These are random musings of my life journey, the people, animals, places, and events which have woven, and continue to weave, a tapestry that is me. We all know there is no real destination, only the ongoing experiences which blend together, creating the trail. Each step gives a glimpse of what is to come, without allowing me to see the end result. It is exciting. I have a home base that is mine, that gives me a place to rest. This is it. This is where my heart is, no matter where I journey...................

Friday, April 01, 2011

Satellite radio bring 60 year old memories

I have satellite radio in my truck. I love it. Living in the mountains, it is often hard to get a signal for any AM/FM stations, so Sirius rocks in my life.  I also like that I have such a broad variety of choices in what I can listen to. My choices are even greater than they were when I lived in Kansas City. Music, comedy, talk, sports, traffic and weather (although they don't have a station for Nogal or even Ruidoso!).

The last few days I've been listening to the '40s station. That might be unusual for someone my age, because the pop music we tend to listen to is from our teens and up through some stage of our adulthood when current music begins to sound like a bunch of cats in a cat fight. I was born in 1944, so the music of the 40's should be "before my time." But I love the big bands, the romantic ballads, the jazz and blues of those years.

The reason I like it is probably because, well, I was the youngest child in my family. There were three teenagers in the house by the time my memory kicked into gear, so the earliest music I recall is that decade and some of the music from the 20s and 30s that my mom sang and played. I remember dancing around the house as toddlers do, always to Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey or Lionel Hampton and Lena Horne.  Vaughn Monroe was a popular singer, and Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holiday always sound good to me. These days I enjoy the music and the memories it brings to me.

In these last few days I've also given some thought about the content of the songs. One from the WWII era is "When the Lights Go On Again (All over the World," and it continues with lines about all the boys will be home again, and a kiss won't mean goodbye but hello. Ships will sail everywhere again and there will be weddings and hearts will be happy. It made me think of how different attitudes were then.

Another one I heard was "Give me Five Minutes More." He's singing about five more minutes in her arms, and he reminds her that she can sleep in on Sunday. A sweet love song, but what it brought to my memory is that, if you notice, she can't sleep in on Saturday. In those days most people worked  six days a week. It was pretty routine. A few only worked a half day on Saturday. I remember that when my mom went back to work I was around 7 years old and she was working in the office at JC Penney's*, six days a week. A few years later she went to work for the Ford dealership in our town, and she was so happy that it was just five and a half days! Today, the majority of us work just 5 days a week, and we spend the two days on the weekend trying to figure out a way to get out of a couple days of work next week!

*A fun memory of that job of Mom's that most of you won't remember and will probably chuckle over:  The office was upstairs and had an open window that looked out over the store. All the money was kept in that office and the door was locked. When someone sold something on the main floor, they took the customer's money, put it and the sales ticket into a container similar to the ones at the drive up window of banks. But there were no suction tubes that pulled it to the office; it was hooked onto a line, the clerk pulled a cord and it carried the container up to the office. Mother would make the change, mark the ticket paid and return the container with change and ticket to the clerk. As I child I was very fascinated with the process, and Mom let me pull that cord a few times to send the container whizzing down the line! It was a fun time!

Times have changed.  A lot. I have good memories of "back then," but I have to admit I like the conveniences and technology of today, so I don't want to go back.

Now .... tell me a long-ago-memory of yours.

8 comments:

  1. I came here after answering another blog and thought I would stop in. Since you asked, the other day I was reading an old romance novel (just for the fun of it) and a woman in the novel was using a bowl of water to sprinkle and then roll clothes and set aside for ironing...boy did that bring back memories. I don't even iron much these days.

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  2. Well Lyn I'll tell ya, I wasn't even around in the forties yet it is one of my favorite and most often listened to station on Sirius! I think I enjoy it so much because it was generally happy music, uplifting.
    It had to be because of the times. People didn't want depressing!
    My husband is forever listens to the old radio shows.
    I also like Coffeehouse. It's all acoustic and I love it.
    When you described your mothers job it sounded familiar to me. I must have seen something like it in a movie. Yes we love our Sirius too!
    Love Di ♥

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  3. What wonderful memories, Lyn, and as someone born in the same year as you, I really relate to them. I think it was because my mum was only 19 years older than me so she was constantly playing her songs and humming along. I just picked them up. Re the travelling money thingy, I remember quite a lot of them in shops we visited. Sometimes they were pulled, sometimes it was the slope and others were a kind of whoomph of air in a tube. Great fun.

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  4. What fun memories!!! And yes you are right...even though I only work 5 days a week I am always trying to come up with a way to make Monday the new Sunday.

    I also love listening to music from the 70s even though I was too young to really appreciate the music. I used to dance around the living room every time the song Dancing Queen came on.

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  5. Tabor, thanks for your visit! I'm old enough that I certainly remember that. When I was young, we didn't have any fabric that didn't need ironing, and even our jeans had to have a nice sharp crease! These days, I'm wearing mostly natural fabrics these days (cotton, linen, silk, hemp) So I am doing a little ironing. I really don't mind it, though, as it's not like the old days of sprinkling, rolling, waiting till the moisture penetrates through the fabric, then ironing. Thank goodness for steam irons!!

    Di, Sirus is just the best, isn't it? One day I may even invest in in for a radio in the home, too. I like that my TV service (DishNet) has many of the stations included in the package, but I don't get many of the stations that I'd love to have while I'm doing house work.

    Love you back!

    Freda, yes, wonderful, for sure. My siblings were not much younger than your mum .... older by 13 years (twins), 11 years, and 7 years. So I got the best of several decades of music reference. Mom from the '20s and '30s; the older three in the '30s and '40s; the youngest brother in the '40s and '50s, then my/our own generation in the '50s and '60s. And I love all my music!

    Caroline, I'm in the process of considering lengthening my work day so I can be off on Friday! We hare hopeless, aren't we? chuckle!

    I can see you doing that, little Dancing Queen!! That is such a danceable song, anyway!

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  6. The first music I remember is songs by Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. They were my heroes when I was little.

    I got Sirius radio free for several months when I bought my car but did not renew it when it expired. I use my iPod in the car and listen to a mix of classic rock and current music.

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  7. I don't want to go back either but manual operations always worked when today's whizzy machines often don't.

    The music you mentioned is definitely part of the classics, still great today and better than a lot of the stuff kids produce now.

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  8. Oh I am from the modern generation and I so LOVE the golden oldies! I love the ballads, the jazz, and everything in between! The lyrics were so simple and catchy yet they mean so much! And don't even get me started singing golden oldies on videokes! Oh I love the old songs!

    I like what technology brought today, we just gotta catch up with the times and cherish the years that passed by.

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If you have something to say about it, just stick out your thumb, and I'll slow down so you can hop aboard! But hang on, 'cause I'm movin' on down the road!!! No time to waste!!!