My cousin has inspired a bit of nostalgia in me. This is off the usual, beaten path of this blog, but so what?
If there is any year in my childhood and youth that stands out for me, it is 1977. 1981 comes in a close second, but after sitting down and listing all that happened in just the first eight months of that year, I realized nothing compared to it.
In January, my oldest sister got married. I remember most two things. First, it was snowing like crazy. All day. Drive up. All day during. I think it actually got worse on the way home. At the beginning of the reception, my new brother-in-law was popping a bottle of champagne, and the cork ricocheted off the low drop-ceiling and hit my mother in the chest. I remember thinking, "That's no way to start out an in-law relationship." Also, I remember, on the drive home, hearing some song by the rock band Heart on the radio; it made such an impression on me that, forever after, whenever I hear them, I think of that day.
Later that spring, in May, this same sister graduated from college, SUNY Brockport. I remember hanging out in the little apartment they lived in - I wish I could remember the tiny town! - and reading a book about the Lizzy Borden murders. That, and the ceremony itself seemed to take for-freaking-ever. Oh, and we had dinner at this restaurant and I ordered Lake Ontario-caught lake trout, and they brought me "fish-on-a-plate", the whole thing, head and all. I ate it, but it was the first time I ever ate an animal that was looking at me doing so.
A month later, late June, and it was my brother's turn to graduate. Usually, the ceremony was outside in the HS football stadium, but storm clouds threatened, and for the first time in years, the ceremony was held inside in the high school auditorium. Afterward, the sky was a beautiful lightshow, but it was raining harder than I had ever seen before.
That summer was the most eventful of my young life. First, the pool at the high school was open every day, from one pm until 3:00; for a quarter, my friend Kenny and I would enjoy almost daily fun (the next year, we would ride our bikes to the Sayre high school pool, which was open until 5:00 and charged the same as the Waverly pool). Nights were spent at my friend Mike's house, playing "Jail Break", a kind of group hide and seek. We managed to get neighbors up and down the street to give us permission to ramble through their yards after dark, and the games seemed, in memory at least, to never end. Indeed, they usually just petered out into weird, surreal events barely remembered.
On the way to the high school, daily, some folks would blast out the Fleetwood Mac album Rumors. I can't here any of the songs of that LP without thinking of those summer days.
My first nephew was born in July. July 5th actually (his sister was born on December 26th; my sister's clock was off just slightly). I went to my first camping experience in the middle of the month, and was surprised to be picked up by my brother and my brother-in-law; I came home to meet my new nephew, two weeks old and all red and newborn. He was the most beautiful baby I would ever see until my daughters were born.
In August, my older sister graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi. We made the trip from our home in two days - a glorious trip that included a stay at some motel in Tennessee, and a stop for directions in Jackson, MS that made my mother burst out laughing at the depth of the accent on the young man who gave us directions. The night we arrived in Hattiesburg, I went with my father to the local McDonalds to pick up eats for us all, and my father got talking to a man who, I think I recall, was the night manager there. It was the first of many times this weird connection would occur; the man knew, through business contacts, a man who quite literally lived down the street from us. We had traveled 1500 miles, entering a totally different world, and yet . . . we weren't very far from home at all.
To my mind, the highlight of the trip wasn't the graduation (a long night in the domed coliseum), but the next day's trip to New Orleans. First, that was the day that Groucho Marx died (we received the news of Elvis' death on the road). Second, the French Quarter was, to this then-eleven-year-old, an exotic place, full of strange and wonderful shops. I went in to a voodoo shop, where an old woman, blind and obese (probably from diabetes) sat and smiled and chatted about what a "sweet spirit" I had. I explored the little gardens in the squares within a couple of the blocks; entrance was gained through old gates, some of them rusty. I sat on the banks of the Mississippi near Jackson Square Park (I wouldn't cross it until I was an adult). We ate a picnic on Pontchartrain, and my brother was attacked by fire ants (I still laugh at that), and on the way back to the city, we went through a zoo and my sister insisted she wanted to see an emu. Sure enough, around the next bend there was . . . an emu.
The night life along Bourbon St. was a revelation for me. Jazz and strip clubs, complete freedom without any bad vibes. I had my first-ever vision of the nude female form, and it formed a life-long impression on me (I hope, for the good).
Back home, and a couple weeks later, I went with my father to take my brother to college - Clarkson College (as it was then) in Potsdam, NY, which is almost as far north as you can go before you start speaking French Canadian.
Anyone like to share their most memorable events/times/years?
