mind’s part. Moby sings about seeing himself in the light and seeing himself in the rain. I’d been thinking about seeing myself in the snow.

Chuckle. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get vaccinated. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

Today is January 22, 2021. Sunrise is 7:33 AM and sunset is 5:13 PM in Ashland, Oregon, moving us closer to ten hours of sunlit. Our temperature is 37 F. Choppy layers of clouds, like pieces of clothing being sorted and stretched, are moving as the weather finds itself. A storm is shyly crowding in. We might have snow next week. We’ll definitely have colder weather.

Hammerin’ Hank Aaron passed away. Hammerin’ Hank broke Babe Ruth’s MLB home run record in 1974. I graduated high school and joined the military that year, so that’s childhood’s end for me.

When I think of my childhood, Hank Aaron and baseball were a large part of it, almost as big as music and politics. Music was defined by its growing presence on television and the increasing number of festivals and stadium shows. Other things from that era include the Doomsday Clock and the chance of the U.S. and U.S.S.R. using nukes, the Vietnam War and the peace talks, Watergate, student protests and riots in the 1960s, the oil embargo and gas shortages, and the explosive spread of cable television. Reasoner, Smith, Rather, Brinkley, and Hunt gave us the news at night. We were sending rockets with men in them to the moon and talking about the future of computers where everyone would have one in their home. The EPA had been created and the ERA was still a possibility, acronyms which were regularly discussed in school and on talk show panels.

It’s nice having President Biden in the White House. Nice not waking up to see what madness Biden’s predecessor was saying. Been a while since I read about a Karen employing privilege to insult and attack others. Coincidence? No.

Today’s song comes after another busy dream night. In one dream, I and others sometimes say, “There she goes,” in response to someone we’re looking for. In the course of thinking about that dream and phrase, the LA’s 1991 song, “There She Goes”, jumped into the thoughts. I guess my mind thought that would be helpful. It wasn’t.

Anyway, “There She Goes” is a strange song to me. It feels and sounds like something that should have been a hit in the early seventies or late sixties due its simple structure and sound. It’s also a brief song, under three minutes. Growing up with pop/rock, songs on the radio were typically three to four minutes long, so this song is ending just when you expect it to explode with something more. It doesn’t, leaving me asking, “Was that it?”

Here we go. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get vaccinated. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Out trudging our surrounding vales and hills yesterday, doing a mile in the afternoon, pushing for some cardio. Though a wintry sense hovered in the air, an inspiring freshness imbued it. Rain seemed headed my way from smell and look and the sun was taking a slow dive through purple and red scales. Such an atmosphere kicked in a well-remembered walking song, “Ramble On”, by Led Zeppelin (1969).

When I was young, my mother always told me, “You have two legs. Walk.” She also regaled us with her youthful walks. She lived in a tiny town, Turin, Iowa, on the floodplain’s edge. Her walk to school wasn’t far. Walking was the normal means of getting about town, and the town was made for walking. I know, because after hearing from her, I visited Turin one year, and walked around it. It’s just a few blocks square.

Her insistence that I have two legs and can walk kicked in a walking habit for me. Walking is mode of transportation, alone time, and a meditative process. It invigorates my writing efforts. Naturally, it also fuels memories. Playing into memories comes music. I always played some in my head when walking.

I had transistor radios when I was young. They were cheap and broke easily. Didn’t help that I would drop them. Battery-operated, new batteries was a constant issue. So, the music had to come from my head. “Ramble On” quickly became a walking fave. Its guitars, drums, and vocals, found an eager fan in my thirteen-year-old self. That thirteen year old seems to still be alive inside.

Stay positive. Test negative. Etc.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

A 1974 song by the Hollies — some might call it an old song — came into my head this morning. A dream prompted its visit. Basically, the dream prompted me to visit some old memories. As part of that, I ended up recalling my graduation year, 1974, and going to high school dances. The Hollies song, “The Air That I Breathe”, was popular because it was a current song and a ballad, making it perfect for slow, close dancing.

Hope you enjoy the song and it brings to mind some close dances in dim rooms for you. Stay positive, test negative, and wear a mask. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

I had “Some Enchanted Evening” stuck in my head last night. The song is from the musical, South Pacific. I know all of South Pacific; Mom had the soundtrack — on 33 RPM vinyl — and played it often.

The words were a little different for me last night. Instead of singing “stranger”, I was singing, “Kitty”, as in cat, because I was singing to a cat. Youngblood (aka Meep, official floof de plume, Papi, but aka the ginger boy) was sitting in a chair across the room watching me. I sang to him. He didn’t look impressed. His expression said, “I see no food…”

To get that melody out of mind, I began entertaining other songs. I’d seen Bruce Springsteen on SNL last weekend, so I started shuffling Springsteen tunes. “Brilliant Disguise” (1987) caught and stayed.

