Tender moments, relived...

I am listening to a tape of a mix my mother made for me, at my request, of Andre Previn's album Like Love, and another 101 Strings extravaganza, music from my young and tender years. You know, though my childhood was often tumultuous and fraught with pain, it was full of music. Dad would bring home new recordings often, Glenn Miller was a favorite, as well as Perry Como and Bing Crosby. There were stacks and stacks of 78's in the cupboard. Later, we got this huge stereo that looked like a roll-top desk, and accumulated a lot of ablums, as well as some of those 45's that were so popular in the 50's. We had all the Rogers and Hammerstein musicals: The King and I, Carousel, Oklahoma, South Pacific. Oh, and Camelot, how I loved Robert Goulet singing If ever I would leave you. And OK, we had Billy Vaughn and Mantovani, too. And I loved them. They were the precursor to my love for classical music. Listening now, I feel very young, and full of promise, like I did when I was 14, all legs and freckles, sunburned from a day at Ives pool, where Nick Boreta, who would be my high school sweetheart, chased me around all day. Summer smelled like lemon blossoms, and sounded like Tab Hunter singing Red Sails in the Sunset or the Everly Brothers or Frankie Avalon. We played statues and Red Rover on the front lawn, and begged for dimes when the ice cream truck drove up our street with its music box jingle playing over and over. I didn't know how sweet it was, then. Maybe my mother is right; it was a more innocent time.