Unexpected Harvest
I don’t know if this phenomenon is exclusive to parents or not, but every time I open a CD/DVD case, the disc inside does not match the cover. Argh! Actually, there is no Argh! because I am more accustomed to finding something different than finding one that matches. Imagine my surprise when I open the Harvest case and see the Harvest CD; probably because it had gone missing for years. Driving alone, I can choose whatever music I want and crank it. I pop in the disc and am tele-ported from Mast Gap Road to Memory Lane. As Neil croons one chord after another, I remember the words without effort. They say the sense of smell is most closely connected to memory, but I beg to differ. Each song has a particular memory which loads up after a few bars play.
First, I’m playing the piano part to Out On the Weekend while my friends accompany me on the comb and wax paper at East Carolina. Heart of Gold is a road trip to Daytona. Then, it’s ‘92. I’m crossing the Mississippi after Memphis, belting Old Man with a teammate on the way to the National Ultimate tournament in Fort Collins. I must’ve sung the whole tape (yes, it was a tape back in the day, youngins) two or three times waiting for those tiny morning molehills in the distance to become the Grand Tetons by late afternoon. Once, I sang The Needle and the Damage Done with a friend’s band when they called me up at a party. Who was I back then? Don’t know where I got the guts for such things. Guess I’ll chalk that up to being in my twenties. A Man Needs a Maid reminds me of our honeymoon. Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, and back home, all the while keeping Neil in the shotgun seat.
Last time I saw this disc, I was den mother to an ultimate team consisting of twenty-year-olds. Being designated driver on the way to a tournament, I put in Harvest, thinking no one would know it. Everyone knows these songs. They’re easy to play and easy to sing. There must be hope for the future if the kids these days are into 70’s music. Never thought I would bond with teenagers over the music I loved as a teen. Thanks to technology, they can hear everything we did. Common ground can be an unexpected harvest.