“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 951 (Monday) – music memories

Music used to be a big part of my daily life. Thanks to the constantly changing technology including my current vehicle with no CD player, my music collection now lives in bags, boxes, a malfunctioing iPod, and the hard drive of an outdated Mac desktop computer.  At age six, love of classical music began when I started ballet classes. Dad was a DJ when I was growing up and our dining room was dominated by a reel-to-reel tape recorder and Dad's music collection. He would play music and would practice his song introductions, and listen to the beginnings and ends of songs to ensure smooth segues between songs, avoiding awkward tempo changes or the biggest sin in his music playbook – dead air. 

Shopping bag of music that was
in the old car with CD player.

When I was in junior high school, he was the DJ at a couple of our school dances. Lucky me. Every awkward kid in 7^th to 9^th grade wants her father to be the entertainment at the dance. Not really.

Throughout my life, music has marked chapters and people. My family’s home life had a music soundtrack and it was the Top 40, which Dad owned and constantly updated on vinyl. The radio always played in the car and there were constant pop music quizzes – “Who sings this song?” Every time I am faced with a major life change with a relationship, job, or relocation, The Clash's Should I Stay or Should I Go is suddenly everywhere.

Mummu bought me Broadway musical soundtracks and tickets to Boston theaters when musicals came to town. She sang along to music from the 20s, 30s and 40s when I was young, and stray lines from very old music still randomly pop into my head. “Five foot two, eyes of blue, oh what those five feet could do. Has anybody seen my gal?” and many others are solidly linked with Mummu’s kitchen and her small, red plastic transistor radio. Sunday with the Pops played while she cooked our dinner and  I twirled and practiced ballet.

Mike, Mike, Mike.

Guys I liked in high school and college are forever linked in my brain with Bruce Springsteen, Bob Seger, and Southside Johnny. A guy I dated briefly in high school and again after the divorce from Ex 1 shared his love for the movie It's a Wonderful Life. He also introduced me to the band  Del Amitri when we did the Denver – Worcester long-distance relationship thing for a while. During that romance and for many years after it had quietly imploded, it seemed that every time I shopped, and especially in a TJ Maxx, Del Amitri’s Roll to Me played on the sound system and I would think of Mike. 

Tonight, Roll to Me played on the radio as I drove through the hometown we are both from. It was like Mike was right there with me, on our dates in the public library after school, at a bookstore in Denver and my class reunion in Fitchburg where he knew more people than I did. He died in 2012, and it was nice being musically reminded of him, while at the same time feeling sad missing him.