On this Friday afternoon, À la recherche du temps perdu
One of my daughters posted this family photo on Facebook. It was taken back in those gone-but-not-forgotten days when my hair was a lot darker and the kids were a lot younger. ( I still have that T-shirt, but like its owner, it’s a little more worn and ragged).
My daughter also added a telling caption:
“Probably dancing to R.E.M. or Bonnie Raitt, neither of whom were ever removed from the CD player.”
To which I must of course plead guilty.
Some of my favorite memories growing up were of my parents’ music, which often filled the house. Those songs and artists — everyone from Roger Miller to Erroll Garner to Peggy Lee — always bring a smile to my face when I hear them so many years later.
For me, they are the aural version of Marcel Proust’s famous little madeleine cake, the taste of which brought memories of his childhood flooding back.
In “À la Recherche du Temps Perdu,” or “Remembrance of Things Past,” M. Proust recalled the taste of that cake:
“In that moment all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann’s park, and the waterlilies on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and its surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being, town and gardens alike….”
So years from now, if the stray sounds of Bonnie Raitt or R.E.M. should trigger similar warm memories in the heads of two particular young women, I’ll consider it evidence of a job well and happily done.
Here’s Miss Bonnie playing with the great and sadly late John Lee Hooker:
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224 comments Add your comment
Jimmy Carter
November 13th, 2009
3:47 pm
FIRST!!!
Bosch
November 13th, 2009
3:57 pm
SECOND!!
getalife
November 13th, 2009
3:58 pm
For the officers that took out hasan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3PUAEU7rQw
Mrs. Godzilla
November 13th, 2009
3:59 pm
My pop….male menopause used Mustang fastback…..8 track….teaching
me to drive…..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN7Xs9WVNBU
The old guy can still bugaloo
Jimmy Carter
November 13th, 2009
3:59 pm
Bosch
November 13th, 2009
3:57 pm
Haha! We’re on our game today, Bosch! Have a great weekend.
Joan
November 13th, 2009
4:02 pm
Bookman, it is nice to remember when times were more sane, fun, and you didn’t have to worry about cholesterol, cancer from cell phones, perverts picking up kids and the like. What was really so wrong with the values we had then? Why did we trade them out for political correctness?
Bosch
November 13th, 2009
4:02 pm
You too Jimmy Carter – pleasant weekend!
JohnF
November 13th, 2009
4:03 pm
That kitchen looks like the one I just renovated – finally.
Mrs. Godzilla
November 13th, 2009
4:03 pm
Nice legs, Jay.
Jay
November 13th, 2009
4:03 pm
Joan … I never made that trade, personally.
Jimmy Carter
November 13th, 2009
4:07 pm
Jay, it could just be the angle and I could be wrong, but I swear it seems as though you’re leaning juuuuuust a little to the right in that pic. Just sayin’…..
@@
November 13th, 2009
4:08 pm
Dang, jay! You were kinda cute back then. You’re daughter must have gone from cute to beautiful.
Bosch
November 13th, 2009
4:11 pm
Pleasant weekend to all! Au revoir!
Pogo
November 13th, 2009
4:14 pm
LONG LIVE SABI!
Jay
November 13th, 2009
4:15 pm
She did, @@, she surely did.
josef nix
November 13th, 2009
4:20 pm
AW..the little one was, and I’m sure still is, precious. This is truly sweet and cute…thanks for sharing…
Nothing Is Free
November 13th, 2009
4:22 pm
jay
Nice thoughts about the music your parents liked.
Dad had three artists that never was far from the record player:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IumnmhnPJKQ
I was honored to hear him sing this in Centennial Olympic Park, during the games.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxB1t2EEK0M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ID1_15EK-Ck
Nothing Is Free
November 13th, 2009
4:23 pm
Jay
you moderated Ray Charles?
Nothing Is Free
November 13th, 2009
4:24 pm
OK Fixed. The server is wacky.
Jay
November 13th, 2009
4:27 pm
No NIF — the software kicks out anything with more than two links as spam.
