I was born in the 50’s. I grew up in the 60’s. I’m now almost 70. I remember them well. All the rock groups. The Beatles came to Ed Sullivan. Oh how we were fascinated by them. The careless way they tossed their hair, the way they talked of love, while standing there on the dance floor. What little girl wouldn’t dream of that: a prince to carry her off. I saved the bubble gum cards, pictures of them on a boat in the Caribbean. Of course, it was all about Paul for me. I was 6.
Life raged onward and my sister and I were acting out the words of Marty Robbin’s “El Paso.” She did a very good job of seeing “the smoke from the rifle.” Then there was also “Running Bear.” You “dive” from “cliffs” into the raging river!
Then came the world of the radio. After growing up with my father’s twangy country music (we had one Beatles record and that was somehow lost in a shuffle when Mom and Dad brought out country!) The local station had some “regular” music. We had a DJ called Barefoot Bob Kinney. That was all we knew. Until my dad gave me an old radio, and I could get an AM station about 2 hours (by car) away. It played ROCK AND ROLL. Oh my! Skip WCHN with it’s Barefoot Bob and try to strain to get in a clear Syracuse station. In a world of the cassette, I’d sit quietly and when I heard a song I liked, Shh now, hit “record.” There was probably more static than anything else!
We would watch “The Monkeys,” and Rowan and Martin’s “Laugh-in.” The Smothers Brothers introduced us to our favorite groups and tunes. Ed Sullivan was still around. Sonny and Cher! These were our shows. While my grandma watched Lawrence Welk, we were all about the new groups coming in.
A trip to my Indiana cousin afforded us with all of her 45 rejects (she was older and was married now), and a Huge Montenegro LP.
I grew up. I was a college dropout, preferring to work in an office. Me and friends would go to bars where we could dance, they’d have groups from the local area, or as far as Utica sometimes. Disco was coming in and we all were “feverish” with Saturday Night Fever’s disco!
Let’s fast forward now to these days. I am nearing 70, and realizing the beauty of the groups I grew with on television. I am a YouTuber and I watch documentaries on these people. I read obituaries on my favorite characters, but that doesn’t stop me from finding the old black and white images and sound. This music is inside of me, it shaped and formed me. It was more than music, it was my romance. As I watch the life of the BeeGees, my heart breaks with Barry as he talks about the loss of his brothers. I not only watched them, I watch The Beach Boys, The Beatles, and then on to other musical groups and acts: Randy Travis, George Strait (oh how I love the whine of the fiddle on “Amarillo by Morning”). John Denver and Placido Domingo “Perhaps Love.” It melts my heart. And then Placido Domingo smiles and puts his arm around John Denver. Aww!
While we shouldn’t get carried away by music, there is a reality to life, I think we need to allow our imagination just a little bit of niceness, of beauty, of peace and love.
I need to go and “start a joke” in “Massachusetts” now. (Thank you Robin Gibb, for your life of music. You and the others have helped me to grow up in a lovely world where there are a few things that still can heal the heart.)
It's All About the Journey 
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