I grew up in Nineteen Seventy Something. I know I sound extra old when I reminisce about my good old days, but hey, I’ve been somewhat immersed in that time period. Writing a book will do that. The Delta is an interesting place for me. It’s the place I feel comfortable and at home, the place that fits me and knows me best. For so long it was my entire world—our house on Highway 140, that yard my sister and I mowed every single week, those fields that represented our livelihood, our clouds floating above it all.

Change in technology and social culture sort of sneak up on us. I notice the difference most vividly when I’m home in the Delta because that’s where life was so simple and basic in the beginning.

I remember working on my cartwheels in the front yard while waiting and waiting and waiting for WHBQ to play my favorite song on the radio. And I knew the moment I turned off my radio, my song would play next! That’s exactly how things worked back then.

I had this radio…

 

Somehow I think we’ve lost something now that we can Shazam a song and download it in an instant. Of course I love Shazaming a song and downloading it in an instant (and I don’t miss that radio in the least), but still…there was a certain spirit involved in spending weeks and weeks trying to understand a certain song lyric and not being able to play it on repeat.

Am I the only person who thought the lyrics to Blinded By the Light included “wrapped up like a douche”? (I had no idea what douche meant, but I thought it had to do with s-e-x and wouldn’t sing that word very loud.)Continue Reading