Memories, Life, Memorable Birthday Parties

I watched an old movie the other night, something I seldom do.  The movie was “The Way We Were” and what I found most interesting was the mini documentary that went along with the movie.  The most part that interested me most was the discussion of finding the right song.   They needed a song that would transport the viewer back to memories.  

                                                           Family Birthday Party!

The composer chosen for the job was Marvin Hamlisch and the wordsmiths… the Bergman’s.   They describe in the documentary their work to craft the perfect “vehicle” to set the mood.  They said the title, “The Way We Were” was wonderful all in itself, but that they had the first line originally “daydreams light the corners of my mind”.    When they presented the song to Barbra Streisand she changed… one note and one word, a word that became the most important change …  the word daydreams to “Memories”.

The song won the 1973 Academy Award for best song in a movie, a Golden Globe and became one of the songs of the century!   To this day I am sure many of us enter a little piece of reverie as we listen to it… since memories are a haunting part of our life; they are something that comes back to us …sometimes good, sometimes bad…sometimes happy…sometimes sad.

My memories seem to start in the  Spring, which is supposed to be a new beginning, a time of rebirth when the earth wakes from the sleep of winter.  The sap has started to run and the great giants on the hill have started to sprout buds that will soon bring leaves that will last until fall’s last call.  Added to this are my memories of the many summer days spent by the lake, by the glimmering water, with the brush of soft sand against my feet when I walked the shore dreaming of the future.  Never expecting it to be where I am today.

Spring for me brings both my best memories and my saddest memoires. 

My best are the many childhood weekends around Easter… since most members of my family shared April time birthdays.  Grandmother, grandfather, aunts, uncles, mom, dad, myself… these birthdays all turned into weekend parties, one after another.  Parties where everyone got together and cousins played at life.  Easter meant seeing some cousins from a long distance that came to the city to visit Grandma.  These were fun times to be sure.

Then things changed and I moved to the country where – ironically - all of the new neighbors shared April birthdays and the parties began again.  

Those times and people have all passed as well… and I am left here with only memories of them.  Lingering sad memories… as death end life.  In the past some of my best friends died on the three days around my birthday… and their memories though certainly fond ones, are wonderful… but they are sad.   They leave me with a feeling of being alone…. like sad memories all of my family who are no longer here.  

The wise man said that you can never go back… you can only go forward.  And so we must… we can only relive that past as “Memories” that light the corners of our mind.

The world, life today and a poem for those who have gone before!

As some of you might have noticed I was missing from blogging for a while.  Some of the reason due to illness, some of it due to not feeling like thinking about the crazy world we live in and the horror of our times.

Missing from our society is the rational day-to-day mundane parts of life.  We have media blasting us on all sides about politics, wars, fundraising, sports, supposed star personalities, new products to buy and things that really do not matter to a vast majority of the world’s people. To them, the day is made up of getting up…trying to feed, cloth, and shelter their families and themselves.

It is sort of disgusting to watch our modern entertainments such as music, videos and TV revolve around sex, nudity, absurd fashion, video games and media hype. Storage businesses are booming because we feel compelled to go out and buy items many of us cannot use or do not need,,, because we feel good to be able to buy things.

We no longer repair things we just throw them away and companies make items to be tossed or make things too cheaply or too complicated to repair.

So I settled back and tried not to think about anything…it worked for a while…but only a while.  So for a look back I decided to put history aside and post one of my latest poems.  It is not very good or great… but in a way, it is the history of how I feel about today, the world I am in and the people I have met, ... and those who have passed before.

So I will post this poem for Dianne Lodor, a dear friend and a tireless worker for Eaton and the Community, as well as one of original members of our history group.  I miss those who have gone before very much, and I am sure you have those you miss as well.... so this is for them and for you also... 

I hope you enjoy! View the video and note all of the missing people and perhaps yourself when you were younger in 1995.

Memories like cymbals clanging

In the empty corner of each room

Feelings left unfinished

Brushed aside to hide the pain

Of love

Time heals they say

But that is not so

It only deadens a heart grown heavy

With our life when filled 

With woe

It marks the channel of the oceans current

Changed by our tides ebb and flow

So out on this sea of life we sail

Not knowing the way wind 

May blow

Poems left for other lovers

Line by line written so

But memories prove unforgiving

In feelings that eyes do 

Not show

Life is like a bottle

Set adrift at evening time

The ride it takes only guided

By the moon and its

Earthly tides

With no control and no clear path

We wander shores of sand and sea

Always searching for love

And in the end finding 

Life’s realities

For all my Facebook friends, music & Gordon Lightfoot, "THANK YOU"!

