Tag: nostalgia

Saturday’s Theme Music

Slow and ponderous, daybreak took over the sky’s voluminous gray matter at 7:16 AM. This, I learn from the baffle net, is ten minutes earlier than they’ll see in Ashland, Oregon later today. 52 and 56, respectively, degrees in F, are the current and high temperatures. 7:03 sees the world turn that brings us another night.

Welcome to October 1, 2022.

It’s Saturday. Leaves are just turning in our neighborhood, with one mighty perennial going dark red. While the trees are heralding fall, animals and the weather are muttering, “Winter is coming.” Ned would be concerned, although meteorologists tell us they’re we’re seeing Ian’s stuff in our weather pattern. Overcast, they call this sky.

The Neurons dropped “Barely Breathing” into the morning mental music stream. Had to look it up to learn it’s by Duncan Sheik from 1996. I think the song employs many clever phrases. One set in mind this dawn was, “And everyone keeps asking, what’s it all about? I used to be so certain, and I can’t figure out.
What is this attraction, I can only feel the pain. There’s nothing left to reason and only you to blame.
Will it ever change?”

Why those words today, I queried The Neurons. Is it part of a memory set? Could well be, something of the air, imbued in the house, makes me think of other times and years, of course. Photos on the walls and shelves document the family’s expansion, and there we are as the young, when now we’re the old. It could be the chilly wet weather, and the dance of leaves falling off trees as they flirt with new colors. Maybe it’s just a natural echo of the mind set delivered when you realize, oh, I have aged. I used to be so certain. Now I wonder about more, and entertain reflections on paths taken and results found.

Think I need coffee.

Stay positive, test negative, and so on. Stay safe as you travel the roads and skies, stealing glances at weather, people, news. Where the heck is that coffee?

Here’s some music. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Center stage was the sun’s at 7:05 AM in Pittsburgh, and she used it to full, rousing effect.

Today is called September 20, 2022. I awoke thinking about dreams and then shifted to news, feeling concerns about all the storms hitting. Japan. Alaska. Puerto Rico. How are things there? Is help on the way. Politics are a little suspended as I wait for pieces of information to be released, and wait for mid-terms. Wait. Read. Listen. Think. Wait.

I feel like I’m on a low boil here in PA as the stout sunshine finds my skin. 19 C again, high of 77 F expected before the sun’s curtain falls at 7:21 PM. Clouds lurk and plot, meeting and muttering with one another, but the sun owns the stage in my zone.

Since it’s Tuesday, The Neurons have planted “Tuesday’s Gone” by Lynyrd Skynyrd in the morning mental music stream. First heard it when it was released in 1973 and I was a high school junior at Shady Spring High School. The song strikes deep chords in me, sealing another longing fit for what was and what never came to be. ‘Tis always been that way.

So, you know, have some coffee and enjoy Tuesday before it’s gone. Stay pos, test neg. Cheers

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The Reminiscent Drive

He cruised old familiars. This is where he lived from sixth to nine grade – only four years? But that was in child years when time stretched for him. Aging math is often astonishing. In this case, fifty-one ellipses around the sun were done since he’d last lived in the red brick ranch house with the single car garage. It was a laughingly small place to the mind of these times but had worked for a family of two adults and five children. Yes, bedrooms were shared. One bathroom provided service for all. But there was also the basement, converted into a laundry room and family room. That gave a little more space.

Seeing streets and houses, he plugged in who lived where, wondering where each now lived, or if they lived. Oddly, houses remained almost identical to what lived in memory. It felt the same. If cars weren’t parked in the driveway, it could be the same year that he last lived there; no other differences marked the elapsed time. Temptation seeped in to park and walk up to a door, knock, see if a friend was available. “Hi, is Curt home?” Or Bruce. Rick. John. Chuck. Their remembered faces light up like a game in his mind.

Then he notices that the large old oak where he and Vicky first kissed was gone. With that seen, he knew, time to drive away. Home was somewhere else.

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Cars & Book Dream

I was staying at an exotic luxury place in a high-end location in the center of some city. I knew these things in my dream. No reason for being there was ever given. Everything was very fancy, chrome, blue windows, steel, and muted white furniture, modern, and new, although never named. I’d been put up in the place and was newly arrived and just familiarizing myself with it. A ground-floor location, several parts of my huge place was open to the street, something that I didn’t find odd, but enjoyed.

Background done, the action began when I walked across the place and accidently kicked a can, sending it out into the traffic. Dusk was settling in and lights were just coming on. Exasperated, I resolved to retrieve the can because everything looked so clean and gorgeous. As I went out to get it, a car hit the can, sending it flying further down the road where another car coming from the opposite direction flattened it.

More irritated, I hastened to get the can. I could see a line of cars accelerating up the double lane toward the can. I would need to rush.

I didn’t make it. Forced back by the oncoming traffic, I then saw a stream of such flattened cans in the street under the cars. I was disgusted.

“Asshole,” someone shouted. I saw two men. Both were white, with mustaches and long brown hair. One was tall and the other was short. One of them had yelled. I thought they meant me.