Besides, NOBODY could moderate Ray Charles. I once met a guy who was Ray’s roommate at the school for the blind that they attended. He said nobody messed with Ray even then, that Ray was BAADD.
Jimmy Carter
November 13th, 2009
4:30 pm
Jay
November 13th, 2009
4:27 pm
So how would Ray stack up against Chuck Norris? Anyone?
Nothing Is Free
November 13th, 2009
4:30 pm
Now my kids got really tired of these:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STKkWj2WpWM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7M1zcyf12A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WIYnHYHd7E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ8iJVm-1lc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlIV2Tl4qM4
Jay
November 13th, 2009
4:32 pm
In the dark, my money’s on Ray.
Nothing Is Free
November 13th, 2009
4:35 pm
Jay
Nothing like him. And what a job Jammie Fox did on the movie. If you don’t own the DVD, go get it. There is an “extra” that is Ray and Jamie together and I was amazed at Jamie Fox’s musical talent.
DoggoneGA
November 13th, 2009
4:36 pm
I think NIF must have seduced the spam filter!
Jimmy Carter
November 13th, 2009
4:37 pm
As I wind down on this beautiful day and prepare for the weekend, I leave you all with the following:
Gunga galunga… gunga, gunga-lagunga. That means when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness. So you got that goin’ for you, which is nice.
Redneck Convert (R--and proud of it)
November 13th, 2009
4:43 pm
Well, these people were well after my time. I growed up listening to Ferlin Husky and Hank Williams (the real one, not the bearded hippie) and little Jimmy Dickens and the Carter sisters with mother Maybelle. Music just went to you-know-where after that.
I can tell Bookman started out rich. He had a real kitchen and cabinets and everything. We had a wood stove in the kitchen and a couple coal stoves for the rest of the place.
Have a good Friday night everybody and give some thought to me while you’re guzzling the beer I hauled for you.
Jay
November 13th, 2009
4:51 pm
BS&T was great, NIF.
Midori
November 13th, 2009
4:55 pm
Nice legs, Jay.
Mrs. G –
I was thinking the same thing
Kamchak
November 13th, 2009
5:02 pm
I growed up listening to Ferlin Husky and Hank Williams (the real one, not the bearded hippie)…
R C
(R–apoi) This one’s for you.
Redneck Convert (R--and proud of it)
November 13th, 2009
5:09 pm
I thank you, Kamchak.
josef nix
November 13th, 2009
5:10 pm
Hot Deep South summer night, Mama with all nine of her “little ones” there and showing us her moves…one of my earliest memories…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpzV_0l5ILI&feature=fvw
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
November 13th, 2009
5:12 pm
Your daughter’s mother must be a stunning beauty considering what had to be overcome on the father’s side.
just kidding…..cute little girl.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xt3at_rem-bitter-sweet-me_music
josef nix
November 13th, 2009
5:19 pm
Hot Deep South summer night and old lady in her 80s… three generations of “little ones” now and her still moving…showing us how.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4A50EHwCjY..
Normal
November 13th, 2009
5:21 pm
Can’t stay, company (read Grandson) is here…
my contribution
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ny5ajCn0xw
josef nix
November 13th, 2009
5:28 pm
DDR–when you check in, thinking of you…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9pFpWIJgQs&feature=PlayList&p=1CB508B4D3B144C7&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=28
josef nix
November 13th, 2009
5:30 pm
DDR–when you check in, thinking of you and your good taste in music…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9pFpWIJgQs&feature=PlayList&p=1CB508B4D3B144C7&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=28
josef nix
November 13th, 2009
5:30 pm
OOPS…but it IS worth listening to twice!!
SOUTHERN ATL
November 13th, 2009
5:32 pm
Jay, that one was nice but this reminds me of my father back in the day…..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_JmcGa8abA
Jay
November 13th, 2009
5:35 pm
Josef, Joan Armatrading is what Tracy Chapman hopes to be when she grows up.
