Sometimes, I get a subtle reminder that I’m not a teenager any more, and that this isn’t the 1950s or 1960s. These reminders come about in a variety of ways. Yesterday, in an email, I mentioned someone being mercurial, rather like quicksilver. Instantly, a Doris Day song started running through my memory, “You slipped through my fingers just like quicksilver…”. So, I turned to YouTube and heard her sing it once again. It’s a really neat song, pretty, peppy, and I can understand the words and message. Funny thing was, it was played and sung simply, no videos, no yelling, just a nice melody, very good voice, and memorable song. Why did singers start doing videos to go with their music, anyway? Shouldn’t songs evoke their own mental images in the hearer?
Anyway, as you may have suspected, I’m a bit old-fashioned. So much is enhanced and enlarged upon today, using technology, that not an awfully lot is left to our imaginations. That’s another good thing about books. It’s up to the author to paint a word picture so that, even though the book isn’t illustrated, the reader can see in her mind’s eye just what is going on in the story.
Yesterday was a nostalgic sort of day. I was sent a YouTube connection that was patriotic and pictured American icons who, in my younger years, were people I saw often on television or the movies. Now, most of them are gone. I couldn’t watch it without a tear or two. I put that address on my Facebook page. If you’d like to go there, click on it, and hear John Wayne, Lucille Ball, Red Skelton, and many others sing, “God Bless America”. I hope patriotism isn’t old-fashioned. If it is, we are in trouble indeed!
Strange critters reside in my yard. I thought you might be interested in meeting a couple of them who seem to like living in my herb garden. I think one reason that I enjoy plants, flowers and vegetables, is that they connect me with the past and past generations. Mom and Dad, Ma and Pappy Latty, my great-grandparents; we all enjoyed growing things, although they may not have been quite as whimsical as I, and may not have had a turtle carrying a frog on his back in their gardens.
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