It seemed appropriate to listen to the Joan Baez version of “All My Trials” as I sat on the floor playing old record albums on the stereo, which was state-of-the-art 38 years ago when my brother gave it to George and me as a wedding present, but now a little out of date and inconvenient to reach. None of that matters since it can play the old albums I love.
During the electrical upgrade of my house, all the albums were pulled from their spaces below the stereo and strewn about the dust-filled room in piles. Joan Baez smiled at me from a pile on my late-night walk through my disheveled house, and, minutes later, I was sitting on the floor listening to her softly croon the words.
John Denver, who happened to be sitting next to Joan, spoke up next, suggesting that his “Poems, Prayers & Promises” might be an appropriate follow given my prayer for order to be restored in my home soon. I took his advice but requested an add-on of “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” which always takes me back to life in a small college in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia that I once called home.
Just as I was about to ask John for a repeat, who should show up but Janis Joplin singing a throaty version of “Lord Won’t You Buy Me a Mercedes Benz,” jokingly referred to as the working woman’s mantra by some of my friends in Greenwich Village.
A scant inch to the right of Janis was Mr. Love Me Tender himself, his face looking up at me from the album cover with the smile that had charmed me since I was 13, when he sang to me in person.
And finally there was James Taylor’s “The Secret of Life is Enjoying the Passage of Time,” reminding me of what I was doing on the dusty floor in the middle of the night with no idea or care about how long I had been there, just enjoying the passage of time.
Email patriciabunin@sbcglobal.net. Follow her on Patriciabunin.com.
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