Now how in the world did that happen?

This song takes me back. I was in my late teens when "Harold and Maude" was playing in the movies one summer evening. Or rather, not playing in our local movies, because it was considered "too subversive". (This was a town where the fundies picketed the movie "Jesus Christ, Superstar." And they censored Zeferelli's "Romeo and Juliet" because it was pornographic.) So we all piled into a friend's car and drove over to the big city of Midland, Texas, where it was showing. I became an immediate Cat Stevens fan. (Ok, obsessed. I thought he was the most exotic thing I'd ever seen.    If you'd seen the local boys, you'd get it. )

That was such a long time ago! The friend we all chipped in for gas for the car with went on to get married straight out of high school that year, as so many of them did. Had five kids, lived in a trailer in the middle of a cotton field with a drunk husband who beat her. She finally had enough and left him, got a realtor's license, and did ok for herself, after about a decade of living like that. Most of the rest of them stayed within 20 miles of where we grew up. More or less better lives than hers. Some went to community college. All are probably retired (or wishing they were) now.

Ohhhh, I am soooo far away from that little town in Texas. Educationally, culturally, life-experience-wise!  Such a long, long way. Light years away.
Thank goodness.

But it's kind of funny: I don't know exactly how I got "here" and now I'm listening to this song and remembering when the "younger" voice was me. Except  now I'm the "older voice." And my own offspring would probably be the "older" voice, too.  How/when in the world did that all happen? 

Whatever. It sure beats living in a trailer in a cotton field with no future at all.

And then there is




[No idea why they are using Bob Dylan's photo....]

I used to work for a "hoods in the woods" program in tennessee.  Many of the kids had suffered abuse or neglect at the hands of their parents, and Cats in the Cradle was THE most popular song by far.  We must have sung it 4 times a day.

Fun fact : when the boys ran away, we wouldn't even look for them. They would inevitably come back when they got hungry.  When the girls ran away, they'd be found 4 months later in Vegas.

I used to work for a "hoods in the woods" program in tennessee.  Many of the kids had suffered abuse or neglect at the hands of their parents, and Cats in the Cradle was THE most popular song by far.  We must have sung it 4 times a day.

Fun fact : when the boys ran away, we wouldn't even look for them. They would inevitably come back when they got hungry.  When the girls ran away, they'd be found 4 months later in Vegas.

Of course. Vegas. 

He didn't sing "Cats in the Cradle", though. That was Harry Chapin.