Songs of Summer

I just read about this blog hop “Songs of Summer” which is hosted by Armchair Squid, Suze, and Cygnus.  I subscribe to Arlee Bird’s Tossing it Out, and I saw this splendid blog hop when I got my email update of his blog this evening. I hope it’s not too late to link up, because I think it’s awesome! For the blog hop one is supposed to post 5 favorite summer songs and share some memories about them.  I love this idea because I think music has one of the strongest connections to memory! So here are my five:

 

Circa 1978 – That summer I remember riding around in my mom’s giant coffee-colored Catalina, going to the “summer arts” program for kids at the Civic Center. It was hot in New Mexico, I don’t remember what month it was, probably August. At the Civic Center I had several “classes,” like art and drama. I remember making one of those drawings where you cover an entire piece of vellum-type paper very thickly with different colored crayons, and then put black india ink over the whole thing. The “drawing” appears when you scratch different designs into the ink and the colors show through. After that you put it in a mat and hang in a window…I thought it was a very cool project. What I remember most vividly about that summer, though, is the smells of the art classroom, the tempera paints, the crayons, the wood…delicious! Back then I hadn’t yet learned that I cannot draw to save my life! I had a drama class too, and I remember that there were these two sisters there with very unusual names,  whom I found to be exotic and beautiful, and they were so good at acting! I admired them both, I think one girl was my age and the other a couple years older. I must have gone to high school with them but we weren’t friends because we came from different junior high schools. I myself was not good at acting; I think all I did was to recite Lewis Caroll’s “Jabberwocky” and paint the sets. The other part of that summer that I remember was my mom’s 8-track tape collection, which included such greats as Simon and Garfunkel, Anne Murray, and Neil Diamond’s Hot August Nights. So here’s one I like from that tape. I can still hear in my head where the track switched and made that distinctive “click-click”…

 

Fast forward to 1984: Jon Bon Jovi was every teenaged girl’s DREAM!  I had a girl friend who loved Bon Jovi too. We were into his music (not to mention his super-awesome hair) before it was cool in medium-sized New Mexican towns. I remember calling the radio stations making requests for this song, and they didn’t know who he was…yet! It didn’t take too long before everyone knew! We used to go over to each other’s houses on the weekends, and sometimes one of our older friends with a car would let us tag along to go out and “cruise the Sonic” which used to be the cool place to go on the weekends, to play your music loud and to see and be seen. Truth be told, my friend V and I weren’t truly that cool. V was kind of a “bad girl” and I really liked that. In reality, she wasn’t all that “bad”; she was just able to dress the part. She was a sweet girl and a good friend. Being 14 and hanging out with her was a lot of fun! In 1986 when I had my license and a huge 1976 Chevy Nova (don’t get jealous, it was the 4-door “Concours” version, not the cool 2-door one), we were still listening to Bon Jovi. Also Def Leppard and Whitesnake…big hair was a theme back then. We drifted apart after that and by the time I graduated from High School, I had a different set of friends for the most part, and was listening to totally different music. I never lost my taste for Bon Jovi though. The guy was totally hot!

1989 – The first summer I spent away from home. Oh, that was some summer! I had my own apartment with a friend, and a job, and a boyfriend. Nothing but trouble, that combination! But in any case, I remember this song. I remember this song and the smell of Old Spice, which said boyfriend probably “stole” from his dad. Unlike my friend V from High School, this guy really was a “bad boy” and I am thankful I left him behind rather quickly. Things happen so fast in college. One year, I was dating this guy, and only a couple of years later I met the man of my dreams. My husband. I am so thankful that God was watching out for me back then, even before I was a believer. I still like the song, though 🙂

It’s funny, but I don’t really associate music with my husband too much. I love music, pretty much all music. But it’s never been something we really share a lot. He likes his stuff and I like mine. We share some likes, but our Spotify accounts are completely different! But this song, this old song from the 70’s, was the song we danced to at our wedding in the summer of 1992, and I know it’s one we both feel a kinship with.

And finally, this one’s pretty serious, but it’s what I remember from my first summer at my current job, working in California, and from the first summer that I was really a Christian. This song can still bring me to tears.

Oh, boy, my “summer play list” is not the standard “fun in the sun” stuff, is it? Sorry about that. So just for fun, I will add a “bonus track.” Something just for fun! I still love Cyndi ❤ Don’t forget to visit all the others on the list! I’m sure there are tons of great summer songs to be discovered on this blog hop!