October 18, 2019: Reminiscing while walking new paths

Starting our journey in Wisconsin also means starting a new walking routine, new routes, new roads, new paths, and more.

Two weeks into our Harrison home, as I experience the joy of walking in our new Kimberly Heights neighborhood in Harrison, on the edge of the Fox Cities, I enjoy an eclectic mix of music, on my Amazon music playlists. Almost every song I have selected has the power to drop me back years in time, to vivid if fading memories of people, places, sounds, events and more.

A song can often present a very specific story in my head. I can almost feel and smell the money, if only for a few seconds of mental video in my head. My Amazon account and tastes run heavily towards my college years, with dorm memories, dances, all-nighters, exams, and more.

Perhaps the single most powerful musical memory comes from late 1969, early 1970. It was my first year of college. The school year ended in a strike after the Kent State shootings in May 1970. I volunteered to take my Spanish exam -- translating about three pages from a Spanish novel -- and was waived from my other exams. That most odd end to a freshman year may have been the worst thing to happen to my academic career, finishing the first year without closure. But I digress.

In late December, the Rolling Stones released their tenth album. Remember, this was fifty years ago and the Stones are still out there. The album was the iconic, Let It Bleed, which included three most memorable tracks in its forty or so minutes of play. The three tracks -- Gimme shelter, You can't always get what you want, and Let it bleed became background music for a tumultuous second semester in spring 1970.

That year also included a strange academic calendar: We had started after Labor Day, had a week of classes after the Christmas break, had about another week termed 'study week,' and then finals, before a break and spring classes resuming in February. So the Stones received a lot of play during a period without a class schedule.

Hearing any of these iconic tracks -- especially Gimme Shelter -- causes my mind to flip/slip back to dorm rooms, late-night sessions, dancing, long hair, girls in Danskin tops, alcohol (the drinking age in New York was 18 at the time, and dorms had refrigerators in many rooms, often filled with cheap, fizzy wine like Annie Greenspring or Boone Farms, costing about $1 a bottle (when the minimum wage was $1.60). A guy could throw a pretty good party in his dorm suite (three bedrooms and a bath) for about $20. Like the current oldies station in Buffalo -- WECK -- now claims, Let It Bleed was "the soundtrack to our lives" in early 1970.