Grandma's Parlor

Most summers as a kid we took our vacation to my grandparents’ house in New Jersey. They lived in an old house, the one my grandmother was born in, and it was HOT. No air conditioning hot. Crazy muggy hot. In the evening with the windows open and the fans blowing it was tolerable and we’d all sit in the parlor watching the old black and white television. All the TV stations were out of New York City so we got the big stories not the fluff you get from local stations.

I distinctly remember certain touch sensations of that parlor. The quilt that covered the sofa had small circular patterns in it that I would run my fingers over and over. The carpet which was probably extremely old but incredibly durable was rough and flattened with age and felt kind of like running your hand over a panful of Rice Krispy treats; not sticky, just textured like that. All the years we went there, those 2 touch sensations were consistent.

The thing about sitting on that floor or that couch watching the NYC news is that major world news and social events and always seemed to happen in the week we were visiting there:

AIDS was discovered
A few different airliners were hijacked and on one of them terrorists killed that Navy diver, I still remember his name was Robert Stethem.
Yankee Dave Righetti pitched a no-hitter on the Fourth f July.
Rock Hudson announced he was dying of AIDS.

It’s the AIDS story that I remember most. You remember where you were when major events happen, like the shuttle explosion, Reagan being shot; I remember hearing about this new disease called AIDS. I was sitting on that rough carpet in that hot parlor with the fan blowing, playing cards with my brother. I was 10-11 years old. My brother and I both remarked “Aids, that’s the name of that diet candy.”

So much happened on that old black and white TV.

I first watched Norma Rae on that TV. I learned about unions and factories.
I watched 4th of July fireworks at the Statue of Liberty on that same TV. For a small-town Florida girl that was a big deal.

I don’t know if it’s because I was younger and my brain was more spongelike or if it was just because we had less access to information back then, but these stories stuck with me. Even now when I remember the footage of the body of the Navy diver thrown out of the plane, the footage of the pilot held captive in the cockpit window, and the heroic stewardess with the curly flyaway hair, I’m also still feeling the circles in the pattern on that sofa quilt in my mind, and my fingers still move.

In my 20s I lived with my grandma for a few months, and that same carpet and sofa quilt were still there. We would still sit together on the sofa and watch the TV news, which thankfully was now in color, and I’d run my fingers over the quilt pattern. It was familiar and somewhat hypnotizing, not in a spooky sense but in the sense of “I’ve done this 1000 times before,” and felt like I knew every thread in it. Muscle memory, sensory memory, loose associations. Like the autistic child who rocks back and forth, I’d feel the patterns and remember the stories.

The Song Remembers When

There’s a Trisha Yearwood song from several years back that begins:

I was standin' at the counter
I was waitin' for the change
When I heard that old familiar music start

It continues to recount how even though years have passed and “though I had forgotten all about it, the song remembers when.”

How often do we find ourselves going about our daily lives when a song comes on the radio or in the grocery store and we’re suddenly floored by memories that only seconds ago were buried in the deep recesses of our minds? Sometimes it’s a memory of heartache upon hearing what used to be “our song” from loves past. Other times we’re reduced to a brief trance as we’re mentally transported back to a time and place decades gone but crystal clear in our mind’s eye.

Earlier this evening I was engrossed in writing a travel piece when Tie a Yellow Ribbon by Tony Orlando and Dawn came on the radio via the Saturday night oldies show. Suddenly I remembered being in our big green ’71 Chrysler, driving down Route 60 in my hometown with my dad. We had just gone to the post office and were stopped at a red light in front of the big catholic church when it came on the radio. I was tagging along while Dad did some errands that day as I was too young to be in school yet. I suppose my dad might have actually been singing along, which was a rare occurrence and probably why this stayed with me. I remember nothing else about that day, but I remember those moments of that song.

I also have a cache of what I call “vacation songs” that trigger memories. When I was a kid we usually drove up North for our family vacations, spending several days in the car. Going up I-95 you lose radio stations every hour or two and constantly have to find a more local one. Invariably they’re all playing the same current top 40 songs, so we’d hear the same songs several times each day, to the point of begging the radio gods to please find a new song for us weary travelers!

Because of this, I remember where we went on vacation each year by the song I associate with each location. Summer of ’79 was the Reunited vacation thanks to Peaches and Herb, so that was the year we had a family reunion in the Midwest. Summer of ’81 was the Queen of Hearts vacation (Juice Newton), which means New Jersey. Summer of ’83 was the Flashdance vacation, so that means we went to New England that year as I remember hearing it in the train station at Mt. Washington in New Hampshire.

Even 25 years later, I always think of these places and their respective scenery when I hear these songs. When I hear the theme from Flashdance I’m once again sitting in the backseat of our old van, counting license plates and reading the road atlas.

As Trisha’s lyrics say, the moment seemed to freeze/and we turned the music up and sang along.

Yeah, and even if the whole world has forgotten
The song remembers when.




What songs are strong memory triggers for you?