Tag: 50’s music

Music Is My Memory Trail

(Author’s note: If your soul is rooted in music as deeply as mine, grab your earphones and reading glasses, if needed, and let me transport you with me to places in my past.)

“ I believe in teleportation and time travel,” he said taking a sip of his Old Fashioned. It was Friday and we were at a speakeasy watching bluegrass. I wasn’t sure I heard him correctly. 

“ Not in the sensational way, mind you. But in the way a waft of a certain perfume can take you back to childhood, or a song can being back a flurry of feelings you felt long ago.  Isn’t it strange and wonderful how our senses can give us context of the present, but transport us to the past?” 

He whispered to the bartender who came back moments later with a mint julep identical to the one he introduced me to when we first met….orange twist and all.

“Here. Close your eyes and take a sip of this.
Tell me…..where does it take you?  

Aromas and music are the two triggers that can transport me back in time.  Big band music  takes me back to my early childhood and our Sunday family outings to The Lotus Restaurant in Washington, DC. 

Rock and roll and the music of the 50’s bring me back to my high school days when we wore pony tails and bobby socks and the worst thing the boys could do was smoke behind the building or drink beer in the coal pits. 

Georgetown and  great jazz  wisk me back to my college years where we would spend our nights listening to Mose Allison or Dave Brubeck.  I can still smell the mixture of cigarette smoke and scotch that filled the crowded clubs lining the narrow streets in Georgetown. 

My child rearing years and the small tube radio that I always had on in the kitchen comes to my mind every time I hear Billy Joel and his romantic take on life. I was always dreaming through my humdrum life while being transported to somewhere beyond that kitchen and piles of dirty laundry by Billy.  

Now that I’m older and have Alexa in my life, I can be transported to any era of my life by just asking.   Transporting has never been easier! 

Copyright Sandra Hart 2017 

If I Were Only Eighteen Again

I’m in love with the guy who is painting my house. Well, not in a ‘Love’ love way, but in a sort of “if I were only 18 again” way. When I saw my painter balancing two stories high on a ladder with a paint can held by one finger, I was convinced painting houses was just his hobby. There was no doubt in my mind that on his ‘real work’ days he was in the ring giving a slam dunk to his WWF opponent.

Three men could inhabit his muscular body and there would still be extra room. His biceps are bigger than my husband’s waist and the dark hair on his head is even bigger. And the most attractive asset of all, he is young. What more could a woman want I fantasized while loading the dishwasher for the millionth time, my B-12 pill melting on my tongue without water because the dishwasher hose was still attached to the sink faucet. And never mind the herbal conditioner that was aimlessly dripping down the side of my neck from underneath my shower cap and onto my robe. The Rock, or whatever his name, was painting my house.

What caused me to begin to lose my Sassoned white head, you ask? Well, it all started when my husband sourly suggested he was becoming unnerved by listening to my classical music all day long and immediately put on a couple of rock CD’s by his favorite artist, my son. Emerson does create great music, but the soothing sounds of violins and cellos somehow help carry me through mundane tasks of the day.

I’ve always categorized my life in music phases: The Four Aces, Bill Haley and Elvis represent my adolescent memories; Johnny Mathis, Montavonni, and Peter, Paul and Mary my baby-raising years: Kiss, Springsteen, Buffalo Springfield and anything else my three teenagers played at mega-decibel levels represent my ‘whatever’ years.

And now, this seemingly useless information I’ve just shared with you about music tastes, segues us back to The Rock who is painting my house. I really didn’t fall in “love, not really “LOVE” with The Rock. I fell in love with the dichotomy between his physical age and appearance and his taste in music.

All day long, The Rock listens to his portable radio he never has more than five feet away from his ladder. And the music that filters through my windows brings me back to my teenage life. To my amazement, music of the 50’s is the music that makes Rock’s heart beat. It is his taste in music that I love.

And it is his music that makes me feel alive again by sparking anew the excitement of finding teenage love in a time once lived.

When his work is done and The Rock and his radio drive down the road, I’ll miss the journey his music has provided. So in the end, I guess it’s not all about youth and muscles or The Rock’s plentiful hair. And it’s not about painting either. It’s about comfortable memories and the ability to dream in your fuzzy slippers.
©Sandra Hart 2012