This was a day for reminiscing. I've been writing my memoirs (that was one of my New Year's resolutions) using the weekly prompts that Miriam's been writing up on her AnceStories2 blog (which are fantastic by the way!). I'm one week behind so today's topic was My High School Years. I've put off writing this installment of my memories because quite frankly I could write a whole book on my high school years... I knew it would be a long writing session. But the weather is absolutely frigid outside today (woke up to -4 degrees outside with a wind chill that was too nasty to even mention) so I had a good excuse to stay inside all day and write. Nice and cozy :-)I started off writing about the usual things; what high school I went to, what our school colors were, who my favorite teacher was, etc. After a while things went in a more personal direction. I put on my iPod and tuned in to some music from the early 70's when I was in high school. Next thing I knew I was flooded with memories... slow dancing to Led Zepplin's Stairway to Heaven, and the Beatles' Long and Winding Road. I remembered our class's theme song, We May Never Pass This Way Again by Seals and Croft and deciding not to go to the Deep Purple concert with all my friends because I had a final exam the next day. I played Smoke on the Water so many times while I was studying that night I might as well have gone to the concert.
Isn't it amazing how music can take you back? I was doing just fine with my memories. Then I put the music on and all of a sudden the memories had emotions to go with them. It was like adding color to a black and white photo. I remember having parties (lots of parties ;-) in our basement. I'd painted the walls with day-glo colors (I had a black light of course ;-) and I had several mood lights around. (My parents were pretty tolerant ;-) I remember playing Three Dog Night's Harmony and any one of my three Cat Stevens LPs (I had Tea For the Tillerman, Teaser and the Fire Cat, and Catch Bull at Four) at the end of the evening. For some reason those were always the last songs of the night at my parties. I remember listening to the Eagle's Desperado and America's Homecoming albums and thinking about visiting California. And I remember listening to John Lennon's Imagine LP and thinking he was an absolute genius. Then there was the Moody Blues, Grand Funk Railroad, Traffic, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Carly Simon's Anticipation and No Secrets albums... I had a lot of LPs ;-) Obviously the memories had a lot of music attached to them. What a nice day I had remembering the sounds of my high school years.
I didn't mention any of the music in my memoir writing today because I figure Miriam will probably have a prompt about the music of our lives somewhere down the line. But it left me in such a good mood I just had to share it with someone. And I also have to say thanks to Miriam because without her prompt I would have spent the day at the computer pulling my hair out writing html and css code. :-7
OK, so who else remembers all this music? Come on, raise your hands! I know you're out there!!! Did I trigger any memories for you?