Seeing me seeing them, they chuckled and said, “We weren’t calling you an asshole. We were going whoever threw their can out an asshole. Unless it was you who did it. Then we are calling you an asshole.”

“No,” I answered, “I didn’t throw a can.” I explained what’d been going on.

They noticed a small hardcover book I carried and began talking about it. An older book, the tome was about three racing drivers, but the novel was considered ‘literary’. The two men highly recommended it. I responded that I was a novelist and the book enticed me because of its literary reputation, but I’d also been a racing fan.

We were walking by then. I was looking for my place and couldn’t find it. They invited me to join them at a restaurant for a drink. I agreed and we went into a red-theme place — red carpet and bar, red leather seats, red lights, red walls and curtains, red neon. As we chatted, the tall one went off for our drinks and the short one said that he hoped I was serious about what I said about the book and that I wasn’t just going along with them.

I told him, no, and we started chatting about racing. I told him that the late sixties and early seventies had captured my deepest racing interest. I enjoyed the three-liter Formula 1 cars of that age, especially Lotus and the 72, but also the Tyrrells, the Indy cars dominated by the Offy and Ford engines, the sports-racing cars of LeMans like the Chaparral 2D, and the Can Am cars like the McLarens, the Lola T70, and the 2J. (Yes, I actually said all of this in the dream.) They remarked with smiles that it sounded like I really knew my cars. The tall one said, “You should meet my sister.”

We’d finished our drinks and I decided to go. The dream’s final sequences involved me retracing my steps, looking for where I was staying, and then finding it.

Dream end. It was all quite vivid and sharply remembered.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

A sunny flourish and a burst of heat and the calendar was made redundant, useless. We knew summer was here. The weather announced it via blazing sun, clear skies, and a sharply scaling thermometer.

Tis Wednesday, June 22, 2015. Tis summer. Nonetheless, the sunrise was at 5:35 AM and sunset will be at 8:51 PM, about the same as the day before summer began. It’s 67 F right now, with a wonderfully friendly and sweet cool breeze tempering the sun’s attitude. The cats love it. I went with the two into the backyard. After some washing (I didn’t participate), they rolled around on the patio. A scrub jay arrived. They abandoned their domestic posturing and proclaimed they’re mighty hunters, so beware.

Somewhere in all of this, the neurons introduced CCR, aka Creedence Clearwater Revival, and their song from 1970, “Up Around the Bend”. It’s pretty straightforward rock and roll. I first heard it when I was fourteen, and the song still entertains me. Hope it entertains you as well.

Stay positive, and hopeful, even optimistic. Test negative. Wear a mask as needed, and take other precautions. Act like you care about your friends and family and be responsible. I try to, with mixed results, then I try again. Now the neurons are singing the coffee song. Here’s CCR. Oh, it’s lifted from Youtube and a show called American Bandstand. They’re having a dance contest. I love this look at 1970s era pop culture – TV, music, fashion, hair, dancing, all rolled into one scene. The music doesn’t start until about 3:42, but you might want to see what it was like, at least for some, for a moment, back in the day. In reflection, I guess today’s theme is nostalgia. Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

Sitting on the cusp of June, watching the Earth’s rotations roll on. Today is May 31, 2021, a Monday. It’s Memorial Day in the U.S., making this a classic Memorial Day Monday. Now just add a mocha…

Sunshine’s streaming slipped silently in at 0538. I was there to see it, having arisen to tend the bladder’s call. Mountains and trees hide the sun’s early efforts in my house so there was naught to see but the growing emergence of a blue summery sky. Yes, it’s not summer that, but try telling the weather. We’ll be dry and in the nineties today in Ashland. The Earth’s rotation will take the sun away at 2040 or thereabouts. I can see that pretty clearly from the house’s front.

I’d forgotten about the hummingbird episode of the day before yesterday. Out walking toward sunset, I’d gone up the street a few hundred feet in elevation. Turning from one road to another to go up more affording great views of the valley’s northern side. No matter the season, I engage in slowing down to turn and consider the rolling hills and short peaks. Sunshine lingers on that side. They get more snow in winter. Spring greens are rich and lavish. Sunset brings whatever is there into sharper relief.

While doing my contemplating, a green hummingbird darted down and hovered in front of my face. Edging left, right, vertically dancing, the little black-beak friend seemed to be scanning me. This habit of theirs always entertain me. I speak to them with my mind, saying hello and such. This one stayed for about ten seconds before climbing and turning, losing itself behind a veil of leaves. Hummingbird visits are fortifying. I continued on my way a bit happier.

Memorial Day offers a rich memory lode. Mom enjoyed holidays and made the most of these to create memorable family get togethers. In good years, we headed to a state beach, going early to get good parking and good spots. Food was prepared ahead. Think fried chicken, potato salad. Then there was grilling burgers and wieners, lavishing them with condiments. Make mine a cheeseburger, please, with pickles, lettuce, tomatoes, onion, ketchup, and mustard. Dessert — we’re talking pies or cakes here, but often also had watermelon — followed. Augmenting these courses were chips, pretzels, and cookies. None of us were fat, though. Besides all that, we played sports like volleyball or badminton, and went swimming. Time was also spent walking around, enjoying the natural environs.

