Music

Who could ask for a better combo than music and fresh air?

As a kid, I was a music nerd.  My piano teacher fed me a steady diet of classical music and the popular music that emanated from our radio seemed to drift over my head.  While my peers were singing about teenie-weenie bikinis or swooning over the latest Elvis hit, my focus remained on Bach and Beethoven.  In the sixties, the Beatles finally caught my attention.  While I never lost my love of classical music, the Beatles were the wakeup call that had me integrating my musical interests with those of my peers. The Beach Boys and The Association were quickly added to my list of favorites.  Simon and Garfunkel soon followed.  I loved their lyrics as much as their music and the infatuation remains, even in my senior years.

Although I continued to follow popular music in the subsequent decades, the fifties remained a largely unfilled gap until I reached my forties.  When I acquired a job that required a daily commute of more than three hours, I learned to find ways to make my driving time more pleasurable.    I located a radio station that featured Golden Oldies and didn’t lose its signal midway through my commute.   Slowly Fats Domino, Nat King Cole, Buddy Holly and a host of other artists began to round out my knowledge of the fifties.  I was definitely a late bloomer, but better late than never.