Category: memories

Today’s Theme Music

As with many things, I blame Mom.

Actually, I’m embellishing that. I blame Mom for my love of reading, learning, walking and eating, so it’s actually a short list. I do blame her for some of the music I know, too. Blame isn’t the correct word, of course; I credit her.

Staying with a walking theme for my theme music, I recall one song that I sang when I was younger. By Roger Miller, it must have seemed odd to anyone noticing that a ten to twelve year old was walking, snapping his fingers and singing, ‘King of the Road’. I know Mom had this album; I vividly recall its cover. But more, I saw him perform this song on television. I have no idea what show or what year it was, but I remember it. Of course, I have an active imagination, so perhaps I just imagined it.

Anyway, from 1965, Roger Miller and ‘King of the Road’. 

 

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The Question

The Question has arisen, raised by my wife.

It was innocent enough, oh, it’s always innocent enough. But knowing her…I was expecting, even anticipating, The Question.

It came today after I put on my coat. I call it vintage. She, however, said, “Honestly, honey, I know you love that coat, but don’t you think you should give it to charity? It’s worn and faded. You’ve had it for twenty-five years.”

Old and faded? “No, I love it.” And she was exaggerating. “For your information, I’ve only had it twenty-two years. I bought it on sale at Macy’s in the Sunnyvale Town Center when we were stationed at Onizuka in 1994.”

“Okay, twenty-two years. It’s still really faded.”

“Its worn fabric provides it with vintage character.”

Her eyebrows went up as she broke into a questioning grin. “Vintage character?”

“Yes.”

I stand by my declaration. I don’t plan to give it up. I don’t easily give up my goods. Underwear, sweatshirts, shoes, shirts, coats, pants, I wear them until  they’re clearly too small or begin disintegrating.

And I’m serious: they disintegrate. I was once wearing a pair of shorts, put something in my pocket, and torn the pocket. The cloth just ripped. I was so depressed. I’d only had the shorts twelve years. I looked for replacement shorts but never found a pair just like them.

My wife is clearly the arbiter of these matters for me. Not too long ago, she held up a pair of boxer shorts and sniffed. “Do you really want to keep these?”

I was affronted. “What’s wrong with them?”

“Really? The colors are faded, the elastic band just came off in my hands, the seam is coming apart at the crotch, and you have a hole in the rear.” She held them up higher. “They’re so worn, I can see through them. They’re like sheer curtains.”

I doubted her. I’d just worn those boxers in the last several days. “Let me see.”

She was absolutely correct, of course. All those small details she’d noticed about these old Hanes boxer shorts were true. (I believe they’re Hanes, but the label was gone.)  I’d noticed them, as well. I knew that these boxers would start dropping down my legs when I walked after I put them on. I laughed every time I saw their dilapidated condition.

I sighed, cringed and swallowed, bracing myself to issue the answer to The Question: “Yes, you can throw them away.”

Grabbing them from my hand, she hustled away. “I’m going to get rid of these now, before you change your mind.”

She didn’t even give me time to say good-bye.

This is not an economic practice on my part. Nor is that I love these things. They’re familiar and comfortable, like an enjoyable book, a favorite food or wonderful friends. These things are woven into my fabric of my memories and the essence of my being. I like remembering the past, not to hold onto it, but to understand it and myself, and measure the future. It’s only by looking at the past and understanding what didn’t go as planned that I can change things so they’ll be better in the future.

Elaborate rationalization? Sure, it could be. These goods I don’t give up might just be emotional crutches to remind me of glory days and better times. It could be that what you’re thinking and what I’m claiming are all correct, that it’s necessary to hold these competing ideas in our minds and accept, both are right.

All I know is, this was but round one. The Question will arise again.

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Today’s Theme Music

This is another old favorite, one learned on transistor radios playing music on the AM band. I enjoy walking and walked often and frequently. My walking prowess is credited (or blamed) on my Mom. “You have two legs, use them.” So I did.

Along the way, as I grew older and walked further, I developed a fondness for songs about walking and distances. Now, when I drive long distances, these songs come up. It’s all about the journey and getting there, for me. This irks my wife; she wants to stop and enjoy the views. I working on doing that more but walking (or driving) and getting there is starched into the fabric of my being. Removing or diluting that starch is work. It requires a mindfulness of what I’m doing to replace a deeply felt habit of what I always do.

Anyway, here it is, Edwin Starr (a favorite performer), with ‘Twenty-five Miles’, from 1968. It’s a good song to sing to yourself as you’re walking around, counting down the miles.

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Today’s Theme Music

I was just nine years old when this song came out. I learned it from my Mom’s albums, but it was an AM pop station mainstay for years and then became a ‘golden oldie’ on FM radio.

