Yesterday, I read about the death of Bobby Vee. I remember his song, “Take Good Care of My Baby.” In fact, it is going through my head word for word, note for note right now. It must be one of those things that marks me as a Senior Citizen but wait! How’d I get here so fast? Wasn’t it just yesterday that Bobby Vee, Fats Domino, Elvis, Pat Boone, Patty Paige, Rosemary Clooney–all those people were young and popular and making waves on the air waves? Although this song was released in 1961, it was still close enough to the previous decade to qualify for the 1950s in my memory.
When the 1950s and ’60s became the Good Old Days, I was in denial. No! It can’t be. If they were the good old days, what does that make me? I remember pony tails, saddle oxfords, penny loafers, sheath dresses and cinch belts. Now, kids dress up in these things as costumes for a retro day at school.
In those days, life and the whole world with all its possibilities lay before me. I was bursting with enthusiasm, dreams, hopes. The sky was the limit and those songs I heard on the radio epitomized a teenager’s burgeoning emotions. “Wake Up, Little Susie”, “Bee-Bop-a-Lula”, “I Only Have Eyes for You”, “Catch a Falling Star.” When I occasionally hear those songs today, I can sing right along.
If, in a fluke of nature, I suddenly found myself in the era of stick-shift cars with running boards, 45s, LPs and jukeboxes, when a hamburger and Coke were way less than a dollar, and Ike and Mamie were in the White House, I’d feel right at home. In fact, sometimes hearing a song like Bobby Vee’s takes me back a few decades in an instant. And, I feel as if I never left.
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