C is for Creedence Clearwater Revival, Johnny Cash, and Muggy Summer Nights

Tonight, at the end of a long week, as I sat here trying to think of a C word I could focus my brain on long enough to say something coherent, I found myself wandering down memory lane instead.   I found music offering me a sudden ticket back to childhood and lazy summer nights.



One memory in particular stood out.  It was dusk or shortly after dark, a long afternoon and evening of getting the hay baled and put into the barn just behinds us.  For those non farm types, this means being bone tired with the good kind of full body muscle ache that can only come from hard work (like throwing heavy bales for hours). Your skin is covered with the crust of dried salt left behind from evaporating sweat and the bits of dust and dried alfalfa that somehow manage to get into every conceivable nook and cranny. In your ears, down the back of your neck, down the insides of your ankles under the sock elastic.  And now it is night and the work is done.  You are still sitting out under the night sky, having not quite found the energy to head inside yet. Fireflies are blinking in and out across the hay stubble; the stars are beginning to wink into view overhead.  Somewhere the radio is playing, filling the air with warmth of Creedance or the langorous rumble of Johnny Cash.  There is laughter and conversation and cool glasses of mint tea from which the last of the ice hasn't quite melted. It is joy and fatigue  and a good dose of relief all bundled up.

Memory is a funny, wonderful thing attached in interesting ways to sounds and smells.

What about you? Is there a song you've listened to recently that took you back to a moment of time you hadn't thought of in a long time?