was bound to happen sooner or later. Ed and I grew up as teenagers in the 70s where the music of the times surrounded us. I was at a slumber party when I got my first glimpse of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. I remember riding a bus into town and buying my first record. It was a 45 rpm, Yellow Submarine with Eleanor Rigby on the flip side. I visited my grandparents and played it so much that my (usually mild mannered) grandpa announced that he had heard quite enough of ” yellow submarine, yellow submarine, yellow submarine.”
Ed remembers loading his record player before going to bed and and being “rocked” to sleep each night.
Something new came out around the time we went to college and we both outfitted our dorm rooms with the latest 8-tracks. No more worries about scratched or warped records or broken needles. Just pop in a cassette and you’re good. To this day there are still places in Carole King’s Tapestry that I expcect to hear the “click” in the middle of the song.
Thankfully, the 8-track craze was short lived and vinyl endured. As a young married couple, we joined a record-of- the-month club and began to collect albums from our favorite artists. We had an impressive turntable with gigantic speakers.
My faves: Seals and Crofts, Cat Stevens, James Taylor,Crosby Stills Nash and Young..Led Zeppelin? (how did that get in there..must be Ed’s)
Time Goes By….
and more important things required our attention…got jobs, became parents, bought a house. Our new home was equiped with a built-in cassette tape deck and inter-house sound system. The turntable and huge speakers gathered dust in our basement for decades. When we retired and moved across the country, we sold them in a garage sale. We could’t part with our beloved records, perhaps we were hanging on to the past, so we boxed up the ones we wanted to keep and they moved with us. We stashed the box in a closet.
But Vinyl Lives ON!
I blame our current Vinyl Mania on my son who recently purchased a turntable and began collecting record albums. One night a week, he hosts an “album night” where the TV , phones, and computers are turned off. Each family member gets to pick a song, or a side of a favoite record to play. On a recent visit, we saw this in action and had so much fun!
Vinyl Revival
One thing led to another. Back home, we took our long-forgotten records out of storage and spent an entire evening looking at the cover art and list of songs, sharing memories of each one. The records looked to be in good condition, so we bought an inexpensive turntable to try them out. Boy, did we miss our our stero set and speakers, but we figured out how to hook things up to our television sound bar. The sound isn’t great, but it’s a start. Then we bought a record-cleaning kit, and a wall display system for Ed’s office, and a record storage box, and of couse I had to get a little stand to display the record that was currently playing.
Ed’s Office wall display, mostly Beatles, one Stairway to Heaven
Accessories: player, storage cube, cute stool, and who’s in that picture?
Ed and I and friends at Abby Road Studios, 2018
The Music Lives On
Did we go a little overboard? Maybe. But I’m in the kitchen chopping a salad to go with tonight’s dinner and Elton’s voice floats in and before I know it I’m singing:
My Gift is my song and this one’s for you.
Threads of Thought
Ok, now it’s your turn. I want to hear your stories about your favorite song or album. What memories does it invoke? Leave a comment below (remember that comments are moderated, so be patients and it will show up, I promise). Or if you’re connected through my fb page, leave your story there. I know you’ve got one!
My writing group recently sponsored a contest. We were to come up with a complete story in six sentences. Submissions were submitted anonymously and voted on by the group. The stakes were high. David, the facilitator of the group offered to buy a cup of coffee (or tea) for each of the top three entries.
I love a good writing challenge and this one was fun and interesting. Each sentence had to carry weight, you needed to get the reader’s attention, and carry through with a story arc ending in a conclusion. All in six sentences. And what to write about? For me, the answer was written in the sky on a recent vacation to Orange Beach Alabama.
So here it is: Marry Me , a six sentence story by Debra VanDeventer.
Marry Me
From the shade of my beach tent, I see the plane that normally flies a “Bubba’s All-You-Can-Eat Shrimp” banner is now towing one that says “Will You Marry Me Lexi?”
Unlike the bronzed-buffed-beach guys on display in front of me, my husband wears knee-length swim trunks, a floppy hat and a long-sleeved shirt as he plays in the waves with our granddaughter. He’s not a beach guy, but he drug a wagon loaded with too much stuff across the hot sand and wrestled to set up the tent so I could relax in the shade. In the cooler, he’s packed my favorite lunch–a diet Coke and a ham-and-cheese sandwich–a recipe he’s perfected over our decades of marriage.
The plane makes another loop and I think how wondrous it is to find love written in the sky or in a perfectly made ham sandwich.
I hope Lexi says yes.
The Results?
Whoo hoo! Second Place out of 13 entries. Thanks David. Make mine a grande, two pump chai with almond milk.
Dedication:
This story is dedicated to my husband on the occasion of our 49th wedding anniversary we will celebrate this week. I’m so glad I said yes.
Threads of Thought
I love to take small moments and turn them into stories. With this mindset, a writer need only look around. Stories are everywhere! Try your hand at a six sentence story. Who knows? It may earn you a chai latte!
