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This weekend, while we celebrate workers’ contributions to society (hope you are enjoying the weekend as you wish), I’ve spent a good amount of time gearing up for a return to OC,SH’s full schedule starting next Monday, 09/12/2016.  I have created some new OC,SH original memes & prepared photos (many from long-time OC,SHers) for the different daily-weekly themes. When all themes come back, I will have photos cued for 13 straight weeks of the complete schedule. & soon, I will start crafting some new “photo galleries” on the OC,SH website to feature pictures I’ve taken on my road trips & at other events; along with that, I will re-work the page listings-offerings on the website.

BTW: for those wondering, I have written more to the NEW UNTITLED WRITING (link HERE) I posted Friday. I also have a title & perhaps an ending. Stay tuned for more details sometime in the next week or 2.

Regardless of what musical genre you prefer, undoubtedly songs exist that grab you in some way, shape or form. Reviewing the different songs featured in the original “CD Showcase Memories” theme & more recently in the revamped “Wednesday Wrap” & “CarTunes Saturday” themes, it should be no secret my favorite genre is older, classic country. That is what I most listened to during my “growing up” years; however, starting in High School & continuing today, my musical tastes have expanded quite a bit. That noted, today’s country music gets a bad wrap for being too “pop like”. While I agree in many cases, I think some of today’s artists know what is what & have some hits to prove it.

7 years ago this date, 09/05/2009, I embarked on 1 of my favorite road trips: a journey along Route 66. I started the day with a visit to the Lincoln Highway National Headquarters & ended the day driving from Pontiac IL to Springfield IL on Route 66.

(I took this photo along the Lincoln Highway, IL RT 38.)
I met quite a few people those ~2 weeks, though sadly, some of those life-long friends are now no longer living. I was strangely reminded of that trip this past Saturday morning when David Nail’s “Red Light” came on the radio. For me, it is 1 of those songs that, no matter how often or where I hear it, I’m always reminded of hearing it at a specific place in time. For that song, those specific details are from 09/13/2009, sitting at a red light in the sunshine on a Sunday afternoon in Flagstaff AZ, by the Visitor Center, preparing to leave town to travel a bit farther west for the evening stop. I’m so grateful to have taken that Route 66 trip when I had some time & the money & the means to do it.

Another, more recent song that has captured my attention, because it reminds me of my childhood, is Eric Church’s “Record Year”. When I was a youngster, I could count the # of my friends on 1 hand. So, in those younger days of late grade school, middle school & high school, I spent a lot of time at my turn table, playing songs from my records as much as I possibly could. As time past, that record player (which I still have) sorta morphed into CD players. In my last year of college, I started coming out of my shell … & by the time I was collecting a family of 1:1 cars of a certain nameplate (between 1992 & 2002), I was road tripping to meet people &, in some circles, was considered a “social butterfly”. Having lost my last full-time job February 2012 (after my 4th open heart surgery, 11/11/2011), I had to sell those cars & lost quite a few … friends. So, lately, I’ve spent a lot of time playing songs again; now, though, I can find online just about any song (even some I wish I had in my record & CD collections) from my memory jukebox. Cool, eh!?

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