The Lights Of Long Ago...

I'm sure I have expounded upon the "music can take you back" theme before, so apologies in advance if some of this is familiar ground...

Had a delightful day yesterday, which included an afternoon visit from Lovey for cocktails... I am sort of proud of myself for having created a "Tangerine Sublett," an homage to the great actress of the same name. It makes a lovely and refreshing summertime treat...

One half jug orange/tangerine juice
One bottle dry champagne
One healthy slosh of gin
One twist lemon

Pour into ice-filled glasses and garnish with lemon slice, leaving a little room in the glass. Top off with Perrier. Enchanting!

Now, back to the story...while mixing said Tangerine Subletts, I put on some background music...Sheryl Crow, for the record, but that's immaterial... later on in the evening, I started to flip through the cd folder and came across a blank, unlabeled cd. When I played it, I realized it was the soundtrack from the Alan Mencken version of A Christmas Carol, which I directed a couple of years ago. For whatever reason, (Christmas in July?) I decided just to let it roll.

There is a particular song in the show, "The Lights Of Long Ago," which is sung to Scrooge by The Spirit of Christmas Past...the tune is very sweet and pleasant, but the lyrics of one verse spoke to me...

"...a child! Is this who you used to be?
A scene shining from your past?
The vast vistas of a memory?
The shadows you cast?
Mr. Scrooge, hold fast......

Onward through the night!
Onward towards the light!
Onward, to a place your heart will know...
Come remember the lights of long ago..."

At first glance, simple...but oh so significant...

I grew up in the same house from the time I was 6 years old, the house in which my parents still live. Whenever I contemplate the lights of long ago, they always seem to surround that house. While listening to the song, there was a rushing wave of memory that can only be described as a tsunami... birthday mornings from the 1980's...huge cookouts with my dad dutifully cooking enough bbq to feed an army...quiet Sunday afternoons that seemed hideously boring to a 15-year-old but now seem idyllic...sitting way out beyond the trees in the backyard drinking a "stolen" beer (from my parents' fridge) with my best high school friend...thousands of regular, normal school nights that seem so cozy in retrospect...a big family dinner the night before I left for 6 weeks at Oxford...the occasional snow from childhood, where muddy snowmen and sloppily-executed snow forts dotted the front yards...and so forth...

This story really has no point. Consider this a free-flowing observation as opposed to a plot-driven short story.

In today's News From The Motherland...elementary, my dear Borat...?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7484948.stm

Obama in '08!!!

FLT3