Country Squire

Country Squire, Ford 1966

I know that even if I could acquire a Ford Country Squire 1966ish and drive down Jamieson Avenue playing, Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling Again, I could not force the past to come rushing back fresh and new. I know that. But it seems like just the recipe, doesn't it? Maybe if I wore green striped seersucker shorts and Keds and got a pixie haircut? We are a little closer to time travel, I read this week.

I was not a big fan of this song at the the time, but it was on the radio quite a bit in 1971, and now, I find many songs that I never went out to buy when they were popular, make me happy when I hear them. I'm pretty sure the staff in the nursing home will have no trouble keeping my ass happy. In the car-culture of the USA latter half of the 20th century, car radio is a prominent groove in the collective cerebral loop.

Maybe if I drove out Watson Road to Luigi's for pizza, that would trigger the space time continuum in my favor, just for one afternoon. My mom would sometimes get us pizza for dinner from Luigi's. They were a proper restaurant, but you could order pizza to go. Thin crust, square cut, delicious. I loved the Martini glass signage, and going inside with mom to pick it up. Restaurant meals were a rarity for us as children, and it was a bit thrilling being inside the cool air-conditioning of Luigi's, smelling the manicotti and spaghetti sauce and garlic bread. 

It wasn't just the catchiness of the songs on that radio, joyful in and of themselves, but the topics for exploring they brought to mind. I think Donovan's, Atlantis, created a turning point in my mind's exploration that eventually led to studying religions in college. I was old enough to go the library and get books about topics that interested me. Astrology, palmistry, magic, ancient civilizations, karma. Music took me places just as that old Country Squire did, and further than Watson Road. Or across the Ohio River on a ferry, for every summer vacation in the 60's and early 70's. Long road trips have etched and paired certain songs with emotions and memories forever in my mind. For instance, my mom driving, Uncle Bobby beside her, me, my sister, and baby brother in a travel cot in the backseat of that station wagon, lost in the mountains of Kentucky at Christmas time in the dark of night with only the glowing dashboard and occasional decorated house lights to let us know we were still on a map. Somewhere. Getting lost in the middle of the night with a baby probably put a stopper on any further winter trips for my mom.

This song was playing as I looked up at little shacks lit up with Christmas lights, aware that we were lost, and wondering if we'd have to climb the hillsides for help, or breakfast, and if we'd run out of clean diapers. I was in awe of the beauty and the strangeness of our situation, and slightly afraid.  This song helped in a strange way. (Neil describes this song, interestingly, I think... because I experienced it as he describes it, at age 11)

Closer to home, I remember a friend of my mom's asking if I knew the song she liked...she didn't know the title but it had a banjo. I said yes I do, and I loved that song, too!! So she gave me the money to go buy it at Famous Barr. I came back with the wrong 45, alas, not differentiating between a dobro guitar and banjo sound (which I'd heard plenty of from watching the Porter Waggoner show with my grandfather) but simply lumping them together as being "countryish" and maybe thinking Mary was just thinking it was a banjo. I thought she meant the current CCR hit which I did indeed love. Instead she had this sweet little song in mind....which I also still like to hear. Funny story, oh my gosh, about this woman, my mom's dear friend Mary... looking at this album cover I see the title is Against the Grain. Mary used to charmingly mix it up in the figure of speech department. She would sometimes say... that really goes against my groin! I can see our car parked outside her house filled with children - 5 of them, while mom and Mary chatted and smoked and had coffee and we all played and imitated tv show stars.

The song she wanted.

I should have known better, but in the rush to please her I grabbed this 45 instead.

So all the remembering of the songs, the people, the times. I think we all go through this in our lives, reflecting, if we're lucky enough. Or maybe I'm just meant to be a rememberer. A liver in the past. Ha!

Hoping your memories contain enough joy and music and the occasional cool car to see you through these days.

~Oldgirl