Hillbilly Deluxe
November 13th, 2009
5:39 pm
We had a wood stove in the kitchen and a couple coal stoves for the rest of the place
Nobody up here in the hills ever had a coal stove that I know of. I do have fond memories of the old wood stove though. Sat in the corner of the kitchen with the stove wood box right beside it. Always had the smell of that rich pine kindlin’. For all his life, my Grandpa wouldn’t eat a biscuit that was cooked in the electric stove. Had to be cooked on the wood stove for him.
Jay,
Mighty pretty little girl there, must take after her mom.
Your house growing up sounded sort of like ours. We had one of those old, small tube radios that you had to turn on and let warm up. Seemed like it took forever for it to get going. My earliest memories are getting up first thing in the morning and racing to the radio to turn it on and get it going. Marty Robbins’ song El Paso had just come out and I couldn’t wait to hear it everyday. It’s funny even then at age 3 or 4, I had a complete picture in my head of the story in that song and I still see that exact same picture today. That song has always been basically a movie playing in my head when it’s on. And you have to tip your hat to Grady Martin’s lead guitar work in it too. Forty seperate lead runs in that song.
Josef, getalife, and anybody else with roots in that part of the world:
Have y’all ever read Rising Tide:The Great Mississippi Flood Of 1927 And How It Changed America by John M Barry? If so, wondered what somebody from down that way thought of it.
Jay
November 13th, 2009
5:42 pm
That’s a great book, Hillbilly. Fascinating stuff.
Kamchak
November 13th, 2009
5:43 pm
My contribution to the female folk genre.
@@
November 13th, 2009
5:45 pm
I’ll leave this one for your daughter, jay. Then?
I’m out to do some dancin’ of my own with the cajun….husband in “toe”.
Hillbilly Deluxe
November 13th, 2009
5:45 pm
Jay,
Yes, it’s been a couple of years since I read that book but I really liked it and learned a lot. It’s about a lot more than just the flood. Gives you a good prospective on what people will do to protect their supply of cheap labor.
SOUTHERN ATL
November 13th, 2009
5:50 pm
Normal@5:21….nice pick…the “Real King” !!!!
RW-(the original)
November 13th, 2009
5:52 pm
Skip ahead to 1:00 and then 2:00 if you can’t stomach the whole clip. The images of her in the black miniskirt and the American-flag bikini started floating around the ‘Net mere days after she joined the ticket last year and were debunked almost immediately, which means either (a) MSNBC knowingly chose to air doctored images to smear her or (b) “The Place for Politics” can’t recognize a notorious 12-month-old photoshop of last year’s VP nominee when it sees one.
Do you suppose this’ll touch off the same firestorm as showing real protesters labeled as protesting on the wrong day?
josef nix
November 13th, 2009
6:03 pm
JAY–Nobody like Armatrading, got all of her music all the way back to the very first one…
HILLBILLY–
Fascinating book…my home stomping grounds is the first ridge out of the Delta and grew up hearing stories of the refugees. Mom’s family “took in” several families and still in my own generation certain families were always identified as “those are the Joneses who cam in here during the flood of ‘27…a lot of my family on Dad’s side, “lost everything in the flood of ‘27…” Growing up we had flood drills right along with tornado drills and fire drills…I went back home and taught for a year and earthquake drills (New Madrid line) had been added…should there come a quake the levees won’t hold and a repeat would take place…
SOUTHERN ATL
November 13th, 2009
6:09 pm
…..gotta run but could not pass this “Legend” up…..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k2lSnAcapM
Hillbilly Deluxe
November 13th, 2009
6:20 pm
Josef
I don’t have as much knowledge as those of you are from there but I found it fascinating. After Katrina, I was talking with somebody from here about the flooding. From reports we got there were stories in New Orleans that some people thought the government blew out the levees. The person I was talking to said, “That’s crazy”. I said, “Well, yeah it sounds crazy, and I don’t believe that’s what happened but since The Levee Board did exactly that in 1927 and flooded St. Bernard Parish, I can see how people there might get that idea.” And of course from what I read the people of St. Bernard never got the reparations they were promised.