Much Ado About Nothing – August 17, 2022
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Music – a link to our past
Sometimes, when I’m shooting a ballgame, I like to put my earbuds in, crank up my favorite playlist and just tune out the world – it’s something I’ve done since I was a child.
I did just that Saturday morning when I was shooting the JFL game. As I was walking along the sideline, a song came on from the early 90’s that literally made me stop in my tracks.
Not that I hadn’t heard the song in a long time, because I hear it all the time, but at that very moment, it suddenly hit me that were it not for that very song right there – I would not be where I am today. I mean, I would not be here, in Carrollton. I would probably be still in my old hometown. That song led me down a path that I otherwise probably would have never taken.
While I won’t get into the specifics of that – because it is kind of personal – it got me to thinking just how much music does influence our lives – my life especially.
From the time I was knee high to a grasshopper, I have loved music. I can remember my mom having a big old console stereo in the bedroom and I would sit right next to the speaker listening to Donny Osmond records when I was probably eight years old. I think I must have had all of the Osmond’s records at one time, and then when cassettes came out I had all of them too.
Ah, yes, the good old cassette. Who remembers those? Who remembers Casey Kasem and the Weekly Top 40. I lived for that program every week. In fact, I taped all of my favorite songs off of there. You might say I was “ripping” playlists before ripping was cool, LOL.
When the Sony Walkman came along – I thought I had died and gone to heaven because I didn’t have to lay in my room to listen to my favorite tunes – I could take them on the road – on my bike or on foot. I usually chose the latter. I would walk for literally hours on end, lost in my own little world – a world inside my head – inside the music.
It was a world where I could be anything I wanted to be – a Disco Diva, on the dance floor dancing to “Jive Talkin’” or “YMCA” or even “Shakin’ My Groove Thing” – something I would never, ever dare do in real life. In other words, I could be my “alter ego” or the person I secretly wished I could be. That confident person not afraid of anything or afraid to do anything or say anything.
It’s sad, I know, but it got me through those awkward junior high and high school years.
As I grew older, I became a little more social, but my association with music remained the same. Certain songs bring back such strong memories.
For example, the song “Roll With It” by Steve Winwood. I remember that song playing late at night – like 1 a.m. when I was working in the dark room at the newspaper when I was editor at the Christopher Progress in 1988.
I had that song cranked up so loud, partly because it was pitch black in the building and I was kind of afraid with it being so late and all, but I was really rocking it out. I have no idea why, but every time I hear that song, it takes me back to that very moment in time. I can still see that dark room and me standing there waiting for a photo to develop. The building is gone now, but the memory will last forever.
Same way with the song “Physical” by Olivia Newton John. With her recent passing, that song has come to mind a lot lately. I used to hear that song every single morning before I went to school. I would sit in this big black leather rocking recliner we had and just listen to the music and transport myself to my fantasy world for whatever time I had before I had to go to school and enter that world that I would really rather not be in.
Going back in time, back to Jr. High in fact, while all of the other kids were outside playing, I would hide in the library between the reference sections and listen to my music. I was, and really still am, very much a loner.
I was always the last kid who got picked in dodge ball – the one no one wanted as their lab partner. I don’t think it was because kids were necessarily mean – I think it was because I was so shy that I never gave anyone a chance to really get to know me. Therefore, I escaped into my music.
My 40th reunion is coming up, although they really haven’t set a date for it yet – thinking about Labor Day I think, and I really want to go.
Why? I don’t know. I guess I’ve changed a lot – I’m not that fat little butterball anymore. I’m still poor as a church mouse. I can be quite chatty at times – something I never was back then, but I’m afraid I’ll get there and transform into scared little shy rabbit I was 40 years ago.
I’ve been listening to music from the 80’s on Spotify – best darn money I ever spent on that subscription – and boy does it take me back. Each song they play I can almost picture myself in a certain time or place.
Every time REO Speedwagon’s “Keep On Lovin’ You” comes on, I can see my English teacher performing that song on piano for the talent show.
It was my crush on this English teacher that led me to take Spanish II to get out of second hour English, which was where all of the smart sophomore kids were put because it was taught by Old Lady Snyder and I didn’t want her. I wanted the other teacher.
So, I suffered through a second year of Spanish so I could have fourth hour English – now that is a crush. Unfortunately, my junior year I had to suffer through Old Lady Snyder, but she retired after that year and the other teacher moved into her position. That meant I changed my schedule around and took four years of English. That’s right folks – I am the writer I am today because of my high school crush.
And to think, all of these memories were stirred up because of a song…that, my friends, is the power of music.
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■ Carmen Ensinger is a pet-lover and a reporter for River County News – Better Newspapers.