This posting has nothing to do with New York City, except that I'm here. I sit in our apartment, looking at the Brooklyn Bridge through windows speckled with raindrops, listening to "Daydream Believer" on yesterday's NPR announcement that Davy Jones had died.
The summer of my 8th grade year floods back, when I bought my one and only Monkees album.
I was on a two-week family vacation, the kind where you ride in the car for hours, next to your younger brother, parents in the front, getting more carsick by the mile as you watch half of New Mexico go by. Quarters from my allowance jingled in my plaid change purse waiting for the perfect souvenir.
No one in my family could understand when I said, "That's it! That's what I want!" holding up More of the Monkees, a souvenir I could have bought at home. But there was Davy, and those other guys, looking right at me on the cover. I'd never heard of any of the songs listed on the back, but who cared. I would have my very own picture of Davy Jones.
Of course, I couldn't listen to the music until we returned home. The brown boxed record player waited in the corner of my room, the top latched down, with my prized Meet the Beatles album tucked safely inside. But I could look at the cover through the next 15 states, as it sat beside me on the seat.
There was a sweetness about Davy Jones, or at least the Davy Jones who smiled at me from the album, and who spoke in that irresistible British accent on TV. He was like the cute boy in your science class, who all the girls had a crush on; yet he didn't seem to know it.
As I play the NPR piece again and hear Davy's voice sing those first lines,
"Oh, I could hide beneath the wings
Of the bluebird as she sings,
The six o'clock alarm would never ring. . ."
I, again, feel like the middle-schooler whose heart beats a little faster and who dares to be a daydreamer.
The summer of my 8th grade year floods back, when I bought my one and only Monkees album.
I was on a two-week family vacation, the kind where you ride in the car for hours, next to your younger brother, parents in the front, getting more carsick by the mile as you watch half of New Mexico go by. Quarters from my allowance jingled in my plaid change purse waiting for the perfect souvenir.
No one in my family could understand when I said, "That's it! That's what I want!" holding up More of the Monkees, a souvenir I could have bought at home. But there was Davy, and those other guys, looking right at me on the cover. I'd never heard of any of the songs listed on the back, but who cared. I would have my very own picture of Davy Jones.
Of course, I couldn't listen to the music until we returned home. The brown boxed record player waited in the corner of my room, the top latched down, with my prized Meet the Beatles album tucked safely inside. But I could look at the cover through the next 15 states, as it sat beside me on the seat.
There was a sweetness about Davy Jones, or at least the Davy Jones who smiled at me from the album, and who spoke in that irresistible British accent on TV. He was like the cute boy in your science class, who all the girls had a crush on; yet he didn't seem to know it.
As I play the NPR piece again and hear Davy's voice sing those first lines,
"Oh, I could hide beneath the wings
Of the bluebird as she sings,
The six o'clock alarm would never ring. . ."
I, again, feel like the middle-schooler whose heart beats a little faster and who dares to be a daydreamer.
I remember walking with friends becoming blood sisters after we crooned over the Monkeys. How strange and fun youth is. Loved the music as well.
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ReplyDeleteSo nice to hear your memories!
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