Another week in winter…”Cabin Fever” has set in as I sit here at night in this dismal place where winter has seemingly no end.  People call it the wrath of “Mother Nature”… Guess ma is mad about something! 

The cold has taken its toll on machinery, houses, furnaces, people and most of all “pocketbooks”.  Read something funny on the internet last night…home heating prices will remain low for a couple of weeks because of the warm up.  “WHAT WARM UP”?

I sat here thinking after I got the boiler running and the pipes thawed.., Ahh! That was until it thawed all the way and a pipe burst in the kitchen.  The sound of the water and pressure escaping from the boiler pipe was like a song! 

The song was a sad one and I wandered back to my youth and the good times…, which, have been gone for a long time now.  Family dead, what’s left is small and lives far way, old friends here are all-dead.  Some say Facebook is a waste of time but without it and my new FB friends, last night would have been terrible...but after a few posts… a group of well wishers (some of whom I have never met in person) were sending best wishes, offers of help and encouragement!  Thank you all!

Then I started to think about the past and my music, music that I don’t play anymore because it brings back memories, thoughts of the fun past, and the ghosts of yesteryear. I guess like Paul Anka’s the “Moments of Our Lives”, we all have “our songs”.  

I got to thinking about it…yes me who always had a guitar in hand, always singing…NO MUSIC, don’t even have a tape or CD player anymore.  I got up, went into the icy cold front room, grabbed my old guitar…tried to tune it and played it (TERRIBLY) with my bad, cold, overworked hands. Soon the week no longer mattered…and before I knew it, it was midnight.

The last song I played said it all.  Of course it was a Gordon Lightfoot song.  Who else says it all in some song or another… it was his “You Are What I Am”!  A great song!

“You are what I am…lovin’ you for ever if I can…You make the time stand still…Do it now and you always will. Think about the times we’ve had, we’ve never been blue…(music) you got the combination gal to keep me straight and true...You are what I am…Lov’in you for ever if I can... Any time that I fall down I never get stuck...You got the combination gal to get me right back up…’Cause you are what I am…(singin’ songs) forever if I can…”

Hope you had a better week than me… If not sing along!

PS Those banjo players and extra musicians on this cut are members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra..."Gettin' Down" or UP? ... I guess!

Memories "light the corner of my mind" this Easter Springtime....

I watched an old movie, something I seldom do.  The movie was “The Way We Were” and what I found most interesting was the mini documentary that went along with the movie.  The most part that interested me most was the discussion of finding the right song.   They needed a song that would transport the viewer back to memories. 

The composer chosen for job was Marvin Hamlisch and the wordsmiths… the Bergman’s.   They describe in the documentary their work to craft the perfect “vehicle” to set the mood.  They said the title, “The Way We Were” was wonderful all in itself, but that they had the first line originally “daydreams light the corners of my mind”.    When they presented the song to Barbra Streisand she changed… one note and one word, a word that became the most important change …  the word daydreams to “Memories”.

Picture of my Mothers Family..Her Father & Mother and her!

The song won the 1973 Academy Award for best song in a movie, a Golden Globe and became one of the songs of the century!   To this day I am sure many of us enter a little piece of reverie as we listen to it… since memories are a haunting part of our life; they are something that comes back to us …sometimes good, sometimes bad…sometimes happy…sometimes sad.

                                           Rare photo of my Grandfather and all my Messere Cousins

My memories seem to start in the  Spring, which is supposed to be a new beginning, a time of rebirth when the earth wakes from the sleep of winter.  The sap has started to run and the great giants on the hill have started to sprout buds that will soon bring leaves that will last until fall’s last call.  Added to this are my memories of the many summer days spent by the lake, by the glimmering water, with the brush of soft sand against my feet when I walked the shore dreaming of the future.  Never expecting it to be where I am today.

Spring for me brings both my best memories and my saddest memoires. 

My best are the many childhood weekends around Easter… since most members of my family shared April time birthdays.  Grandmother, grandfather, aunts, uncles, mom, dad, myself… these birthdays all turned into weekend parties, one after another.  Parties where everyone got together and cousins played at life.  Easter meant seeing some cousins from a long distance that came to the city to visit Grandma.  These were fun times to be sure.

Then things changed and I moved to the country where – ironically - all of the new neighbors shared April birthdays and the parties began again. 

Those times and people have all passed as well… and I am left here with only memories of them.  Lingering sad memories… as death end life.  In the past some of my best friends died on the three days around my birthday… and their memories though certainly fond ones, are wonderful… but they are sad.   They leave me with a feeling of being alone…. like sad memories all of my family who are no longer here. 

The wise man said that you can never go back… you can only go forward.  And so we must… we can only relive that past as “Memories” that light the corners of our mind.

Eaton Memories ..listen to the music and enjoy