rarely opened up
memories filled drawers
follow forever

I wrote the other day about my room mate, Doug, who in college put much effort into creating cassette tapes of his favorite songs.

Doug got in touch with me to let me know, he still had those tapes in a shoebox somewhere.

Understand, these tapes were created in 1983.

Hard to believe, but almost 40 years ago.

Since then we had moved out of that apartment in Ann Arbor.

Doug took a job and moved to Washington, DC, got married, moved several more times and now lives in New Mexico.

And this shoebox moved right along with him.

A shoebox filled with memories.

In the corner of my workroom (now filled with Grand Kidz toys) is an old dental tool cabinet that belonged to my Grand Father,

It’s old drawers are packed full.

Packed full of memories.

Randomly open the drawers and you might see:

A number 13 pool ball that sat on my desk when I worked at WZZM13. The pool ball is one of the original set that came with the pool table my Father bought from old pool hall in Grand Rapids.

A baseball stamped ‘OFFICAL BALL MIDWEST LEAGUE’ that I got at a West Michigan White Caps game when a player during warm ups in the outfield got tired of the drunken bums razing him from the bleachers and he turned and threw that ball at them. My son Frank says to me, “I didn’t know you could get a ball that way!”

A bunch of wooden show pins with the kids name wood burned onto them that we got at the Dutch Village.

Keys to old locks.

Along with assortment of photographs, knick knacks, birthday cards and bits of history that themselves are keys to locks on old memories.

Understand that since getting married, we have moved about 10 times with a move from Michigan to Georgia added in.

This stuff is still there.

Most likely a lot of will make the next move as well.

I am getting to the age where my memory isn’t what it used to be.

About myself, I used to quote the line from Citizen Kane, “I remember everything that ever happened to me. That’s my curse.”

But not anymore.

No control over that.

I do have control over the memories stored away in drawers.

I will keep those as long as I can.

carpooling commute
driving to work with Ludwig
Where does the time go?

Wandering down the information superhighway, I came across a folder labeled “Complete Beethoven Piano Trios”.

I downloaded the folder and added the contents to my iPhone and forgot about it.

Commuting to downtown Atlanta everyday and back home again, I yell at my phone, ‘Hey Siri, play music!”

Siri answers, “Playing all songs, shuffled.”

These Beethoven Piano Trios showed up in the mix.

I had never heard these pieces before that I was aware of.

Where had this music come from?

It was like finding a book from a favorite author that had never been published.

They may be great.

I don’t know.

They are FUN to listen to.

That I do know.

Energy, excitement flows from the music into my brain.

I can’t say I know much about music or music theory or what makes great music.

I have little to no musical talent of my own.

I have no sense of rhythm.

I do know what stirs my soul.

I do know what brings myself into a piece of music.

I don’t care if its Beethoven, Ellington, Le Vent du Nord, Queen, Allman Brothers or Earth, Wind and Fire.

I know when I hear it with my toes so to speak.

Which brings me to marvel at the availability of music today.

I doubt there is a piece of recored music that isn’t finger clicks away from my ears.

Back in the day, Doug, my college roommate, would create cassette tapes of his favorite music.

To get some of his favorites, Doug would call radio stations request lines and ask for certain songs.

Then he would set up a tape recording of that station and wait, poised like a tiger, to leap and hit the record button when (and if) the song played.

Through this method and recording songs from records and other tapes, Doug would create a library tape of favorites.

The funny thing about this is that our refrigerator was on its way to dying.

Every once in a while it would kick on and as it started, the compressor or whatever would falter and all the lights in the apartment would flicker for a few seconds.

If the stereo system was on, a loud bbbbbwaaaaaaaaaaaappppppppppp, would come across the sound system.

Somehow, this interference would also end up on Doug’s tapes.

We could be making one of this never ending trips back and forth to home from Ann Arbor with one of Doug’s tapes playing Styx or REO and without warning we would hear bbbbbwaaaaaaaaaaaappppppppppp.

BUT I DIGRESS.

Beethoven’s Piano Trios.

Unexpected find.

Unexpected music.

When they are over, its 20 minutes later on my commute.