This video is fun. It’s a television recording from the mid 1960s. That allows us to experience some modern twin developments defining themselves: pop music and TV. I like the hair, the matching little outfits, and the spartan stage.

Here’s ‘Let’s Hang On!’ by The Four Seasons, 1965. Sing along. The words are easy to learn.

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A Year

It’s been a year since I collected my last IBM paycheck.

I expected a lot of changes in that year. I’ve been disappointed.

One bitter reason for wanting to leave IBM was my unhappiness of how callously we were treated as individuals. That’s my perception. Others may not share it. The work had become routine and boring. I was rarely engaged, and my circle of involvement seemed to be shrinking. So, I was receiving less validation that I was worthwhile to the company or that anyone there appreciated my work or efforts. Hence, I wanted to leave. When they offered me the choice, I took it.

Yet, being freed from employment didn’t do anything to enhance my sense of validation. If anything, the solitary habits I employ and my social awkwardness remain, so I’m just as out there on my own now as I was when I was employed, and experience even less evaluation. It’s tested my strength and determination.

I thought my writing career would take off. It hasn’t. I didn’t appreciate the hard work required to not just prepare a book to publish but also to market. I naively thought, “If I write it, they will come.”

My year of being unemployed, the first since I was seventeen, taught me how much I require structure, goals and a vision to keep me moving forward. I’ve been forced to re-evaluate what I’d established in the past that helped me succeed, and create new structures, goals and a vision. That’s all still in progress. I also needed to educate myself more about the writing business, something also underway. Frankly, it’s wearying.

In thinking about all of this, I resolved, “I will do better.” It’s a big poster in my mind, glowing at me all the time. “I will do better.”

Today’s writing session is finished. I only wrote about fifteen hundred words and edited some. The novel is becoming hugely busy. I reached the point that I felt like a puppet master getting entangled in his puppets’ strings. Pacing across the coffee shop with impatience and frustration, I gazed out the window and recognized, I need to stop today. Regroup and marshal my energies and intentions to proceed. It’s a complex novel, with complicated plots and societies, set in the future, with unique words, and yada, yada, yada.

Those of you who write will totally understand.

 

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Today’s Theme Music

A new FM radio station was launched in SF when I lived in the area. Part of a national development, the station was called Alice, KLLC. They played what I guess would be called light adult contemporary music.

I liked KLLC, especially the morning show, with Sarah and Vinnie. That abruptly ended one morning; Vinnie was gone.

Anyway, a song that received a lot of air time was ‘Cornflake Girl’ by Tori Amos. The song came out in 1993. I retired from the USAF in 1995 and started working for an startup coronary angioplasty company. Hearing this song one day at work, I asked several twenty-somethings that I worked with, “What’s a cornflake girl?” I didn’t know. They snickered and didn’t answer.

I didn’t know what a raisin girl was, either, but didn’t bother asking that trio of information, the only young folks that I worked with or knew at that time. This was before Google and the net as we know it today. Looking it up or finding the answer was difficult. It pissed me off that they wouldn’t answer. Oh, well.

Well, now I know.

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Today’s Theme Music

A co-worker hated this song, hated it. 

The song is ‘Torn’, as covered by the Australian, Natalie Imbruglia. A stanza includes the words, “Lying naked on the floor.” This always send Louise into head-shaking disapproval.

“She’s lying naked on the floor. That’s disgusting.”

“But it’s not — ”

“Disgusting!”

“But it’s — ”

“No. That is so gross.”

Guess Louise is a germaphobe.

Here it is, from 1997, ‘Torn’.

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Today’s Theme Music

Nancy Sinatra was brought up in my memories this week. She was quite popular among the neighborhood girls when I was young and living in Wilkinsburg, PA. Hullabaloo was a big hit then. Mini-skirts and white go-go boots were in. Young girls liked to put Nancy’s song on and dance on chairs as go-go dancers.

From 1966, here is ‘These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.

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Today’s Theme Music

This song, and the album it was on, blasted in on us in the summer of 1995.

I was stationed at Onizuka Air Station (a place also once called Sunnyvale Air Station and Onizuka Air Base), working as Director, QAF for the 750th Space Group. A young airman was working at his desk, radio on, as I walked by; this song was playing. I stopped down to listen, and then laughed and said, “Holy shit.” It was one of those songs that shocked me into instant memory. I listened for it on the radio as I was driving arrive the bay, and cranked it up whenever it came on.

The song starts out so gently, confessional and non-confrontational, but then it rises with unmasked, almost uncontrolled rage and contempt, a thematic approach repeated several times in the song. Listening, it feels like an emotional stream of consciousness that zigzags between confrontation, reconciliation and coping, someone trying to release their pain and bitterness even as they search for understanding.

This is Alanis Morissette with ‘You Oughta Know’ from ‘Jagged Little Pill’. 

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