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Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Summer's memories

The first day of Summer.  The last day of school. It's days like this that make me want to be a kid again, with a summer full of adventure and carefree days ahead. Hot sunny days, long cool evenings, and a little thunder and lightning to liven things up.
  For me summer was primarily spent at the town pool, the town's social center back then.  Other than an occasional weekend (or the annual week long) at my Grandparents house at the Maine shore, I was either at the pool, at a neighborhood friend's house, or riding my bike somewhere in between. (no camp or grand vacations for me and my seven siblings)  Simple times.  Good times.
  There was nothing like those summers when I was 9-12.  Old enough to be independent (back then) and too young to have a job, girlfriend, a car or a care.  If you didn't find any change in the deep end of the pool, you could round up five bottles or cans and the 25 cents would get you a candy bar or a soda.  Life was good.
  Summertime and the livin was easy....
  Looking back I remember being anxious to grow up and experience all life had to offer. But looking back also makes me realize that in many ways (not all) that was a nearly perfect age and time, not exactly all downhill from there but, in so many ways it was a pinnacle of sorts.  (Coincidentally {or is it ironically}the rec area where the town pool was located was known as "The Pinnacle" {on Lover's Lane no less}).
How does that quote go?-if only I knew then what I know now...no, even better the line from the Bob Dylan/Byrds song-My Back Pages--I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now.


Just looked up some of the #1 hits of 1977 and had a few laughs....some definite classics like Rod Stewart's "Tonight's the Night" (didn't know for the longest time what it was the night for...) and the Eagles' "Hotel  California" but then there's Shaun Cassidy's "DaDooRonRon", David Soul's "Don't Give up on Us" and a couple of Andy Gibb's bubblegum classics.  A crazy musical era that was punctuated by disco (ABBA and the Bee Gees), country rock (Eagles, Glen Campbell), funk (KC and the Sunshine Band and Rose Royce) Soul/R+B (Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder), crap (Mary McGregor and Debbi Boone) and utter crap (Barry Manilow, Cassidy and Gibb).  Thankfully there were a few nuggets that still stand the test of time.
Here's the link for all the #1 hits of 1977 so you can look, laugh and reminisce for yourself...

Peace to the Planet....

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