What if?: July 2006

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Remember

[This is my first post to What If... It's short, but hey, it's a start. I need to thank Leesa for turning me on to the site. She's an inspiration.]

The first time I heard “Remember” by Harry Nilsson, I was sitting in the back seat of my mom’s car on my way to grandma’s house.

Being only ten years old at the time, I really didn’t have a lot of heavy memories to recall. Sure I could remember last years baseball season, my first to play on a real little league team. My bumbling awkwardness when I first started out. I could field the ball but I was no where near able to hit it like the other guys. I remembered the smell of the dirt at second base as I learned how to slide.

At ten I could still recall playing on the playground back when I was in first grade. The steel jungle-gym and the soft rubber matting underneath. The feel of the metal, smooth and hot on a Nevada summer day. The breeze coming off the desert was dry, warm and clean. No smog or city foulness. Sometimes the slight tinge of distant rain could be detected. Not heavy memories, but my memories none the less.

The next time I heard the song I was 18 years old. It was the summer after I had graduated from high school. A slightly rebellious time in which I was living at a friends house. Carefree with a job at the local KFC my time was spent working or partying. It was during an evening of beer and weed. Sitting around feeling mellow, channel surfing and socializing when we came upon a movie called “The Point”. A classic animation narrated by Ringo Starr. The song “Remember” stuck with me. I knew I had heard it before but I couldn’t recall where. But then life moved on and other songs came and went.

I’m now a veteran with kids of my own. I hold down a job and pay a mortgage. There’s pets and braces to tend to. Birthdays and anniversaries to celebrate. Life to live. I was sitting in my recliner watching a movie, “You’ve got mail” I believe was the name. When all of a sudden they start playing “Remember” by Harry Nilsson. And for the briefest moment I was sitting in the back seat of my mom’s car, ten years old, not a care in the world.....

Remember.