I was driving back from my morning run, stopped at a red light when Tim McGraw’s song, “One of Those Nights” came on the radio. I sat for a moment, transfixed. Without warning and without apparent reason, pictures from long ago played in my head. They made me smile.
Then, when I switched on the radio at home, the topic of conversation was vinyl LP records. It was a call-in show where people described their memories of vinyl records…the rush to the record store to get the latest LP, the delicate touch-down of the needle on the record, the first beats of music, untouched and unmarred as yet by scratches that would inevitably score the surface.
I was still in another world, memories painting my mind like watercolours seeping onto textured paper.
But what makes one experience, situation or occurrence more memorable than another?
Dr. Gary Small, a professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine says: “any time we experience something in a heightened emotional state, we’re more likely to remember it.”
Like the watercolour of my memories, I must have been in a state of primary colours as I heard Tim McGraw’s lyrics: “Some day when you’re looking back on your life at the memories, this is gonna be one of those nights.”
So I thought I’d share a few of those simply-makes-me-smile memories, and I hope in the comments below, you’ll share a few of yours.
I remember:
Vinyl LPs bought at the now long-gone Sam the Record Man store on Yonge Street in Toronto.
Fishing for bullheads on a full moon night, seated on cases of Molson Golden beer (stubby bottles)
down by the canal by the river near my boyfriend’s (now husband’s) cottage. It was magical.
My first kiss with my first crush, outside the bleachers at a high school dance as the band played “Dizzy“. I still have the original 45-RPM vinyl, crackles and all. Sigh…
Skinny dipping…’nuff said
A phrase I once crafted and shared with a friend: “the moon hung like a custard cup in the sky”. I can still picture that moon on a jet-black night as I was driving home. (Apparently the moon plays a large part in my memories. 
Sitting in a bed and breakfast room under enormous down comforters, cheese, crackers and wine, looking out the window at the Matterhorn. I can still taste the experience.
Memories are magical things. We don’t always know they’re hiding somewhere in the recesses of our brain until something causes them to blossom or erupt unexpectedly. Today has been a day full of fond memories for me.
Will you share some memories here?
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