Category: memories

Thursday’s Theme Music

It’s Thanksgiving in the United States today, a holiday imbued with myths and traditions, and many memories for someone like me.

I have some wonderful Thanksgiving memories. Mom worked hard to make holidays a success — except Mother’s Day (yeah, d’uh, she took the day off, didn’t she?) — and Thanksgiving was always terrific at her house. Later, in the military, my wife took on the same role. Overseas, she coordinated and orchestrated Thanksgiving dinner among several families, and we always invited the single people to come over so they felt less alone.

I benefited from that, too. My Uncle and his family had me over for Thanksgiving when I was in basic training, saving me from a chowhall dinner. I had a great time with them. There were other Thanksgivings with co-workers’ families a few times when I was stationed overseas on temporary unaccompanied duty, like the time with Tony’s family in the Philippines. There were also a couple chowhall Thanksgivings, though.

All that brought the Alan Parsons Project song, “Time” (1981). It came out the year that we reported for duty in Germany. We lived off based that first year, and it was one of the times when it was just my wife and I. It was still memorable.

Why “Time”? Because of the lines, “But time keeps flowing like a river, to the sea.”

Yep, although it does make me think, there’s a sea of time out there, somewhere.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

“Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me” by Elton John and Bernie Taupin was released in 1974. I’ve been hearing a live cover by George Michael, with Elton John as his guest (1991) at the coffee shop. Naturally, it ended up stuck in the stream, looping around a few times.

There are many memories associated with the song (like dances, kisses, and good-byes). It came out right after I graduated high school and went into the military, so it’s branded as part of that era, that transition from teenager living at home to adult on their own. As the Michael version came out during my final tour, it almost exactly bracketed my military career. Just a little coincidence, but one that ends up attaching sentiments to the song for me.

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Snow Memories

As an adult, snow and I share a difficult relationship. Snow wants to do what it’ll do, and I prefer that it doesn’t disturb my routines. I think these things even knowing that snow is necessary for the snowpack that provides us water throughout the year (so go up in the mountains and snow heavy there, right?) and some of our local industries (like the ski lodge on Mount Ashland) depends on the snow.

But a day of blinding, fat flurries (like today — look out that window — how can you not?) always takes me back to snow memories, especially childish times. When I was a boy in school, seeing snow outside the windows was a harbinger of entertaining times like snowball fights, forts, and sledding. Snow diffused daylight, blending night and day into a special, secret zone of being. Snow muffled the sounds and tamped adult activities, leaving the world to us, the brave, the crazy, the children. Interruptions would arrive – cars stuck on hills, tires spinning in a whining hiss, vehicles with chains clanging past, snowplows grinding by, building new boundaries of small mountains alongside the roads.

Après outings were coming into a warm house where boots, mittens, and layers of frozen soaked clothes were shed. All had to be hung, put onto radiators or into dryers, depending on the era and house. Hot chocolate with marshmallows and cookies were offered, or tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches (white bread and American cheese, in those days) with a dill pickle.

Evening would come with a hesitant stillness, slipping in like it didn’t want to disturb the world. Books were read, drawings were completed, games played, television watched. Popcorn and fudge was made. The television was watched for news — would there be more snow? Will school be cancelled tomorrow? (Fingers crossed, breath held, eyes big as the news was awaited.) And more gazing out the window, at the amazing white world and the wonders of snow, were indulged.

Young and innocent, protected and secure, playful and happy. Everyone should enjoy such a life.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

I was just up (peeing, actually), when the lines from “While You See A Chance” (Steve Winwood, 1981) came to me.

When some sad old dream reminds you

how the endless road unwinds you

while you see a chance, you take it

find romance, fake it

because it’s all on you

I always enjoy that section in particular. It’s an uplifting song to me, one of several favorites that Steve Winwood put out as a solo artist. Looking for confirmation a bit ago, I verified that he didn’t write the lyrics alone, that it was co-written by Will Jennings. I thought that I’d read that but couldn’t recall the details. Thanks to Wikipedia for the reminder.

