What’s in the iPod?

If you have been following my blog you can tell my music selections are all over the board from pop to country. I like just about anything that’s pleasant or that the words mean something. I have well over 4 days worth of music in the iPod and I just put it on songs and let it randomize them. Over the weekend I heard a song that took me way back to the summer between my 2nd and 3rd grade years.

This song was popular in 1972. Charlie Pride was just starting to make it big in Country music. It was a big deal because he was a black man and other than Ray Charles no black man had success in country music.

He had several songs on the charts that year “Kiss an Angel Good Morning” and “Is Anybody Going to San Antonio or Phoenix Arizona”. It was the latter of the songs that brought back these memories for me. I remember we had this 8-Track tape and we played it on our trip from Newport, ARK to Los Angeles, CA. And our route took us through Texas and Arizona.

I can’t recall if we made one or two trips that summer. I know that we left Newport and moved to California that summer. My Aunt Jeanette had just had her second child (Chad) that April. She brought my cousin David who was a few months older than me and he went with us on our trip to California. We saw so much going through the desert southwest including my first memories of the Grand Canyon. We collected rocks along the way and when we got to California we took those rocks and built a wishing well in my grandmother’s back yard.

We had a lot of fun in a camper on a Ford pick-up. It was the kind that had the bed over the cab so we could sit above the drivers and watch where we were going while laying in bed.

While we were in California we got to go to Disneyland. We got to buy fresh cherries and were warned not to eat too many at a time because they would give you the runs. I think that diarrhea threat was to keep us from eating them all at one sitting and let me tell you it didn’t work. David and I ate them all (probably several pounds) and we did not get diarrhea. So much for trying to scare a child, that one didn’t work.

We went from there up to Northern California (Sacramento area) to see my Great Uncle Clarence and Great Aunt Mandy. We got to go fishing on the Sacramento River. We left there to go through the Sequoia’s where the trees are so big you can drive a car through them and the age is measured in thousands of years.

We continued on to Reno, NV. I remember that we couldn’t go in the casinos but we could go through them to get to the restaurants. The slot machines were using real coins and the silver dollars had pictures of the moon on the back of them. I found one of those silver dollars this year that I figure my grandmother gave me.

I remember when we left Newport for the last time. There was a bridge over the White River and my dad told me to look back and remember it because I might never see it again. He was right 37 years have passed and I’ve never been back to that town. And I can’t say I’d have a reason to since it was just one of the many stops in our life.

Some of my memories of our house in Newport are of a levy behind our house. On the other side was a huge cotton field. I had a small mini-bike and I’d go ride all over those fields. I would play on the levy in the backyard for hours.

We didn’t have a lot of money but I never knew it. As far as I was concerned we had everything anyone could want. I find it amazing how rich I thought we were. We may not have had a ton of money but I was rich in the experiences my parents gave me. I could not have asked for more than what we had. We didn’t have Cable TV, DVD Players, Internet, Gameboy’s, etc.. Other than cable TV the rest were not available. I had to go outside and play and make my own fun. It was great!