Flashback Friday: Mickey Mouse Disco

Am I the only person who owned this album and played it until it couldn't be played anymore?  On special occasions, my mother would allow me to play it on our Hi-Fi that had the multicolored flashing lights.

Ah, the memories!

 

Keep Dreaming

I've loved Dr. Martin Luther, the King Jr. since I was a little girl.  Pre-kindergarten, I didn’t love him specifically because of his service to us or even because of his “I Have a Dream” speech.  I loved him because we shared a birthday and way back when, we used to get off from school on the actual day of a holiday as opposed to the Monday after the holiday occurred.  That meant, that I always had my birthday off from school.  By the way, I think pushing all Federal holidays to Monday in order to have a long weekend is kind of whack.  I mean, it is nice to have a 3 day weekend but I would enjoy having (and sometimes NEED) a random day off during the week too.  I guess that’s what PTO is for, huh?  Oh okay, I digress.

When I got a little older, and really realized the significance of Martin Luther King Jr.'s life and the impact that he had on this country, I was proud to say that we shared a birthday.  And to this day, I still am.  Make no mistake, he was a flawed man.  But he saw an injustice and DID something about it.

So in honor of him, we need to "keep dreamin’", y’all.  And don’t just dream, but let’s really honor Dr. King by putting some serious work into making those dreams a reality.

Release Me

One of my fondest memories as a child is riding in the car with my mom. Even though she used the car to mostly lecture her captive audience (because it’s just not prudent to jump out a moving car), she also used our driving time to expand my appreciation for different types of music.

Her ’76 Gold Ford Elite was top of the line, in my opinion. It had a cream leather hard top, cream leather seating, really nice shiny rims that had the spokes, white wall tires and an AM/FM radio complete with an EIGHT TRACK CASSETTE PLAYER! Yeah, real top notch. I think that was the only luxury car my family owned up until the red Ford Taurus circa 1990. LOL.

On to the music…
My mom’s car music consisted of Gospel (think: Mahalia Jackson, Shirley Caesar and James Cleveland) and Easy Listening a/k/a “Elevator” music (think: Nat King Cole, Barbra Streisand, The Carpenters). That’s how she rolled. Her eight track collection didn’t contain all the Easy Listening artists, but there is one in particular that I clearly remember…Engelbert Humperdinck. Good ole Engelbert. I used to ogle that cassette tape case because he was so very cute to me.



And my favorite song was “Release Me”. Such mature lyrics to be singing for a little girl that was about 5 or 6 years old who knew absolutely nothing about breaking up with someone, but I used to belt those lyrics each time the song came on.
Not only were the lyrics mature, I saw the video on You.Tube when looking for the song.



Kind of racy for 1985, isn’t it? LOL

I really wish I had this memory 2 weeks ago. Engelbert is still performing and he was in Bethesda, MD on Oct. 7th. I would have gifted my mom some tickets for her birthday. It would’ve been a hoot for sure.

Question: What kind of music did your parents to listen when you were young?

The Cows are Calling for Rain

I usually take a back road on my way home from work. It cuts out a nice chunk of stop-and-go traffic and provides me with some “download” time. On that road you’ll always find cows grazing in a field. And every time I pass those cows I always check them out to see if it’s going to rain that evening.

I grew up in a little town in southern P.G. Co, MD that many call the country. I guess it kind of is seeing as how there are no stop lights, no major retail stores and no fast food restaurants within a 10 mile radius from the heart of town. If that isn’t proof enough that it’s the country, there is a small country store that many of the locals frequent. In that little store there is a deli counter were you could once get a pound of homemade link sausages for breakfast, a pound of bologna & cheese to make sandwiches for lunch, a couple of thickly cut steaks for dinner, and a double scoop of butter brickle ice cream for dessert. Great memories.

But I digress.

My mom always traveled the back roads to get where she needed to go. I don’t know if it was because she loved the scenic route or if she had highway-a-phobia. But if we needed to get there, she was going through a maze of country roads that was going to land her on the highway the closest to her destination. Used to drive me bananas. And I vowed to myself that when I started to drive, I’d only take major roads and highways. My only exception is if it’d save me time from sitting in traffic – I don’t care if the speed limit is 25mph, as long as I’m in constant motion, I’m happy. I HATE sitting in traffic.

It was on these back roads that we’d pass the fields that had the cows. More often than not, the cows would be standing and grazing. But about 10% of the time, they’d be lying down. And every single time we’d pass a field with cows lying down, my mom would say, “It’s gonna rain today”.

A classic old wives tale - if cows are lying down, rain is soon to come. I never once questioned her theory and had usually forgotten about her prediction before we’d even reached our destination. So if it did or didn’t rain, I really don’t recall.

Last week while taking my back road home, I approached that field of cows as I’ve done dozens of times before. They were all standing and grazing; good, no rain tonight. But this day, the moment I passed them, it started pouring rain – cats, dogs and little people – as my aunt says. I had to laugh out loud at the timing of it all.

Either Mom’s theory is dead wrong or those cows didn’t get the memo. I’ll believe the latter because moms are never wrong.

What old wives tale do you recall or believe?

With love, Lisa