Okay I admit it – growing up I was more  an Adam Ant Goody Two Shoes, than a Bad to The Bone George Thorogood, however it doesn’t mean as I got older I didn’t rock the quarry.  I am glad I have seen both sides now as I age (yup, hello  Carole King if you are listening), I’d like to think it gave me the well rounded sensibility for life  I enjoy, and still learn from.  Seeing things as they are, as they could be and as they were, is a journey in itself.  That is why today I laughed.

My youngest who is walking down the blvd of 30 came over to bring her daughter for a grandma visit,  and heard my speakers cranking out Bad to the Bone.  She smiled and said, “Hey listening to Megamind huh?”

>>>insert laughter>>>

“No I said, it is classic rock.”

Funny how things change, and are seen so differently by generations yet to come.  Who knew the classic bad boy guitar riffs of my era, would now be colored vividly in a cartoon, with mother approval and laughter.  But then again, who thought Crazy Train would be a family commercial either! Oh Ozzy, what a shot in the dark such a guess would have been.

Maybe however,  if you need a way to have a meaningful conversation, such an interlude could be a  good way to listen to each other, and not just the music.  What we see, take for granted and have lived, is like random windmills turning through our minds, even if  that too disappeared into the Thomas Crown Affair, in an effort to take the the Sting out of once Dusty nostalgia.  I guess it boils down  not to the lyrics of the song, as much as the musical  we carry in our soul, which is the personal soundtrack to our memories.  That should never be taken for granted, and needs to be shared.

My father loved to sing in the car and more times than I can count, he was looking over four leaf clovers that he had never seen before. I can still see him behind the wheel of our vintage white Chevrolet station wagon, which mom had made brown curtains for, and I stuck orange fizzie tablets into the ash tray, and almost failed to see puberty before the mess was cleaned up .  Those were the days my friend, and they ended too soon.  However, they are still luckily what made me who I am –  gotta love those clovers.  Today however, the fruit from the family loom sings about apple bottom jeans, and see my grandson in his car seat when he first felt the rhythm of music, his life, and the ability to express it.  Someday I will tell him about it and laugh, especially since it was far from the American apple pie youth I knew, with or without the Chevy.  It will though be the only world he knows, and it will always be a connection between us, long after someone named Flo evolves like George, takes a rider and becomes something else all together in the media madness that will inevitably continue.

The first thing a child hears in life aside from the voices of those who love him or her is a lullaby, a song or a musical piece to calm  and ease them into sleep.  The notes of such a song  more like handwritten words from an angel, are passed into the classroom of life, to make sure the innocent soul knows they are never alone. Yes, a thoroughly good mission for a world that is sometimes bad to the bone.

If there is one connecting thread in the tapestry of humanity it is music,  the cords that bind us, the staff we assemble, the notes we pass, and the harmony we struggle to live within.  Next time my daughter is over I might pull out  some Bobby Goldsboro, and let her listen to where Honey lived and died, no different than many friends and family we have lost, and the emotions we share.  Then of course, I will need some AC/DC, because after all, staying current and charging ahead even if it is dirty and cheap, is after all the way we roll now …. right?