iPod Replay Replay Replay

Joan Baez singing "Winds of the Old Days."

That was the song that my iPod randomized into my ears this morning as I was walking down Crescent Avenue.

It made me smile.

And then I thought, Hmmmm, what year was that? Well, it must have been around 1976 or 77. I remember sitting in Wayne Engstrom's geography class and writing down the memorized lyrics instead of taking notes on, what, the 50 shades of shale? (Interesting that I would have been paying so little attention in class, given my small crush on Dr. Engstrom, the crush crushed when a friend and I drove by his house and saw a woman out front planting flowers.)

Ah, my lost education . . . but that's (yet) another blog for another time . . .

What I'm thinking about now is how my gadget is chock full of musical winds from the old days. How after nearly forty years, all those songs still evoke a joyous something. And it's not always the song itself, but the way a particular song is able to unfreeze a certain moment in time. All I need are three notes of Fleetwood Mac's "Rhiannon" to know exactly where I am: driving down The 57 on a California spring morning, arm draped out the open window, radio full-blast on KRLA, and Wayne Engstrom's geography test something I won't even bother to worry about until it's right there on the desk in front of me.