Rick Land & Russ Tapp: Blog

Last week we had over 12 inches of snow to fall on the city of Amarillo.  Schools were closed for two whole days! I have not seen snowfall like it since I lived in Pampa. We had blizzards that literally piled snow from the ground up and onto the roof of the house.  I noticed that the "snow crews" piled most of the snow in the middle of the streets to keep from blocking entrances to the driveways and parking lots all over town.  Now they are going back scooping up the blackened snow from the center of the streets.

There is a spiritual lesson here.  I personally have piled up years of experiences , like we all have, that often lay far beneath my consciousness.  Suddenly, something will happen to draw back a memory or a thought I have long forgotten. I have discovered that I have a great memory for detail.  All of this snow has taken me back to my childhood days here in the Panhandle when we played outside every waking moment, no computers or TV to keep us inside. We loved to crawl inside a 55 gallon barrel and roll down the "looong" hill at Sam Houston Elementary behind our house.  Sledding in the snow down that long hill was simply thrilling. All the kids in our neighborhood had roller skates.  We got together and went caroling at Christmas ( I played the accordion!).  It was idylic in the 50's and early 60's.

My mother had songbooks full of great popular songs from the last 75 years. I would often just sit at the piano while she prepared dinner and played songs like "Tenderly", "The Lost Chord", "Moon Over Miami", "Alice Blue Gown", and one of my favorites, "All the Things You Are" written in 1939 (those marvelous chords just swept me away!).

I have layers and layers of songs in my head that I can play from memory if someone just hollers out the name.  On occasion, I go to a really great party and we gather around a piano and sing.  This is quite a novelty these days and never fails to really move people to tears as they actually sing songs from their childhood, or songs their parents and grandparents loved ( of course it helps if they have had a "belt" or two!). 

I know all this sounds pretty sappy but I honestly believe that we need a good dose of old fashioned sentimentality occasionally. We need to roll back the layers of our lives to remember moments of great emotion, passion, hope, beauty and tranquility.  There is a lot of beauty around us these days but there is also an overwhelming amount of "ugly".  We laugh at June Cleaver and Donna Reed. We snicker and roll our eyes at Lawrence Welk.

I never thought I would make fun of men who wear their pants below their butts, or women who stuff themselves in custom designer jeans.  I want to remember the days when we could not wear blue jeans to school or chew gum or wear our shirt tails out, ever! I want to close my eyes and know that I was a part of a beautiful time in history - in spite of all the turmoil back in the 50's and 60's.  We still got up every morning and looked our best. Mama reminded us to be polite, kind and mind our teachers.

Those memories are all piled up in my head and occasionally the snow melts away and I see what is at the bottom of my heart.  I see how important it is to love simplicity and authenticity.

Yes, I listen to the world around me and never tire of Lady GaGa or The View and Oprah or of hundreds of other things in this crazy universe.  I just add it all to the "pile" of my life. Take a deep breath and sip my gin and tonic.   rdl