This morning I read a blog post by Gobblefunk Words about songs she likes – the post led me on a meander into the past – which made me decide to put these words on digital paper and see what comes next.

Remembering the days we’d almost miss the school bus because the radio played the new Elvis song just as we were to walk out our doors – and you cannot, absolutely cannot, walk out the door without first listening to any Elvis song that popped up on the radio.

The weekend days lying on the floor with my feet up on a chair (oh, were you supposed  to actually sit in the chair?), a stack of my current favorite records waiting their turns to drop to the turntable and play. 45s in those days, although some singers got me to buy their albums – which were the 33 rpms.

A minor accident one night because a girlfriend was driving my boyfriend’s car while listening to some rock and roll – she was, at best, a very beginner driver and the music captured her so she drove too fast on a dark road. No one was hurt – except probably her pride and one side of boyfriend’s car that came in contact with dirt hill on the side of the road.

Going into the big city of Denver, Colorado, to see Bill Haley and the Comets’ movie – the title of which I’ve forgotten – and spending all of our money so instead of taking the bus back home to the suburbs, we ended up walking too many miles on the dark streets. We could do that back then, with sore feet because we wore those shoes that were so cute but not so comfortable being the only negative thing that happened.

The dusk to dawn movies on Saturday nights at the local drive-in theater – the things that preceded binging Netflix shows on your 55” LED or LCD TV screen – the nights we’d pile as many of us as possible in the car because tickets were for the carload. Staying for too many movies always getting me home after my curfew, which meant I’d be on restriction for days again. That was a common occurrence in those days.

Easter morning sunrise services at Pike’s Peak – where once again pride beat out practicality, meaning I’d wear that cute new dress my mom had made for me that was far too lightweight for the temperatures on Pike’s Peak that early in the year. What is it they say? “Pride goeth before the fall of man” or some such thing? Yeah, that works for a teenage girl too.

Oh yes – those “golden old days” – when the bad kids would get 3.2% alcohol beer and have “wild” parties on the weekends, and the good kids would hang out talking in someone’s car – usually in someone’s driveway, because we’d used all our gas money driving around during the day. When we’d head out on our bikes on some days, pedaling around the back roads, the requirement being we get home by dinnertime. When families sat at the table for meals and talked to each other. The days of Elvis’ shocking hips and the Everly Brothers’ pompadours, when rock and roll was new and life was more gentle – at least in memory.

All of which makes me wonder what todays’ kids will look back at? Will they have fond memories, or will mass shootings and hatred dominate?

Now, some of what’s blooming in my yard this week: