A Simpler Time

I listen to the radio a lot.  It is usually on in the house as I go about my day.  It is always on in the car.  It always amazes me how a song can bring back such vivid memories.  Smells can do that also - a certain perfume that I wore in college will always remind me of that time.  The smell of lily of the valley and lilacs always reminds me of playing in the front yard of the house where I grew up.  The front of the house faced north, and in the northwest corner of the house there was a square flower garden where we had rose bushes, irises, a bleeding heart bush (I just bought one of them and plan to plant it on the north side of my house), snow on the mountain, and lily of the valley.  We had three lilac trees in our yard right next to the long gravel driveway.  A light purple one by the road that went past our house, and another light purple one and a white one further up the driveway.  The white lilac tree was tallest, and it had a branch on it that I used to swing from when I was very little.  I actually have a picture of me swinging from that branch.  How I cherish that picture.  

The other day, as I was driving around town, I heard an old country song "Happiest Girl in the Whole USA" by Donna Fargo.  Immediately, I was transported back to a cold winter morning when I was little.  Mom would bundle me up in a blanket and sit me at the kitchen table where she would serve me chocolate Malt o Meal and milk in my favorite white mug with red roosters on it.  I have the mug packed away somewhere, and it just dawned on me that maybe the mug is the reason I recently decorated my kitchen in roosters, and I love it.  

I would sit at the table early in the morning, and a small white radio would be playing the local AM radio station music.  There was nothing spectacular that ever happened that stands out in my memory, but it is that wonderful, drafty old house, and my Mom, and the feeling of love and safety (for lack of a better word) that I remember.  Funny how after all the things my parents did - road trips, county fairs, presents at Christmas - it is the smallest, most ordinary things that I treasure about childhood.  

And so, this video is dedicated to my parents.  They were (as my father would say) "solid as Sears", and they always made sure that I had everything I needed.  And they have provided me with a lifetime of good memories that I hold close to my heart and think of often.