I have a lot of memories from when I was a child...some good, some bad. Everyone does, so I am not unique. It is funny how some things that you come across in life trigger long buried memories that you didn't even realize that you had.
I have had an iPod for a long time. I love my iPod, and I am not sure how I would survive without it. It comes in really handy when I need to concentrate at work. I just put on my headphones, flip on my favorite play list and sink into my own little world where I can actually get some work done. I even have a little adapter that I bought for my car that plugs into the back of my factory stereo (since the one in my Impala sounds pretty great for a factory unit) and allows my iPod to emulate a CD changer so I can enjoy my favorite music in the car.
When I started loading up music, I loaded up everything I could find. I ripped all of my CDs, all of my mother and father's CDs, and even all my friend Chris' CDs. I have bought copious amounts of pre-owned CDs from a local music and movie resale store, rediscovering music that I loved in my youth...as a child of the 80's...and adding them to my collection in iTunes. Right now I have over 4,000 songs taking up over 20 Gb of space, though my "Super Favorites" play list only has 235 songs in it.
Fig. 1: The Cars Greatest Hits
I bought a used CD, The Cars Greatest Hits, at the secondhand store. I like a lot of the songs on this CD, but one song in particular, the 1979 hit single "Let's Go", triggered a deep memory within my brain that I did not realize was there. This song I strongly associated with a car accident.
I was born in Indiana. My mother moved there, got married and had me. She worked at Elkhart General Hospital as a respiratory therapist, and this is the hospital I was born in. After a few years, she and my biological father divorced and we were going to move back to Ohio. Before everything was complete, mother took me to Fairborn to live with my grandparents while she finalized everything.
On the trip back to Ohio along US 33, we came upon an accident involving a single car, a Ford Mustang, that landed in a field nose down. This was a very serious single car accident. The driver of the car was very drunk, but thankfully still alive though badly hurt. A number of people were stopped to help, and my mother was the only medically-trained person there at the time. Mother took my pillow...I always travel with a pillow...to comfort the driver of the car and assist until medics arrived.
The thing that I remember most clearly was that the stereo in the Mustang was still operating, and the song playing quite loudly was none other than "Let's Go" by The Cars.
It wasn't until a few years ago that I heard this song on the radio. I did not know what the name of the song was, but I remembered it somehow. The memories of the car accident flooded back, and I asked my mother about it. She was shocked that I could so clearly remember what had taken place. I was very young, something like four years old.
It is funny how we go through so many things in our lives, yet our brains weed out much of the fluff, but can store some of the most interesting and unique events. They say that we use only 10% of our brains, but I have to wonder how much our brains can store and how much might be there, yet we can't access these memories for want of a trigger. Sometimes the strangest, most off-beat things can bring back memories that we didn't even know we had.
I have had an iPod for a long time. I love my iPod, and I am not sure how I would survive without it. It comes in really handy when I need to concentrate at work. I just put on my headphones, flip on my favorite play list and sink into my own little world where I can actually get some work done. I even have a little adapter that I bought for my car that plugs into the back of my factory stereo (since the one in my Impala sounds pretty great for a factory unit) and allows my iPod to emulate a CD changer so I can enjoy my favorite music in the car.
When I started loading up music, I loaded up everything I could find. I ripped all of my CDs, all of my mother and father's CDs, and even all my friend Chris' CDs. I have bought copious amounts of pre-owned CDs from a local music and movie resale store, rediscovering music that I loved in my youth...as a child of the 80's...and adding them to my collection in iTunes. Right now I have over 4,000 songs taking up over 20 Gb of space, though my "Super Favorites" play list only has 235 songs in it.
Fig. 1: The Cars Greatest HitsI was born in Indiana. My mother moved there, got married and had me. She worked at Elkhart General Hospital as a respiratory therapist, and this is the hospital I was born in. After a few years, she and my biological father divorced and we were going to move back to Ohio. Before everything was complete, mother took me to Fairborn to live with my grandparents while she finalized everything.
On the trip back to Ohio along US 33, we came upon an accident involving a single car, a Ford Mustang, that landed in a field nose down. This was a very serious single car accident. The driver of the car was very drunk, but thankfully still alive though badly hurt. A number of people were stopped to help, and my mother was the only medically-trained person there at the time. Mother took my pillow...I always travel with a pillow...to comfort the driver of the car and assist until medics arrived.
The thing that I remember most clearly was that the stereo in the Mustang was still operating, and the song playing quite loudly was none other than "Let's Go" by The Cars.
It wasn't until a few years ago that I heard this song on the radio. I did not know what the name of the song was, but I remembered it somehow. The memories of the car accident flooded back, and I asked my mother about it. She was shocked that I could so clearly remember what had taken place. I was very young, something like four years old.
It is funny how we go through so many things in our lives, yet our brains weed out much of the fluff, but can store some of the most interesting and unique events. They say that we use only 10% of our brains, but I have to wonder how much our brains can store and how much might be there, yet we can't access these memories for want of a trigger. Sometimes the strangest, most off-beat things can bring back memories that we didn't even know we had.
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