Not All Who Wander Are Lost

I'm On A Wavelength Far From Home

"You Will Be Successful...Someday"

Every year is a year of change, but this year more than most. I was closer to birth and death than ever before this year, and it brought me farther from my youth than I could have imagined possible. New Years means The End is Near, and thank goodness. I need some time to breathe, and the students return on Sunday.

Mom and Dad stopped by with shrimp chow fun and beef with broccoli on their way home from the Berkshires, where they had been visiting one of my father's old law-school buddies and a few other friends. After watching the baby laugh at herself on the video Neil made of our Christmas-in-Vermont adventures this year, we ate, and while we did, talk of holidays in general turned to a long-ago Thanksgiving we spent at Disneyworld. Funny how memories bubble up when you're with family. My head is still clear with idealized images of turkey and cannedberry sauce on a cruise ship with Pluto and Minnie, and a magical land with clean, clear cobblestone streets, no lines at the rides and no crowds at the parade, as if the whole Kingdom was our own private playground. Memory is a kind mistress; surely it wasn't that good, although we have good luck with Disneyworld: Darcie and I went a few years ago during a cold snap, and the place was practically deserted

Although kitsch and popculture splendor usually make me smile, by the time the 'rents left at eight, thinking about the past had left me pensive and moody with the weight of generations, as is my wont when after my family has gone. Also, my fortune cookie said You will be successful someday, but there was a line break between the last two words. What, like I'm not successful now? I'm sure it had the best of intentions, but I refuse to be dissed by a tiny piece of paper just because it came wrapped in a cookie.

The combination of cookie and memory made for a similarly pensive and moody, almost maudlin half-hour playlist when, at 9:30, I drove off in a light snowfall sans cohost to begin yet another weekly radio show:

Bob Dorough -- Too Much Coffee Man (theme song)
Kris McKay – Wish You Were Here
Norah Jones – Seven Years
Marc Cohn – Mama’s In The Moon
David Wilcox – Chet Baker’s Unsung Swan Song
Sarah McLachlan – The Rainbow Connection

Ginny called during the next-to-last song to tell me to come home, the weather was turning to freezing rain and people are driving fifty on the highway. It’s not like anyone was listening, what with all the students on break until Sunday. So I did.

Extra special bonus points and a free cup of coffee for the first caller that can correctly identify the source for tonight's title. All lines are open; operators are standing by.