I think, sometimes, about the popular songs of the 1950s and ’60s. Take Good Care of My Baby, by Bobby Vee, was one of those songs. This must be one of those things that mark me as a Senior Citizen. But wait! Me, a senior citizen? Wasn’t it just yesterday that Bobby Vee, Fats Domino, Elvis, Pat Boone, Patty Paige, Rosemary Clooney–all those people were young and popular and making waves on the air waves?
When the 1950s and ’60s became the Good Old Days, I was in denial. No! It couldn’t be. If they were the good old days, what did that make me? I remembered pony tails, saddle oxfords, penny loafers, sheath dresses and cinch belts. Now, kids dress up in these things as costumes for a retro day at school.
In those good ol’ days, life and a whole world of possibilities lay before me. The sky was the limit and those songs I heard on the radio epitomized a teenager’s dreams. Wake Up, Little Susie, Bee-Bop-a-Lula, I Only Have Eyes for You, Catch a Falling Star. Although I don’t know any of today’s songs, when I occasionally hear the oldies, I can sing right along.
If, in a fluke of nature, I suddenly found myself in the era of stick-shift cars with running boards, 45s, LPs and jukeboxes, when a hamburger and Coke were way less than a dollar, and a dollars’ worth of gas would get you to the drive-in movie and back, I’d feel right at home. In fact, sometimes hearing a song like Bobby Vee’s takes me back a few decades in an instant, and, I feel as if I never left.
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