"A girl I became friends with on a school trip in high school fell asleep on my shoulders on the ride back."

"I'm still coasting on that memory."

 

Crimson and Clover and Crystal Blue Persuasion were on the same album. I was 11. It was one of my first and biggest music memories of "my" music...and perhaps it was the first record I wore out. Literally.

Listening to Top 40 radio was a constant in the car. At home, the biggest memory and influence was my dad's 1962 Ray Charles' record, Modern Sounds of Country and Western Music.

Side one

1. "Bye Bye Love"

2. "You Don't Know Me"

3. "Half as Much"

4. "I Love You So Much It Hurts"

5. "Just a Little Lovin' (Will Go a Long Way)"

6. "Born to Lose"

Side two

1. "Worried Mind"

2. "It Makes No Difference Now"

3. "You Win Again"

4. "Careless Love"

5. "I Can't Stop Loving You"

6. "Hey, Good Lookin'"

 

 

My early music experiences consisted of great rhythm and harmonies. My sister loved The Lettermen and later on, The Carpenters. For me, Ray Charles was hard to beat. For a little kid, not yet a teenager, I was falling in love with music.

The albums were played on a piece of furniture. Homes with music had stereo consoles.

Junior high brought on a new music-related interest, hi-fi stereo gear. That fueled even deeper and broader interest in records. Tons of music memories have provided a good coasting surface for my life.

Watching the documentary about Ben Fong-Torres, famous music editor for Rolling Stone magazine brought back lots of memories of the 1970s and the music that once dominated my life. But music is just part of the memories I coast on. Words increasingly mattered, and not just the song lyrics. I devoured Ben Fong-Torres' writing. And Hunter S. Thompson. And Cameron Crowe. Their writing wasn't like anything familiar to me. Ben wrote about music and musicians. Hunter, well, he wrote about lots of stuff. Popular culture. Politics. I didn't care that much about the topics, but I enjoyed how Hunter wrote. Crowe, like Ben, he was writing about musicians. I read their stuff regularly adding a new coasting surface for memories - words.

Music. Technology. Words. The convergence of these 3 things happened in the 1970s. The song remains the same.

Memories reflected my future. And my present.

Memories don't determine the present or the future, but they influence it. Our memories are part of us. What has happened to us helps define us.

The guy coasting on the memory of the girl who fell asleep on his shoulder indicates how something so small can linger for so long...and even fuel us along the way. It's not about coasting in the sense that we don't do anything. Not putting any effort into anything. I don't know what memories you may leverage for coasting, but it did make me think of what memories might be fueling me.

I began the conversation with memories of music because music has accompanied every era of my life so far. I don't suspect it's going to stop until my life stops. But I'm not coasting on it. Any of it. It's not a driving force so much as a soundtrack, a key but minor player in the grand scheme of things.

I started thinking of the memory this guy shared and wondering if I had any such memories. I'm not at a loss for pivotal memories, but I'm not sure I've got any single memory that fuels me like that.

One of my first thoughts was about family and faith. And not separately, but how connected they are for me. I've long thought that I hit the lottery when it came to being born into a Christian home where I was taught the Bible and where I learned about God. And myself. From grandparents to parents to old men and old women, I was fortunate enough to have great teachers. I didn't have to go searching for God or the truth. It was handed to me on a platter. I only had to read, listen, learn and figure out on my own whether I'd embrace it or not. It wasn't about indoctrination as much as it was about exp...