My wife’s family had a different take. Their Memorial Day was Decoration Day, a time to load up in the car and go visit the family cemeteries, say hello to deceased members, put flowers on graves, and remember those folk. Socializing with other family who lived nearby followed. Then, back home.

For our holiday in 2021, I’m painting more of our house’s interior. We’re far from family. Most of her nucleus has passed away. All of our relatives live thousands of miles from us. It’s a low key celebration and reflection for us.

All this memorifying has me nostalgic for old rock. Enter Jefferson Airplane with their 1967 song, “Somebody to Love”. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask when asked, and get that vax. Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

Guess I’m in a nostalgic mood. Perhaps it’s the day. With gusty winds, leaves turning yellow and gold and dancing as they leap from trees, a blue sky so clear you can see tomorrow, and a bit of balmy warmth creeping in, it feels like a perfect autumn day. At least, this is how I remember perfect autumn days. They make me want to go somewhere, do things, visit with friends, and chat with nature.

Totally lifts my spirit even while I hunger to beg off the usual routines, jump in the car, and be off. With some amusement, as I did the dress-feed the cats–make breakfast and coffee routine, I was humming sotto voce. Catching the tune, I put words to it with surprise.

The song was from 1981. I was twenty-five then, feeling good about life and prospects. The year’s beginning had us living in base housing at Randolph Air Force Base in Texas, driving a new metallic copper Pontiac Firebird we’d bought the year before. Aunts, uncles, and cousins had moved here from Pittsburgh, PA, and lived nearby, giving us family to visit. Life had an easy rhythm.

By May, we’d sold the car and taken up a new assignment at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan, a three year tour which began with us living for a few weeks in the base hotel while we bought a used car and found a place to live off base. It was a great adventure.

Here is Santana’s 1981 cover of “Winning”, a song from that time.

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A Moment of Reflection

Trump and his Pentagon are shutting down the independent military newspaper, The Stars and Stripes. One hundred sixty years old, working on a fifteen million dollar budget, it’s a bitter end to a venerable institution.

I was in the U.S. Air Force for over twenty years. Overseas, we looked to the Stars and Stripes for laughs, information, distractions, sports scores, and a touch of home. You could usually walk into an office and find a copy of the latest daily sitting on a table or desk, pick it up, and check it out. Sometimes the Jumble word puzzles were done, or the NYTimes crossword puzzle was half-finished, or the Sudoku was begun. In Europe, it was the source for finding out what events were planned, such as festivals and volksmarches. Everywhere, it told us what was happening at other theater bases, and when college registration and terms were beginning. It also carried the AFRTS television and radio schedules and highlights, and the show times for the movie theaters.

This all helped keep us connected and grounded. That was (pause to absorb shock) over thirty years ago for me. (Another pause to absorb shock.) Satellite entertainment was just becoming available, and we were watching tape-delay productions of ‘live’ shows. The Internet and web were just beginning to stretch and flex. Phones were still tethered to walls and desks by long cords.

So, yeah, as Zimmerman sang, the times they are a-changing. I usually look forward to change, hoping that we’re advancing our technology in ways to improve our lives and conditions, or defeat diseases and advance cures. I’m in favor of change that levels the field and delivers justice, equality, freedom, and opportunity for all. Perhaps the time has come for the Stars and Stripes to cease, because its purpose has been overtaken by advances. In memory, though, I’ll recall it fondly, and think of its passing with a sigh.

But then, that’s what happens with so much of our things, isn’t it? We outgrow them, and they fade away.

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Monday’s Theme Music

The Traveling Wilburys song, “Handle with Care” (1988) sprang to mind last night. Eleven thirty, I went out into the clear, friendly bight and entertained the moon and stars. All were bright and lively, and rona kept the time free of passerbys as all are home shelterin’. My cats joined me, with Boo being the one to break the silence, rub up against me, and lean against my calf.

That brought out the Wilbury chorus:

Everybody’s got somebody to lean on
Put your body next to mine, and dream on

h/t to Genius.com

This song is so special, IMO. Such talents, legends of rock, are brought together as friends, performers and song writers, contributing but remaining as individuals. Look at the video and how each is dressed and how they act and participate. They’re enjoying themselves. That feeling carries over into the song.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Up early. (Well, early-ish.) (With le chats.) Opened the back door and ventured into the cool air (well, coolish, low seventies, but it’s a relative thing, innit?) and clear blue sky (well, clear-ish and blue-ish, save for the marring brung in by wildfire smoke to the south and east, gentle nudges to check the wildfire updates). Birds were speaking but it was quiet (well, quiet-ish, as cars’ motoring punctured the mo’ — again, again, again). Thought of the world sit, rolling into longing for where I was and where I preferred to be.

Here’s a song from another time which I think evokes those senses, “The Boys of Summer” by Don Henley and Mike Campbell, with Campbell on guitar, from 1984. By coincidence, it captures the sense of summer, 2020: “Nobody on the road, nobody on the beach. I feel it in the air, the summers out of reach. Empty lake, empty streets, the sun goes down alone.”

Hmm, seems like an -ish kind of day…

 

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