Take Me Back....Please.

It is a day of house work for me today. I got up early and made coffee and began my morning chores of sitting on the couch with the dog curled up next to me, keeping her warm and sipping my morning beverage. That was difficult. Next came the real work of the day. I gathered up all the trash from the bins and cans and bagged it all and sent it to the outdoor receptacle via my Wife, who was headed out to the
Studio. Next was the really important job of washing up all the dishes from breakfast and making me something other than Grapenuts with bananas. I decided on curry rice with steamed eggplant and Italian herbs and spices. Yum! About the time I sat down to eat and listen to a discussion of galactic energy bursts which might effect us, I heard a rap on the front door and so I got up and went to investigate. It was my neighbor, Steve. He had a disc he burned for me of music off an album he had purchased on eBay. It was Cricklewood Green by Ten Years After. I happen to love Ten Years After. I remember their performance at Woodstock. It was energizing back then and still is today. Every time I hear that great old Rock music, I think of the proverbial "Good Times" of my youth. I guess I remember only the Good Times and forget the Bad Times. Isn't that the way it should be?

Anyway, as I sat and listened to the CD play, I realized that I had not heard these songs before and I did not know the titles. I quickly grabbed my iPhone and pulled up the App called Shazam. What a great marketing tool that little App is. It listens, identifies, and allows you to purchase the song on iTunes if you want. I use it often to identify songs and the performers and the album it is off of. There it was, Cricklewood Green. It was difficult at times to find those songs. It always happens that about the time the song is about to start and Shazam is listening, my old dog barks a couple of verses of her own. That always throws the identification off. I guess Ten Years After never had a lead singer, who was an old Terrier/Wiener Dog mix, recording on their albums.

Those were the good old days. Man, what I wouldn't give to have those days back. No responsibility was required of me other than making good grades at school and delivering prescriptions to little old ladies from our local Pharmacy. I did manage to also work as a Surveyor's helper, mapping out boundaries of large ranches and farms in our County and surrounding counties. Oh, and occasionally, I had to mow a lawn or two here and there. Oh, I do remember I was just becoming interested in girls. I did date a bit, but not too much. I had college coming up soon and I knew I would be tied up with higher education for the next five years as I pursued a career in Pharmacy. Yes, those were the Good Old Days.

Gosh, I guess everyone has a period in life that you think back on as the Good Old Days. Having grown up in Texas, my idea of Good times might be different than yours. Oh, I had friends that were a bit wild and crazy in their own right. I was a bit timid and tame compared to some. My concept of fun usually involved the outdoors. I fished and hunted and hiked and explored the great outdoors as much as I could. I loved archeology and so I did my own minuscule research and exploration when I could. We had plenty of evidence of Indian settlement all around my hometown. After a rain, you could head out to Bend Texas and walk the peanut fields and look for arrowheads and ax heads in the sand. They got plowed up and brought to the surface and the rain uncovered them. What a gift they were to find. I also loved fossils. I grew up at the bottom of an ancient shallow inland sea which had covered Texas. You could find all sorts of things in the limestone and rock deposited there. I knew several good fossil hunting spots where you could climb up an embankment and literally walk through time. The oldest stuff was always on the bottom and the new stuff on the top. When the urge came to go fishing, I had lots of places to choose from. My favorite was Sulfur Creek. I could walk there whenever I wanted to get away and explore some really wild places. When I was a kid, I spent hours on the banks of that creek. I knew every trail and rabbit run from the water plant to the last farm that would allow kids to fish. I knew all the owners of the land adjacent to the water. I knew all the depressions and holes and cool spots to rest. I knew all the old fencelines that had barbed wire hidden in the tall Johnson grass. I knew where to find cane or long hollow stemmed grass stalks or wild mint or water plants where the fish hid... I knew that creek like the back of my hand. I knew when to duck and hide when the golfers rolled up on the other side of the creek. I knew just the right moment to yell, from cover, "Fore", just as they were mid swing. Whack.......the ball might end up in the tall grass on the my side of the creek for me to find later. Oh, that was mean. I will have to pay for that sin later at Judgement. Well, how could you fault me? I learned that from my Dad. He would take me with him in the Summer to patrol power line right-of-ways in Llano county. Part of the power line ran adjacent to a large golf course. He and I would be zipping along, headed to a substation and if he saw someone about to make a swing, he would grab the microphone on his radio and put it on P.A. mode and yell...."Fore" as we headed over the next hill. I bet Inks Lake is full of golf balls lost due to our little prank.

My best friend back in those days was Ed Jackson. He and I went everywhere together. He was my fishing and hunting buddy. I have to admit, he was a better sportsman than I was. He could catch a fish out of a hole quicker than you could cast a fleafly. He was a better shot than I was with the shotgun. He was taller and stronger and more intelligent than I. But, that did not matter, I enjoyed his friendship and always tried to be a little better because of him. Perhaps that was not a part of the Good Old Days. I did not like the competition and comparison, but it happened none-the-less. He was the first to get a car. It was a hand me down from his brother, but it was wheels. That is how we got to explore the Colorado river at Bend, Texas. It was about 20 miles out to the river and so when we became mobil, our territory expanded greatly. We could be found anywhere in a 40 mile radius of Lampasas. The world ours to conquer and we had no fear of doing so.

And, a big part of life back then was music. We had our tunes which went along with us everywhere. If it was not the radio playing great old songs, it was our 8 track tape player. Man, we had it made. I remember that I owned a RCA 8 track tape player and a sound operated light show. Groovy. You could put a song on and turn on the light box and it would go nuts flashing to the beat of the music with different color lights. Wow Man! I mean that was far out. The music and the writing and the dreaming were a big part of my life. I would write at night and then put on a stack of records on the record player and put my old telephone headphones on and turn out the lights and dream of far away places and interesting people. Those were the Good Old Days. I had dreams of a world that shared the treasures of knowledge and art and music and history with everyone. No danger. No hatred. No lack of brotherhood. You and I were equal. You and I were the new generation, not so interested in blowing each other up as our elders. Those old wars were their wars. With Viet Nam behind us, it was time to convert the world into a better place. The Peace Corp was a novel idea, sending out goodwill ambassadors to the world. We wanted nothing in return except friendship and betterment of all mankind....right? I think I might have been a little too sheltered in the reality of the world...but it was possible as was anything else in those days. I had dreams. I had good dreams....and hopes....Man, those were the Good Old Days.