Blast From The Past: The 70s (Again)

I'm listening to 70s music tonight. Young'un got me started, with a quite unexpected gift! He found me "Seasons In The Sun" online. I'd told him several weeks ago, during one of our watchings of the "70s Music Explosion" infomercial, that I'd always liked it and wished I could add it to my online music library. I explained what the song was about, and admitted that it was generally considered annoying -- but it has memories for me, it has associations. It takes me back to early 1974, when I'd just moved back home after my divorce and was trying to figure out who I was after this shattering event, and where I meant to go from there.

I was 20 years old, and my state had just passed the 19-year-old drinking law, so I was legal to go to the neighborhood tavern in which my ex-husband and I used drink underage before we got married and moved out of town. Still in residence every night, aged anywhere from 22 to mid-30s, were the friends we'd been drinking with then -- actually more his friends, at least at first; he'd met some of them and they'd urged him to come down and bring his girlfriend. That kind of thing. Anyhoo, the atmosphere was kind of like "Cheers" but with a younger, mostly single crowd.

Where everybody knows your name... and they're always glad you came...

It turned out to be just what I needed. The girls there took me into their sisterhood, helped me to be philosophical and move on. I remember long, boozy conversations with them telling me sincerely that my ex-hub was always a dick anyway and I was much, much better off without him. Meanwhile, the guys fell all over themselves putting moves on me, which was absolutely marvelous balm for my wounded self-esteem. This caused resentment among some of the girls, but I took it pretty much in stride; I was a 9-days' wonder, and in 9 days there'd be another wonder and I'd be cool with that.

That was a magical time for me. I'd gotten my job back at the insurance company, where I'd worked before my marriage, and after being back a couple of months I found an apartment and moved out of my parents' place. I still ate dinner over there a couple of nights a week, and did my laundry over there instead of going to the laundromat; my relationship with my parents was the best it had ever been. And two or three nights a week I went down to the tavern and sat on a bar stool and drank Rhine wine and seltzer with a twist of lime, and talked and laughed with a great bunch of twentysomethings; played the jukebox, danced on the bar a time or two; fell in love...

That's an amazing story in itself, one I'll tell another time. Tonight I'm thinking about the jukebox, flipping the bartender -- "Flop for the box?" -- heads he paid for the tunes, tails I paid. Five songs for a quarter. I'd play my favorites, and my friends' favorites; whatever I wanted to hear or whatever mood I wanted to create. If I wanted to dance I'd play Elvis Presley's "Burning Love", or "Rock Me Gently" by Andy Kim; and if I was feeling impish I'd play "Seasons In The Sun". That was a major Chick Song; we girls loved it and would get all weepy, while the guys would groan and make fart noises.

We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun...

*giggle*