“Traveling, it leaves you breathless, then turns you into a storyteller.” -Ibn Battuta
This is the quote that launched my travel-themed month of July on my Facebook page. Now that the month is over, and I have traveled over 4,500 miles (according to Ed) from Arizona, to Indiana, to Atlanta, to Orange Beach AL, back to Altanta and back to Arizona, I would like to amend the above quote to read:
“Traveling, it leaves you tired, and sunburned, and sandy, and five pounds heavier..and then it turns you into a storyteller. -Debra VanDeventer
I’ll admit, it felt good to unpack my bags in my own cozy corner of the world, back into my own bed, my own shower, my familiar foods and routines. To plant my feet on ground that wasn’t moving at 75 mph down an endless highway, hoping a bathroom was coming along in the near future. Why did I ever leave home in the first place? Well, may it’s because….
Travel Makes Memories
When I’m back in Arizona on a blazing hot summer day, I recall the quiet, shade of my family’s lakeside condo in the midwest, or the taste of an Aperol Spritz in Taormina, Italy.
When my granddaughters call to tell me about the first day of middle school or high school and I know summer is over and I miss them terribly, I remember sunset walks along the beach and gathering with family for fireworks and fourth-of-July bratwursts in my daughter’s backyard.
Or maybe I travel because…
Traveling turns me into a storyteller after all.
Battuta was right. One can’t travel without collecting stories. And for those of us who are writers, it’s our job to go out and gather stories and bring them to life, to bring attention to things that others may pass by, to cause our readers to stop and think or smile or make a connection. This is my passion. So then…
Why do I come home?
Frances Mayes in her book A Year in the World: Journeys of a Passionate Travelller calls it “The Riddle of Home.” She has made a life of travel, yet still desires home, the place where everything connects. I can relate. Home is where I ground myself, gather my thoughts, process my wanderings, snuggle in my favorite chair with a cup of tea and a good book, work on a sewing project, watch a perfect sunset over the mountains, rest, re-group. Write.
So for me right now, I need both and as long as I’m able I will travel and come back home and repeat the cycle often. (in fact, I’m heading out on a California road trip next month-stay tuned) Thanks for following along. You inspire me to do what I do. Happy Trails!
“Travel far enough and you meet yourself.” – David Mitchell
Threads of Thought
Why do you travel? Where have you been? What stories do you have?
Author’s note: As I was typing the title of the Francis Mayes book, I noticed she spelled Traveller with double (L) I have been spelling it with one. Who’s right? According to my research, both. Double L is the UK standard, one L is the US English standard. Interesting. Would any of my UK followers care to weigh in?
Last summer, my husband and I took a cross-country road trip with our granddaughter. A “Decade Trip” to celebrate her first decade of life. For a ten-year-old she proved to be quite a savvy traveler. Here are some things I learned from Lillian. You might want to keep these tips in mind the next time you are on a road trip:
Packing For Your Trip
When packing for your trip, create “outfits” including a tee shirt, shorts, and underwear, and roll them up together into a bundle. That way you can just pick up a bundle and , voila, you are ready to go for the day.
Glitter and chetah prints are always in style and go with anything.
At the Hotel
Ask for an extra room key. They make good souvenirs and you can put them in those little slots in your wallet (in case you are not old enough to have credit cards) Since you move faster than your grandparents, you will be in charge of unlocking the door when you get to your room.
Line up your toiletries on the bathroom sink so you won’t have to dig around to find them in your (cute) Vera Bradley cosmetic bag.
Take all the travel size soaps, lotions, and shampoos from the hotel and put them in your cosmetic bag for the next trip.
Be sure to check out the coffee maker in the room. Its annoying if they only have coffee packets, but you can always go down to the breakfast area and grab a few tea bags and some cream and sugar packets. It’s not necessary to drink the tea once you’ve made it (it usually tastes like coffee anyway), but you want to experience all the hotel has to offer.
“Traveling-it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” -Ibn Battuta
I was gathering stories on a recent cross-country road trip. Here are three short ones for the road.
Story #1 Boubon Water
We pass this iconic water tower each time we go back and forth to the Midwest. NO, it’s not full of Bourbon, though it seems to be a bit tipsy. The water tower is no longer in use, but still stands as an often-photographed novelty. So what’s up with this? I googled as we drove along:
Bourbon, Missouri, population 1,946 is on I-44 (old rt. 66.) It claims the distinction of being the only town in the United States named for bourbon whiskey.
When the railroad came through the area in the 1850s a settlement sprang up. A man named Richard Turner established a general store on his property to serve the needs of settlers and railroad workers. He imported barrels of a new brand of whiskey called Bourbon, and placed one large barrel labeled “Bourbon” on the porch of his store to advertise. Soon, the railroad workers were calling the new settlement Bourbon. The name stuck.
I wonder… If Mr. Turner had placed a crate of potatoes on his porch, would the town be known as Spudville? Tater Town? It just wouldn’t be the same….
