Glee! What a phenomenal show! Who knew?<\/p>\n
They take music from different eras and re-make it into wonderful renditions – sometimes much better than the original artist created. Regardless of the rendition, there is magic in the music. When you hear the tune, the music has the capacity to transport you across time and space to a particular place frozen in time at one particular moment.<\/p>\n
It is amazing how much detail you can remember from one event when you hear a few strains of music from a particular song, or piece. You can recall such intimate details as if it happened just yesterday. Details, such as who you were with, where you were going, what you were doing, the temperature outside, the aromas in the air. It is like the music is a time machine.<\/p>\n
For instance, every time I hear Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young singing \u201cOur House\u201d on the radio, the song transports me back in time and across space to a particular day in January 1971 on Waters Avenue in Tampa.\u00a0 I am driving my Mom\u2019s car to school and it is cold outside.\u00a0 The heater is going, the windows are all the way up, and I am going too fast, as all high school kids tend to do.<\/p>\n
Because it is cold, the windows are up, and the radio is going full blast with the strains of \u201cOur House\u201d filling the small confines of the car, the music sounds really, really<\/em> good.<\/p>\n And because it is<\/em> cold, and the windows are up<\/em>, and the radio is going<\/em> full blast<\/em> I don\u2019t hear the train\u2019s horn.<\/p>\n I also don\u2019t see it until the last moment because of the bushes along the track blocking the view of the tracks.<\/p>\n This is not good.\u00a0<\/p>\n At the last moment, I slam on the brakes, lock up the tires, and go sideways on the road, just as the train reaches the crossing. The car stops, literally less than four inches from the moving train. I look up and see the engineer.\u00a0 He is holding the cable, sounding the horn.\u00a0 We lock eyes. I see the look on his face \u2013 it says, \u201cStupid kid!\u00a0 You were lucky this time\u2026\u201d Now I hear the horn just fine.<\/p>\n I wonder how many times he has worried about hitting some car at a crossing.\u00a0 Something tells me it would not be a pleasant event.\u00a0 Maybe I don\u2019t want to be a train engineer after I grow up after all.<\/p>\n I made it to school, shaken, but alive.\u00a0 A little wiser, too.\u00a0 To this day, I always look before crossing railroads.\u00a0 Or any other intersections for that matter.<\/p>\n Occasionally, I will hear \u201cOur House\u201d playing on the radio.\u00a0 Each time since that morning in 1971 when I do hear the song, I always see the train engineer\u2019s eyes.<\/p>\n -30-<\/p>\n \u00a9 2010 J. Clark<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Glee! What a phenomenal show! Who knew? They take music from different eras and re-make it into wonderful renditions – sometimes much better than the original artist created. Regardless of the rendition, there is magic in the music. When you … Continue reading