Like this young man dancing on the piano keys below, I wish I had the freedom that youth allows, to create magic. I feel like time has taken some of that away from me. That is why I like watching my grandchildren so much. To see them explore and create freely. Without too much thought, without delay, without preconceived parameters.
At the FAO Schwarz store in NYC. Photo by Mike Hartley
It’s still inside me. Just pushed down by the weight of time. That magic that just gets you working with abandon. I’m going to work to unleash that again.
So, if you see me dancing down the street on my imaginary keyboard just smile and say he found his mojo.
A post called To Be or Not to Be – answered the question posed today – When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I just reread it and recalled a few more memories from that young age. Some of it difficult. I have a lot of trouble remembering some of my early years. I wish I could figure it out. I’m not sure if the troubling memories keep overriding other positive ones or what it is.
5 years old was probably the year I started hanging out with Rusty, Billy and Brad because we had just moved to the neighborhood the year before. Sports, bikes, playing in the woods and games were our common thread.
To be honest, I don’t think any 5-year-old knows what the hell they want to be other than having fun with friends and being part of a family. I know I liked to play baseball a lot then and remember having a bat that was too big for me.
Found an old photo I guess my mom snapped of me looking into a huge mixing bowl or the washing machine.
Ah to be young again. I still feel young in mind. At least when I push all the bullcrap going on in this country and people around the world to the side for a few moments of mental health.
With snow in the forecast Sunday, I think back to the day when I was just a little older than above and in our first home. I lay in the middle of our backyard making snow angles at night. The quiet and beautiful sky above is still clear in my mind.
Go Navy. Photo by Mike Hartley
Another memory from my early youth is one of my parents being so excited about the Army-Navy game. This takes place this Saturday and I’ll be pulling for my parent’s team GO NAVY. There is a huge chest with pictures, and I remember some of them from being at the Army Navy game when it was played in Philadelphia in the 1950s if my memory is correct.
A line in the song Aqualung, by group Jethro Tull I heard this morning, “Do you still remember”, and the answer is YES, I remember. The days when you had to go to the box office to get tickets to concerts. Sleeping out overnight at the Capital Center or Merriweather Post Pavilion for concerts like Led Zeppelin or The Eagles or The Who. Or one of our favorites also Jethro Tull.
We didn’t pay any convivence fee, or delivery fee or parking fee. But we did get some damn good seats at some concerts. They did set limits on how many you could buy but I think it was something like 10 per person because I can recall 2 of us bought close to 20 for one concert for all our friends.
Ah, what great experiences, both the purchasing process and concerts. Sleeping out overnight on concrete or in a car.
The days when both your hands were in the air because you were clapping or playing an instrument or both while singing along. No phones recording the whole concert. Your mind recorded it. I think that is why the hair on my neck stands up for some songs still decades later.
Music has and always will be an important element in my life. The enjoyment and inspiration it brings have been immense. The emotions and feelings some songs hold, and grip me like a hug.
Concerts were and still are this great shared experience with others who hold those lyrics, notes, beats, and choruses in reverence. It’s one of the great unifiers in our universe. The SONG. They cross any land or ethnic barriers.
My tickets from the early 70s are so faded you can’t see details without a magnifying glass. Photo by Mike Hartley
Random Thoughts of the Morning
I guess it’s time to think about taking the decorations down. I like the thinking about it part more than the doing it. I’ve thought about it and I’m not starting today.
That cold wind this morning is going to test my patience today.
Some places have a 2-drink minimum. I have a 2-mile minimum on the treadmill per day. I exceeded that 2-drink minimum many times as a youth. No need to re-live that element of my hard charging days.
It’s not that I don’t care or feel about the nasty events that happened on New Years Day. I just have to compartmentalize life because that crap goes on every day around the world, sometimes in larger numbers or many smaller ones but it’s there in our faces every day. I have to live and stay positive and work to change it for my children and grandchildren.