The title, too, always strikes me; not, ‘when you see a chance’ but ‘while you see a chance’. Act while you see it, not when you see it. Like that subtle difference.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

I’ve been reading a lot about walls in recent months for some odd reason.

Walls. Are they needed? Do they work? Are they being built? How much do they cost? Can’t we just buy a DIY at Home Depot?

Wondering why there’s all this talk about walls was obviously an invitation for “Wonderwall” by Oasis (1995) to slip over and around my walls and into my stream.

It fits as a song for the times, though; wonderwall, in the modern urban sense, is about a person you’re infatuated with.

Lots of people seem infatuated with walls these days.

 

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Looking at the stars last night on a beautifully clear night, I thought of David Bowie’s “Ziggy Stardust” (1972). Love this video of David and his band – look at that fine young dude.

Good times.

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Friday’s Theme Music

I’m afraid today’s music is another one that just snuck into the stream and refuses to depart. I don’t know why it came in – I was cleaning the kitchen at the time and planning my day.

“Rosanna” by Toto isn’t a bad song at all. I got to know it and all of Toto IV (1982) intimately. I was stationed at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa, Japan, at the time. My best bud, Jeff, loved the Toto IV album. The harmonies enthralled him. We used to go camping up at Okuma, where the military had a recreation area, and Toto IV with “Rosanna” was always played a few times a day.

Good ol’ Jeff. Fun, smart guy. Haven’t heard from or about him in decades.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

I was walking toward my writing location today, a coffee shop owned by others, yes, but it’s my usual place, and thinking about what I was going to write. Boom days have continued, which is always a pleasure. So I told myself to just keep chugging along.

Then I plugged that into an old standard, “I just keep chugging along, singing my song, side by side.” Well, naturally, that prompted me to remember the song, “Side By Side” into my stream. Coming out before my Mom was born, leave off me, it’s one of those songs that’ve been part of the national consciousness for decades. There’s no doubt that I know it from my mother singing it, sometimes to me, sometimes to herself, and sometimes as it played on the record player.

The song’s real lyrics vary from cover to cover, but travel is almost always used, not chug, and not plug, but I like to plug in chug and plug instead of travel. The lyrics often go, “We’ll travel along, singing our song, side by side.” Of course, it was just me and my muses, and no one else beside me when I chug along, unless you count my shadow.

But “Me and My Shadow” is another song altogether.

Here is Patsy Cline with her cover of the 1927 song, “Side By Side”.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Today’s song penetrated the stream with no obvious reason. No memories or brain cells are standing up to say, “I did it. It was me.” Investigations and research have ended with no solid leads.

The song came out in 1961. I was five. Don’t know if I heard it that year, but I’ve heard it a buncha times later. You probably know it, too. It’s still in my head, and I need to get it out, so I’m foisting it on others.

Here’s Del Shannon with “Runaway”.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

News stories stayed with me late yesterday as I finished walking and headed home. Too many tales about murders and suicides, impeachment and politics, wars and disease. It all felt a little heavy.

Some lyrics stole into my stream:

Been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will

It’s been too hard living, but I’m afraid to die
‘Cause I don’t know what’s up there beyond the sky

I couldn’t remember more of the song, and worked on that as I reached home and made lunch. Other pieces came in but not enough for attribution. It seemed like an old song. I was finally forced to Google to find it.

There it was, Sam Cooke, “A Change Is Gonna Come”, from 1964. It’s dismaying to think of that song being written in the early sixties because of what he endured in Shrevesport, LA, one night. How humans treat others because of their differences remains a sad situation. We’ve made some progress on this, but we’ve also slid backwards. At times like these, I fall back on Parker’s quote, “The arc of the moral universe is long but bends toward justice.” Parker was a clergyman in the 1800s. I always thought the quote belonged to Martin Luther King, Jr., but I found in reading that he was quoting another.

No matter who first said it, it endures. As Sam Cooke wrote and sang,

It’s been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gon’ come, oh yes it will

I’m indebted to Metrolyrics.com, Songfacts.com, and Wikipedia.org for refreshing my memory.

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