My pal Jamie over at Duward Discussion has brought back a great meme called Take This Tune. It's easy to play. Jamie provides a musical prompt each week, usually a video with the song lyrics. The task is to write something inspired by the song or something in the lyrics.
Jamie put the meme on hiatus a year ago February. I'm glad to see it back and I hope some of you will play along once in awhile. I've always considered this game to be a great way to combine music and writing. Or music and photography. Or music and more music.
You get my drift.
The prompt for this week is Feels Like Home, a song from the Randy Newman musical Faust.
When I was about 10, my parents divorced and my younger sister and I were raised by our single mom. We lived about an hour and a half from my grandmother, and so we made lots of weekend trips over to the San Francisco Bay Area to visit. They were like mini vacations for us. We would laugh and sing in the car during the entire drive.
Editor's note: I have inherited that trait. Just after the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, while driving late at night in downtown San Francisco, I managed to lose the Bay Bridge. But that's a story for another trip in the Wayback Machine.
My sister and I were Slurpee-holics in those days.
Gram was the best. She was a fireplug of a redhead and she was so much fun when I was a kid. She'd take us down to Tanforan Mall in San Bruno. We'd have adventures in parking. She'd drive and drive around the side lot next to the Sears entrance to the mall, waiting for "her" spot to open up right near the front. My sister and I would play scout from the backseat, keeping an eye on the entrance and watching for people heading to their cars. And then, just like that, Gram's spot would open up and she'd swing the big Caddy in like a pro.
After our triumph in parking, we'd walk into the mall through Sears. This was my first experience with any large shopping mall. Gram would always take us to the toy store and the pet store. Sometimes she'd need to stop at a shoe store, and she always picked the one next to Waldenbooks so we could browse while she got her shoes. Sometimes we'd get a prize for being patient...a new Hardy Boys book for me and a Trixie Belden or Bobbsey Twins for my sis.
Then we'd head over to the Walgreen's. Now back in those days at Tanforan, the Walgreen's was more than just a place where Gram could get her necessaries, as she called them. Once in awhile we'd get new coloring books and the small boxes of new Crayola crayons. Of course we'd lust after the big box of 64 with the built-in sharpener, but that was always reserved for a holiday or birthday gift.
The best thing though...the ultimate...the grandest thing about going to Gram's was that she lived around the corner from a 7-Eleven. Can you imagine anything better for a couple of Slurpee-holics? After a day of racing Big Wheels down the big hill, or building Legos and Tinker Toys in the backyard, or drawing and coloring on the big dining room table, Gram would hand us a dollar and send us around the corner for Slurpees.
Yeah...back then you could get 2 Slurpees for a buck.
My grandmother has been gone for more than 25 years now. My grandfather just sold the house this year so he could move into a smaller place with more immediate onsite care and attention. I'm a little sad about that, but all things change.
My aunt and uncle still live one block over from that house. So now it's a two block walk to get to that same 7-Eleven.
So what feels like home, now that the old house is no longer part of our family?
Memories.
Memories of my redheaded spitfire Gram, and Caddy wrangling in a parking lot, and Walgreen's grilled cheese and hot fudge sundaes, and Crayola crayons, and getting lost as an adventure, and Slurpees.
Memories are always home.
