I have, on occasion, been accused of being in touch with a youthful optimism and attitude to go along with it. I think this is a good thing. I have been told the aged axiom “You’ll always be a kid at heart.” I think that is true. In fact, I think that is true of most of us.
It just works out better for some than it does for others. I have known kids that seemingly had the weight of the world on their shoulders and nothing I could do or say would alleviate the weight and…the burden…they seem to be carrying. A day like that is a sad day for me. I have been there. Some of these times and looks on kids faces that I wish I could rid myself of haunt me. They do this because I still care about them. What I would not give in this age of social media to find out what is REALLY happening to some of those I have lost track of. A few of them have found me recently via facebook. I finally relented and created a real page with posts and pictures and all that. In earnest, I have already “unfriended” a few folks. I am not a fan of vulgarity. I still think we should, as Mr. Spurgeon, my elementary principal, would say…BE NICE!
Even these images and bits of wispy truth don’t tell much of a story…until it is convenient and proclaimed as the gospel someone wants to latch onto however misguided. Facebook isn’t worth much…unless you are Mark Zuckerberg.
I am listening to something that keeps me young as we speak the rights out here on the back porch. Huey Lewis. Huey makes me feel like a kid. Sounds keep me young. Memories of sounds keep me young. I was never the greatest fan of music videos. I still mine through them now and again when I record them. 3 hours might render two songs I will sit and watch and listen to. Bob Seger was against videos, if memory serves. I know I heard him say once that the individuals imagination was where the best videos were created. He was right.
There is a tune by a group called Moving Pictures (not to be confused with the RUSH album by the same name). I think Moving Pictures was a Canadian group. Anyway, they had a song called “What About Me?” on their 1982 album called Days of Innocence. I never once heard that song on Louisville Radio. In 1982’s Top 100 Countdown on New Year’s Eve on WLS 890-AM The Rock of Chicago the song was ranked as the #8 most popular tune in Chicago. We can’t even imagine something like that happening now. Chicago is 300 miles away. That song might as been 30,000 miles away from the main-street market in my back yard. Looking at the world in front of me…with this computer….I feel like that was another lifetime. So why do I still feel young again?
I remember mowing my parent’s yard with a push mower singing that song to myself as a video played out in my mind. The bulk of the action took place in Columbus, Indiana at The Commons Mall which is now defunct also. The hero was a desperate character looking acceptance as the song suggests…What About Me? I would sing and mow the yard and play the drama out in my head and hope that after the sun went down that night and the 50,000 Watts of WLS came wafting into my window and my JC Penny stereo that song would find a way to be played in my square bedroom.
The intro to the song is unmistakable. It still stirs me up. It does something crazy to my soul. The song…well…I still like it, though it is mot quite as thrilling as it once was. Truth be known, I have not heard it in a while. I think I will…now I must go the the music library shelf in my home office and find it and give it a spin. I will imagine there is some static…and it is playing in mono…and I will know that for a few minutes I was 14 or 15 again…but this time I came home today and the yard was mowed and I didn’t have a thing to do with it.
Enough of this. I am heading to the music shelf.
Speaking the rights…
Danny Johnson