by jphilo | Apr 16, 2013 | Top Ten Tuesday
Saturday morning, I was driving to a speaking event when NPR broadcast a story about a newly released John Denver tribute album, with songs performed by current popular singers including Dave Matthews, Emmy Lou Harris, Josh Ritter, and Olde Crow Medicine Show.
I sure wish the man of steel, who thinks I don’t like music much, had been along to see the tears streaming down my face when the radio host played several John Denver songs popular during my teen years. Those songs evoked such strong memories of my older sister (who I thought knew everything) describing this new folk singer she said I would love, of dancing to John Denver songs at high school sock hops and college dances, and of our kids singing along to the John Denver and the Muppets Christmas Album.
The radio story got me to thinking about my favorite John Denver songs and resulted in this top ten list.
10. Lady, My Sweet Lady–My friends and I usually went stag to high school sock hops and spent a lot of time imagining slow dancing to this song.
9. Rocky Mountain High–Many of you might rate this song higher, but I love prairies more than mountains.
8. Leaving on a Jet Plane–We thought deeply significant thoughts while singing this song in tenth grade chorus.
7. Thank God I’m a Country Boy–The lyrics make me think of my dad.
6. Merry Christmas, Little Zachary–This one tugs at my parent heart every Christmas.
5. Follow Me–Yes, about every other wedding from the 1970s used this song, and musicians got tired of it back then. But now, the song makes me think of the people in those weddings, and I like that.
4. Sunshine On My Shoulders–Because sunshine on my shoulders does make me happy.
2. Annie’s Song–Because of our daughter.
2. Country Roads, Take Me Home–Because of our son.
1. Grandma’s Feather Bed–Because my Grandma Josie shooed her grandkids to the basement where we slept in a bed almost as crowded as the one in the song. We didn’t get much shut-eye, but I wouldn’t trade the good times and good memories for a full night’s rest.
What are your favorite John Denver songs? Why?
photo source
by jphilo | Mar 21, 2013 | Three Thoughts for Thursday
Sis, me, Cousin Nell, and Bro (partially hidden) a few years before the Remsen Pool days
- I heard Yummy, Yummy, Yummy, I Got Love in My Tummy on the radio yesterday. It took me straight back to childhood, dancing to the tune with my sibs and cousins in the Remsen pool in the 60s. Suddenly, I felt young again.
- But the Remsen pool is gone now, along with most pools from my childhood–the Le Mars Public Pool, the pool in our junior high school, and the one at church camp. Suddenly, I felt very, very old.
- But then, the radio announcer said yesterday was the coldest first day of spring since 1965. So much for the good old days and the present. I’m gonna’ look forward to the future and warmer days ahead!
What are you looking forward to today? Leave a comment.
by jphilo | Mar 11, 2013 | Reflections on the Past
The man of steel and I are on a roll. Not only are we making progress on the sexiest remodeling project ever, but we also finished recovering the table and chair set last used eons ago during my childhood. Never mind how many eons ago that might be.
The important thing is that the original cracked and moldy red vinyl (circa 1957) has finally been replaced. The table top and chairs are all spiffed up and looking good thanks to:
- My mom’s refusal to let the sibs and me “play rough” with table and chairs or take them outside, which explains why the original white paint is in excellent shape.
- Mom’s decision in the 1980s to replace the vinyl on the table top and seats, but quitting halfway through the job. (She recovered the table top, but shoved the original chair covers and the remaining vinyl in a plastic bag.) So the set never was banged or dinged by her five grandchildren.
- The birth of our grandson, which prompted my decision to haul the set out of our attic, where they’d been mouldering since Mom gave up housekeeping in 2009.
- The man of steel, who helped with the project, doing all the stuff that made Mom abandon the project. (As I would have done had the man of steel not been around. Fitting the vinyl around those itty bitty corners and stapling them in place was a two person job!)
The table and chairs set look so good, they’re already in use as an end table in our living room and easily accessible to the pint-sized crowd. In fact, a two-year-old visitor to our house took them on a test drive. He discovered that the same piece of apple pie his mommy tried to feed him as he sat on her lap is magically tastier when feeding oneself seated at a kid-sized table.
This child-sized table is magic, a discovery I made eons ago as a child–still no need to disclose how many eons ago that might be–a discovery that skipped my children’s generation, and one we want our little grandson make during visits to grandma and grandpa’s house.
