The two main floors of our house are all hardwood; the basement is carpeted. We hoped to have the hardwood refinished in all the rooms save one (younger son's room which was never cleaned out when he moved out), but one thing or another then bam! pandemic and waiting a bit longer. Right now, it is scheduled to begin on July 20. The husband, family pets, and I will be retreating to younger son's cabin north of Richmond. There is no Internet there nor is there a cell signal. Lest my regular readers despair, I do plan on continuing to write daily posts. I just may or may not get them posted online until we get home after a week or so. There is cell signal in the parking lot of a church about a mile down the main road, but I'm not sure if there's also wireless there. We'll check in nightly with older son at an hour to be determined.
All that was to explain why I am currently in the process of packing things. We have to empty the house of, well, everything. It is all going into the space that I cleared out in younger son's room earlier this week, the basement, the two bathrooms on the second floor, or the garage. I am sorting through things as I empty cabinets or drawers in pieces of furniture that will need to be moved. Some things get kept, some get thrown out, some get donated, a process I shall repeat as I unpack in a couple of weeks. I am finding some interesting things I had forgotten I had.
In a small Moleskine notebook, I found some notes I wrote down when I went to an annual meeting of the Virginia Association for the Gifted back when I had a kid (I can't remember which one, but it was probably younger son) in high school. One of the presentations I attended included an Advanced Placement English teacher discussing how she filled the several weeks of school left after her class had taken the Advanced Placement exam. She had the kids do the soundtrack of their life, for real, on a CD including liner notes and cover art. She said the kids loved doing it and were definitely challenged. That's the sort of unit all teachers aspire to, right?
Needless to say, I immediately began to think about what I would include in a soundtrack of my life. I have come back to this more than a few times in the intervening years. The first note I made was a very general one: "Songs that I remember from specific periods and listening to or, songs that, to a lesser extent, reflect who I was in certain periods?" I ended up with a (too-long) list that included some of both categories. If it's TMI, you can skip ahead, but for the first time, I'm going to share the songs I listed way back then.
From "childhood": Moon River (Andy Williams), Red Roses for a Blue Lady (Vic Damone), I Left My Heart in San Francisco (Tony Bennett), Be Kind to Your Web-Footed Friends (Mitch Miller), Puff the Magic Dragon (Peter, Paul, and Mary), Flowers Are Red (Harry Chapin), Where Have All the Flowers Gone? (Peter, Paul, and Mary), If I Had a Hammer (Pete Seeger), Daydream Believer (Monkees).
From "high school": Long and Winding Road (Beatles), Your Song (Elton John), Imagine (John Lennon), Jean (from The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie), Cat's in the Cradle (Harry Chapin), Tangled Up Puppet (Harry Chapin), If (Bread), Danny's Song (Anne Murray).
From "college": Old Black Water (Doobie Brothers), Loving You (Minnie Riperton), Five Hundred Miles (Bobby Bare), Skyline Pigeon (Elton John), I'm Easy (Keith Carradine), Sometimes When We Touch (Dan Hill), I'm Not Lisa (Jessi Colter), You Tell Me that I'm Falling Down (Linda Ronstadt), Jean (Dan Hill)
From "grad school": All Along the Watchtower (Dave Mason), Against the Wind (Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band), Mr. Bojangles (Nitty Gritty Dirt Band), The Marvelous Toy (Peter, Paul, and Mary), Two Out of Three Ain't Bad (Meat Loaf).
From "later": Memories (from Cats), Dreams Go By (Harry Chapin), Come Monday (Jimmy Buffett).
That's what I wrote down the first time I thought about it way back when. I could add some more recent ones, but I don't feel like doing that much introspection right now.
But, what would go on a soundtrack of the pandemic? Fortunately, I do not have to decide, since googling "pandemic soundtrack" yields a wealth of entries. Some of my favorite entries on some of the lists (plus a couple I added on my own) include Always Look at the Bright Side of Life (Monty Python), the theme song from Sesame Street, What a Wonderful World (Louis Armstrong), I Will Survive (Gloria Gaynor), School's Out for Summer (Alice Cooper), We Gotta Get Out of this Place (Animals), We Didn't Start the Fire (Billy Joel).
Should I try to explain any of all this? Nope! I'm just going to hope I left you with at least one earworm.
2 comments:
Pandemic playbook song suggestions (I think you intend uplifting/happy songs):
"Top of the World" (Carpenters) always comes to my mind when I want to be happy.
I might also add "Don't Worry, Be Happy."
Elementary school: lots of show tunes and Mitch Miller. My high school playbook includes (beyond the Beatles) Beach Boys songs, specifically Good Vibrations; Dancin' in the Street; My Girl; Turn Around, Look at Me; Theme from Romeo and Juliet/Love is Blue. College: add Moody Blues and Jim Croce. 70s (post-college, no grad school for me): Four Seasons' December 1963 (oh What a Night). And G. played a lot of Led Zeppelin so I grew to like many of their songs; our shared fav LZ song is "Ramble On." For me, the 80s were a blur (raising kids!) and I didn't like hair band music, so nothing there. Since then? Classic Rock; i.e., reliving the past.
When I thought even the littlest bit about it, I seem to associate my childhood with Spike Jones songs. My dad's influence, absolutely. Broadway tunes are also interwoven throughout, from Guys and Dolls, South Pacific, My Fair Lady, Sound of Music.
This is an interesting challenge--that teacher was brilliant!
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