2024 Monday — Soundtrack of My Life

Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley & His Comets, 1955, is a tune that takes me to the living-room of my first home. Mom loved that song and would put the record on the player. I loved it. I was in kindergarten. Years later that song would resurface by Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers; instantly I was transported to my childhood living-room, but the song turned into a double memory when through the sound system at a Tucson, Arizona, pizza joint near the airport, Jive Bunny's song blasted as Mr. Fun & I enjoyed the savory pepperoni that was covered with warm melted mozzarella and we were on a “date” weekend far from home.

In 3rd grade we must have been enjoying some kind of a talent show in the classroom when one of my classmates lip-synced to the Big Bopper's Chantilly Lace. He had my complete attention. I'm not sure that I had ever heard that song, but when I hear it now, I'm immediately in that elementary school classroom.

About a year after my mom and stepdad married, my little brother was born. Quickly it seemed, he became a toddler following me and my big sister into every room in our house. My sis and I were rapidly moving toward adolescence; we each had our own tabletop radio and we listened to KFWB or KRLA in Los Angeles. One song that both of us girls loved was Sad Movies Always Make Me Cry. We listened to the song often (we must have owned the 45), our little toddler brother learned the words and he would wander throughout the house singing the song even when it was not being played on the radio or our record plabyer. Now days I rarely hear the song, but when I do in my mind's eye I see that towhead baby brother and hear him singing.

As a fully adult woman, I was pedaling a tandem bicycle with my husband on a 2-week journey from San Francisco to our home in SoCal. This was an organized ride with approximately two dozen bicyclists from throughout the States and even one from Canada. A good friend of ours, Mitch, came with us on the trip. He and his wife had not yet purchased a tandem bicycle so he left her home and phoned every night to tell her of the fun we were having and that she was missing. He was an amazing baritone singer and occasionally during those 14 days sang to us as the three of us pedaled close enough to shuck and jive and sing the miles away. As each day brought us closer to home and the end of an unforgettable odyssey that adults rarely partake of, we found ourselves pedaling Main Street in Ventura and pointed toward the pier. All of a sudden Mitch started singing Greenback Dollar by The Kingston Trio. We were high on life with the ocean breeze cooling us as we neared our afternoon destination. And of course the words of the song whenever I am in earshot of them carry me to Ventura and the highway and a summer vacation when we all decided to pretend we were kids again.

Well, if I continued to tell this tale of songs I'd include the Beatles Eight Days a Week, the Righteous Brothers You've Lost that Loving Feeling; Carole King's It's Too Late Baby; Sonny & Cher's I've Got You Babe; Jackson Brown's Running on Empty (& Shape of a Heart); Carly Simon's You're So Vain (& Like a River); Loggins and Messina, Doobie Brothers, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Eagles, America, and on and on. Music has filled our lives and is woven in and out of our years of marriage. We seldom turn on the TV. When we were young we wore the needle off the record player; now we pull music out of any device possible. We create crazy fun playlists, and sometimes we talk lyrics into our sentences.

Good Night, Sweet Dreams.
Rosie (& Mr. Fun), aka Carol
and Chloe & Mitzi too!