Because childhood should be full of magic, and grandparents are tasked with making sure it happens. Which means it’s time for me to stop blogging and start searching for fairy dust. It’s in the attic somewhere…
by jphilo | Dec 10, 2012 | Reflections on the Past
Hiram and I had a hard time getting excited about decorating the Christmas tree. Maybe it’s because we don’t have kids at home to turn the chore into a magical event. But this year, if we hadn’t been hosting our extended family’s holiday gathering, we might not have put it up.
Call us Scrooge and Scroogette.
We had to divide and conquer to get the job done. I unpacked and placed other decorations in their traditional spots around the house while Hiram put up the tree and strung the lights and garland. Once he was done, I hung the ornaments.
Call me a perfectionist.
I hung the straw angel, given to us by my closest college friend on our first married Christmas, and the calico ornaments I made that year for our Charlie Brown Christmas tree. Then came the satin ball from our first grown up workplace, the now defunct Sky Ranch for Boys. Next came treasures our kids made when they were young: paper cup bells, construction paper wreaths, wooden frames around kindergarten pictures of Allen and Anne.
Call me sentimental.
After that were ornaments from former students, souvenirs from our visit to Alaska when the kids were 12 and 6, the funky retro Old Navy ornaments Anne and I found on clearance when she was in high school, and gifts from co-workers at Bryant School, the elementary building that was torn down a few years ago.
Call me blessed and thankful.
Finally, I opened the old shoebox and unwrapped the antique ornaments Mom divided amongst the sibs and me when she gave up housekeeping. Fragile glass balls she and Dad bought in the early 1950s. Even more fragile baubles she inherited from Dad’s parents about the same time. Trinkets I placed high on this year’s tree to keep them safe. Treasures that brought to mind the stories Mom told about their owner, the grandmother who died before I was born, as we decorated the Christmas tree each year of my childhood. Gifts that led to a change in my attitude and my name for Christmas trees.
I call them memory trees.
by jphilo | May 14, 2012 | Current Events, Reflections on the Past
NPR ran a story about an intriguing concept this morning. The host interviewed Taylor Jones, a 22-year-old who created the website www.dearphotograph.com. Here’s what Jones, in an article at www.npr.org says about how the website came about:
He came up with the idea last year while sitting at his parents’ kitchen table. While flipping though a family photo album, he stumbled across a picture of his younger brother, Landon. “It was his third birthday,” Jones says. “He had a Winnie the Pooh cake, and I was sitting in the same spot my mom was when she took the original photo.” Landon was also sitting in his same birthday seat. So, Jones held up the old picture — taking care to line up kitchen cupboards just so — and snapped a photo. He posted it on his blog, and the rest, he says, is history.
People can go to the website and submit their own photographs, all of which must begin with the words Dear Photograph.
Like I said, an intriguing concept. So intriguing, I started thinking about what picture I would like to rephotograph in the same setting as it was originally taken.
- One from our South Dakota days? Too far away.
- A wedding shot? Too unoriginal.
- A Kodak Instamatic shot of the Badlands from the famous camping trip with my uncle and aunt? Not sure where that one is.
- Something from my teaching days? No, they tore the school down.
Undecided, I opened iPhoto, and there was the scan of a newspaper clipping we found when cleaning out Mom’s house 3 years ago. The clipping records one of my earliest clear memories – the day my aunt took her two daughters, my brother, and me (I’m the one closest to the camera) to watch a parade in our home town. I don’t remember the parade as much as the newspaper photographer who shot the picture. I do remember how safe I felt with my aunt, how much help she said I was, what a big girl I’d become. Heady stuff for a middle child whose major talent at the time was tripping over her own feet.
The caption says 8,000 spectators watched the American Legion Parade that day in 1961. It also lists our names, ages, and the address of the corner where Aunt Donna found a quiet, shady spot (Central Avenue and Fourth Street SE) so we could watch the National Guard trucks rumble past.
Mom and I are going to visit Aunt Donna in a couple weeks. Maybe I’ll take the original clipping along, find that street corner, line up the clipping with the present day location, snap a picture, and submit it to www.dearphotograph.com. I know what to write beneath my submission.
Dear Photograph,
Fifty years has taught me it’s more fun to join the parade of life than to sit and watch it go by.
Jolene
