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Seeing as I didn’t want to attach any significance or ranking to these posts, I guess letters came close…
Setting The Way Machine to the mid to late-1980’s……………………….
Saturday mornings, Mom would wake up early to go work at Silo (think Best Buy but in browns and yellows, circa 1980’s, microwaves as large as a countertop).
Dad would do his paperwork for the week and we’d listen to records. For you youngings, “records” are pre-iPOD, pre-CD, Pre-Cassette and Pre-8 Track.
Some mornings, we’d hop in the Chevelle- Green on the outside, lipstick red on the inside- and drive around to garage sales.
Usually I’d get a toy of some kind and I don’t really think it’s that we were looking for anything in particular, it was a chance to get out and spend time together.
Pretty much whenever I hear Van Halen or Yes, I’m transported back to driving around Buffalo, hand out the window, letting the wind move my hand in the current with the faint smell of what what was most likley a gas leak.
These trips would usually culminate with a trip to Mighty Taco, Anderson’s (ice cream) or TCBY.
1) A long long time ago (VERY pre-Steve) (say around 1998) when this song first came out, I had just become involved with a new (yet typical) romance.
In fact, I had met this person like two days before I moved into another county. Figuring that things wouldn’t work out, I opted to go on another date with him.
Months later, we’re still dating and I stay over at his house until 4 or 5 in the morning (as I had to drive over an hour to get home and then go to work). Surprisingly, we never (ever) have sex. Really. I mean it. Never.
I’m crazy over this guy, have needs of my own and frankly, while it sounds like something I guy would say, I am tired of things not going anywhere.
So many frustrating nights/mornings, I drive home in the dark listening to Bobcaygeon.
When I hear the song, I still tend to think of Pascal (that was my car’s name) and those long drives home.
2) Steve likes The Hip. We see The Hip. A lot. We’re at a show (was it Boston?) and this totally plastered woman is hollering at her date.
“I’ve seen The Hip like, 100 times and I’ve never heard them play Bobcaygeon!”
Steve and I look at each other knowingly. The Hip almost ALWAYS plays Bobcaygeon; I don’t think she impressed her date.
3) At Hip shows, he seeks me out in the crowd and holds me almost as close as he does to “Ahead by a Century”.
Used to be that The Beatles landmark recording, The White Album, would send me into a catatonic state. (in a bad way).
I have some pretty nasty memories associated with The Beatles in general (as is with the Eagles and Beach Boys) and just listening to them would make me very pensive and quiet.
On the way back from Michigan, XM played the medley of Golden Slumbers and I sung along while Steve slept in the passenger seat. I was surprised that I remembered as many words as I did.
Even though Golden Slumbers isn’t on the White Album, I put it on my iPod anyway. Plus, I’ve had Helter Skelter stuck in my head for weeks now.
Nano gets plugged in to detract from “Big Girls Don’t Cry” and while listening to disc 1, I am filled with new memories.
No longer am I afraid and cowering. The songs take me back to summer, Steve and I listening, no shoes on in the grass, playing catch, chasing Bailey around the yard… instead of filling with apprehension, I am filled with happiness.
Oh, this is nice.
It has been an odd couple of weeks. It seems as though things/ideas from the past are making more appearances. Perhaps I just never paid attention to them or there really is a flourish of “I used to…”
I certainly hope this isn’t one of those Christmas Carol things were I get shown the past, present and future. If my dream last night is an indication, then I’m going someplace warm and leave Bailey in the car (she was okay, don’t worry).
Last week I had a conversation with my friend about concerts. I had done a pollstar search to see who’s coming to town. There are a few shows coming up that I was excited to see (Sick of it All, VAST…) but they came with a set of concerns. 1) I don’t want to go alone and no one I know is into the bands I would go see. 2) I don’t have anything to wear to the type of show I would go see. Petty, I know. 3) An 8 o’clock start with a couple opening bands puts me back home really late on a work night.
So this conversation evolved into the people that we used to be. We could/would stay out until all hours, we’d go see shows all the time, we dyed our hair very unnatural colors…. you get the gist.
“But aren’t you happier, at least a little, with who you are now?”
Yes, though we wonder what kind of sacrifices we made to be the people we are now. I know that Stephanie from 10 years ago would probably definitely sneer at Stephanie Now.
Last night, I was at a party and I FINALLY got to talk to one of the other girls from ballet class. We talked about how we grew up in the city (that would be Buffalo, not New York). And now we look at our lives now and wonder what happened. She didn’t think she would get married, she didn’t think she would have a kid and she didn’t think she’d be living where we are. I totally relate. For a long time, I didn’t think I was marriage material (be it the moodswings…), I was hellbent on not having kids (ever) and I’ll be damned if I live in the suburbs and drive an SUV.
She told me that she still runs into her first passionate love and while she still wonders what life would have been like, she knows that things are SO much better now. “And seeing him [the first love] made me fall all the more in love with my husband.”
There’s only a two people I can think of off the top of my head that if I were to run into I’d probably be floored, but I would go home and hold Steve tighter then usual.
Sure, like everyone else, I wonder what it would be like if things had gone otherwise, but I think about the reasons that things didn’t work out and I realize that this is the way it was meant to be.
The other reminiscent thing is that I’m pulling out some of my old CDs and putting them on my iPod.
Some songs alone conjure up so many memories- specific memories- about times, places and people.
Funny, isn’t it, how a chord can take you back fifteen years?
I’ve decided, that like everyone else, I am going to start posting Musical Memories… Songs and Albums that make me think another time, another place.
So, whoever’s reading this, have you noticed an influx in the past making appearances in the present?
Peeps is sayin'