Category: memories

Rewind

Sometimes, someone mentioned something that I did or said, and I respond, quite intelligently, “What? I did?” Then I’m required to think back, struggling through the murkiness of memory to determine if they were right. What’s weird is how it sometimes feels like I’m rewinding a tape, going backwards in my head until the moment springs up and provides me with the Eureka moment.

Happened a few nights ago when someone said that I’d mentioned a book and the movie made from the book. After rewinding, I came across the point when I’d mentioned Freakonomics to him.

 

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Friday’s Theme Music

On this day, they remind us, Live Aid took place in 1985.

Yes, children, I remember the event, but I believe I didn’t watch it, as I was living in tent city in Egypt as part of Bright Star 85.

In honor of that event, I’m streaming the Boomtown Rats’ “I Don’t Like Mondays”. It’s perfect for Friday, because Monday is always lurking.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Perhaps I am mired in the past. I ended up thinking of my time at Clark AB in the Philippines as I walked yesterday in 1976, and recalled my buddy, Bopie. He and I worked at the same place. I arrived about two weeks after him. We lived in the same barracks (dorm, in Air Force terminology), on the same floor. He was about seven doors down from me.

The first time I really met him, though, was when we were off-duty at a unit function. He was wearing a red tee-shirt. On the back, in yellow letters, was Bopie. Walking up behind him, I said it. Starting, he turned and looked at me with a short laugh. “You are the first person that ever said my name right the first time.” His name was Ray, but Bopie was the name he liked to use (that was never explained to me).

We were shift workers, and often shared time off, so we would run around together sometimes. He introduced me to a lot of music and comedy that I didn’t know, including the movie, Car Wash, featuring the song, “Car Wash” by Rose Royce.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Laughing to myself, as I almost put Tuesday’s Dream Music as my post title.

Last September, I had a dream and awoke with “The World I Know” by Collective Soul in my head. This time, the song was in my dream, twice.

The first time, I was discussing it with my youngest sister and a cousin. We were talking about the words, and then we sang it. Afterward, I continued through the dream, and came upon my oldest sister.

My oldest sister can claim to be the shortest of our family, but she was taller than me in this dream. I mentioned the song to her, and she said, “Well, it becomes kind of maudlin, which isn’t what you want in a song.” I said, “That’s true, it does, but it ends in an uplifting manner.” Then we sang it together, and then I continued on through the dream.

So, here it is again. You can imagine my sisters and I singing it. It came out the year I retired from the military. Wonder if there’s a connection for me and my dream in that?

 

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Monday’s Theme Music

Cranking up a childhood favorite, “I’m Going Home” by Ten Years After, as played at Woodstock. The song’s frenetic energy at the beginning and end appealed to me as a thirteen-year-old. Now I think the guitar riffs capture the feel of the original rockers. Well, they sample quite a bit of others in this medley.

Of course, in the military, when a deployment was ending, and then later, in marketing, when a show was ending, and then in management, when I could finally leave corporate headquarters and go home, this was my internal joy song – “I’m going home!”

Lot of memories of time and place embedded in this song for me.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

First, I like the band’s name: Panic! At the Disco. Cracks me up.

I’m enjoying their song, “Say Amen (Saturday Night)”. Featuring a rousing, partying chorus, the song temporarily restores my youth. I can imagine being young and singing, “I pray for the wicked on the weekend, mama, can I get another amen? Oh, oh, it’s Saturday night, yeah.”

Although, for the sake of honesty, my primary party night used to be Thursday night when I was a young, working adult. A study came out later that confirmed my impression that Thursday night was the party night of the period. But really, I don’t think it sounds so well to be singing, “Can I get another amen? Oh, oh, it’s Thursday night.” Be like singing that the house cleaning is finished.

I also like the song’s remaining lyrics. So, although it’s Sunday morning in the continental U.S., let’s give it up for Saturday night.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

While driving today, I heard the end of a song, “Don’t You Want Me”, by The Human League. When the song ended, Casey Kasem came on and told us that was the number song in America, according to Billboard, for the week of July 10, 1982.

The station went on to mention that it had been a digitally remastered recording of the recording that was made in 1982. All this fired multiple memories: July, 1982. Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan. American Top 40 was played every Saturday. Broken neck with my head immobilized in a halo device. Hot and humid summer. A wonderful cat named Jade we inherited from another family, and another, a sweet little Bombay Black named Crystal, also a gift from another family.

I’d broken my neck on the previous Memorial Day weekend. I was freed from the halo after three months. Crystal died in 1995, taken by cancer. Jade passed away when we lived in California twenty years after she started living with us. She earned the nickname Pokey because she liked to dawdle, but she was a damn smart feline, definitely the smartest cat we have ever known. She was infinitely smarter than the four who live with us now. Casey Kasem died in 2014. The Human League still rocks on.

It’s all life.

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Each Day

Each day, I realize that I don’t know much. I can’t even say that I know much about a particular subject. I tend to know a very little bit about very few things.

Each day, I re-discover things that I’d learned and forgotten. I discover things that I learned when we thought we knew better, but have to learn again because more has been learned. Really, I’m just learning to keep up.

Each day, I learn how much things change between each day and person. I’ve learned that we’re very inconsistent about what we think we know. We like to have what we think we learned validated to verify that we learned what we think we learned.

Each day, I realize how much there is to learn, not just about complicated or esoteric subjects or unfolding scandals, but about myself and the small area of existence that is my world.

Each day, I realize how much I enjoy learning. Sometimes — hell, many times — it wears me out. But with each day, I realize how fragile learning and knowledge really are, and how knowledge can be tortured and twisted.

Each day, I set out, one more time, with a cup of coffee and try to learn just a little bit more.

And some days, I remember it.

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Friday’s Theme Music

“Rebel Yell” by Billy Idol is a good walking song. Released in 1983, it’s another one of those songs that, between volume and enunciation, I distrusted what I was hearing and kept wondering, what’s he singing in that part? Well, eventually, the answers came and I share them with you.

He lives in his own heaven
Collects it to go from the seven eleven
Well, he’s out all night to collect a fare
Just as long, just as long it don’t mess up his hair

h/t to Lyricsfreak.com

Well, that makes a lot more sense than the silly phrases I imagined. Still, it remains a damn fine song to stream in my head when I take a walk.

 

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