Here we go. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get a vaccine. That is all.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

I’m on my knees typing. The cats have secured the chairs for their use. Aww…don’t they look sweet and comfy? Yes, so I’ll not bother ’em.

A 1970 song entered the conscious musical stream last night and stayed strong this AM, so I’m going with it. The song, “Love the One You’re With” by Stephen Stills, has a particular line that’s hooked in my mind. It’s embedded in the middle of this stanza.

Well there’s a rose in a fisted glove
And the eagle flies with the dove
And if you can’t be with the one you love honey
Love the one you’re with

h/t to AZLyrics.com

Yeah, I enjoy the imagery of an eagle flying with a dove. Doesn’t hurt that the song is fast paced and upbeat, and features background singers like Rita Coolidge, John Sebastian, David Crosby, and Graham Nash, right?

Hope you enjoy this blitz from the mists. Please remember, stay positive, test negative, and wear a mask. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Blame it on the weather. Blame the pandemic. Maybe it’s the trumpshit surrounding the established routines of presidential elections, or December. Memories always clot Decembers. Maybe, though, it’s just my brain having fun with me.

However I finger-point, my mind was shuffling music this morning. After five or six songs (trying to remember how many but they were coming and going, doing a Waring blender mashup in my mind), “The Cisco Kid” by War (1973) found the groove and rose to dominance.

It’s a fun song to sing along with. The words are simple but the story told don’t make sense. That’s okay, it’s music. The funky sounds, solid bass, and steady rhythm will carry you forward. Even if you’re unfamiliar with the song, you can listen to it and let it start taking your body into dance moves.

Please enjoy, and remember to be positive, test negative, and wear a mask. Cheers

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The State of Things

I was thinking about being on Okinawa in December, 1982. I’d arrived there after thinking about other Decembers, starting with here and now. I’ve been in Ashland for fifteen years, the longest period I’ve ever spent in one place. Fifteen Decembers in Ashland. That’s extending the current record. I’ve spent Decembers all over the place. Decembers in the 1950s were in Virginia, California, and Texas. I don’t really remember them, except for glimpses, as I was born in 1956. Family lore, and old Kodak glossy black and whites, tell me that this is where I was.

For the 1960s, I was in and around the Pittsburgh, PA, area — Wilkingsburg, Verona, Plum, Penn Hills, Monroeville. These are more sharply remembered. Then I left Mom to live with Dad, ending up in Ohio and West Virginia. Graduating high school in 1974, I joined the military. Decembers were spent in Texas and Mississippi; Ohio and the Philippines; West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Korea, and Texas. There’s split time, as I often started December in one place in that decade and ended it in another. The last December of the 1980s was spent in Texas, and then the next four were spent on Okinawa.

But I stopped at Okinawa, remembering people and events. I struggled with one event: was that 1982 or 1983? Well, I’d look it up. That’s what the net is for, right? Goofing, I just put in, “On this date 1982”. That search brought me in information on November 27, 1982. May, 1982, July, June. December? No. What the what? Thinking, maybe I’m crazy, and this isn’t December, I checked my computer’s date: it showed 12/9/2020. Okay, twelve is December, right? (Yes, my computer shows month, day, year. In the military, we always showed year, month, day. Took years of weaning to unlearn that.)

Blame it on the search engine. Had to be. I tried other search engines. Weirdly, they all came up with information about those dates but none sprang up with what happened on this date in 1982.

That’s the state of things. The computers don’t return what you want, but what others looked for, or maybe, trying to second-guess me, what they think I want. I kept flipping through search pages: April, August, October. One December result, for December 2nd, from Facebook, something about Michael Jackson.

Maybe my memory is doing things to my mind, but I recall being able to put in such a nebulous search and having today returned, along with happened on this date in history. Not any more, though. When I put in December 9, everything came up as I thought it should.

Yeah, just another rant about the way it used to be, innit? Or maybe I’m just imagining what I think I used to remember.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

I went for a short walk this morning. At forty degrees, it felt surprisingly warm. Most deciduous trees have finished disrobing and stood naked in my regard. Across the valley, sunshine dazzled the blue sky, highlighting the mountains and hills’ curves and peaks.

It was quiet. Into my stillness of gazing and thinking came the 1967 Small Face song, “Itchycoo Park”. If you remember the song, the refrain is, “It’s all too beautiful,” words that summarized it for me.

As a side note, I didn’t know the song title for a few years. I always thought it was “It’s All Too Beautiful” because of that refrain. Wasn’t till I was at a girl’s house that I learned the truth. Her older sister had it on a forty-five. Vicky said, “I love this song,” and I was like, I don’t know it. Then it came on, and, oh, I did know the song. Felt a little stupid, didn’t I? Admittedly, while most of the lyrics and music came easily to memory today, the song title took longer.

Here’s the song. Hope you remember it, and if you’re too young to know it, you’ll give a listen to yestercentury’s psychedelic beat music. Please, stay positive, test negative, and wear a mask. Cheers

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