I always go back and forth between saying my favorite song of all time is Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Boxer” and Springsteen’s “Thunder Road.” I used to teach “Thunder Road” alongside Andrew Marvell’s poem “To His Coy Mistress” to college freshmen as great examples of the carpe diem theme.

I’ll never forget the excitement of driving from Tuscaloosa to Starkville for this–so many cars on the highway had “BOSS” and “SPRINGSTEEN” and “BRUUUUCE” written on the windows in white shoe polish, making strangers seem like fellow pilgrims.

Notice those tickets cost $9.50 each–you wouldn’t see that today! But as an indicator of how much I loved Bruce, you should know that my budget for buying groceries for two people at that time was SEVEN dollars a week. A WEEK. Times were hard, but Bruce was worth it.

Along about the time my mother took this photo of Debby holding up my Bruce Springsteen calendar in Mother’s apartment just outside Tuscaloosa (an apartment I’m pretty sure was wiped out in 2011′s monster tornado), my love for Bruce had a little tarnish marring its shine. I was put off by the scandal of his first marriage breaking up when paparazzi caught him nuzzling bandmate and future wife Patti Scialfa on a balcony in Rome. I still bought his music, but it wasn’t until a few years later, when I was older and wiser, that I realized while watching a video of Springsteen and Patti singing together how powerful their bond is. The expression on her face and the love in her eyes was the stuff novels–and songs–are written about. In fact, they’ve now been married for almost twenty-one years and raised three children outside the glare of publicity, so kudos to them for that.

Also: This is a totally great article (including wisdom for those who create) in Rolling Stone: an interview of Bruce by Jon Stewart. My take-away quote, about how our formative years remain with us:

I have a metaphor. I say, “Look, you’re in a car, your new selves can get in, but your old selves can’t get out.” You can bring new vision and guidance into your life, but you can’t lose or forget who you’ve been or what you’ve seen. New people can get in, but nobody can get out: The child from 1950, he doesn’t get out. The teenager, the adolescent boy, no one can get out. They are with you until the end of the ride, and you’re going to pass a certain amount of them on.”

Bruuuuuuce!

The Strand in Galveston, 2011

(Click here to view larger version on black background.)

• Bell bottoms!
• I know Mother was in the house feeling dubious about his mechanical skills.
• I’m sure he did not know I was lurking with a camera.
• There’s a good shot of my old Monte Carlo in the background.

Inside family joke: A couple of days later, You Know Who probably made that lawn mower able to cut grass all the way to Birmingham and back.

Here they are in 1989 taking a nap on the couch.

For many years, she was a Red Cross volunteer. I don’t think I have a photo of her in her Red Cross uniform, but I do have some of her pins, along with other volunteer pins, pictured here:

One time Olivia de Havilland was coming to the town where we lived—I’m not sure if I was in high school or college then. But my mother, knowing how much I love the actress, went to the airport hoping to get her autograph for me. It just so happened to be one of the days Mother worked at the hospital on our nearby Army post, so she was in her Red Cross uniform. Miss de Havilland had been a frequent visitor to hospitals during World War II, plus—a passionate reader—she once recalled that the first book she ever read was written for the benefit of the Red Cross in World War I. So my mother may have been right in her belief that it was her uniform that made Miss de Havilland stop and not only give her an autograph but spend a few minutes in conversation with her.

Sadly, though that autograph was among my most treasured keepsakes, it has been misplaced for years. Maybe one day it’ll turn up tucked into some other papers—but I’ll always appreciate the kind hearts of the two women who gave it to me.

I have some big editing jobs to do, and I could be spending my time on those, but I’m not in the right frame of mind. I’m sure the writers would rather I wait until I can truly focus on their work and not do a half-hearted job.

Also, as a little break from writing about things in the distant past, here are a few photos from Rhonda’s belated birthday celebration last week.

Cupcakes!

T is for Tom.

B is for Becky.

R is for Rhonda.

Lindsey says there IS an I in cupcake.

I also finished two Bottle Cap paintings on Craft Night, but they are too personal to sell. Maybe I’ll post photos of them later.

My Vacation Reading Club certificate from the bookmobile (though they got my middle initial wrong), and the front cover of my Carnival of Books reading list from when I was age six.

Tuesday on Twitter, Timmy, Steve B, and I talked about library cards and bookmobiles. I know I always had library cards, but I don’t remember getting them (except the last one I got for Houston’s library downtown). But those steps up into the bookmobile, the smell of the books, even the way the air conditioner felt–those memories are as vivid as if they happened only weeks ago. It was SO EXCITING the day the bookmobile came.

I filled out the first few lines of my “books read” myself, then my mother took over, probably because I kept messing up the authors’ names. I may eventually look up all of these books and see if any of them seem familiar. For example, I don’t remember reading H.A. Rey’s Cecily G. and the 9 Monkeys, in which Curious George makes his very first appearance.

And clearly my appreciation of things that sparkle must have begun with Paul Brown’s Sparkle and Puff Ball.

Does anyone remember any of these books?

My mother must have, because many years later, when The Boyfriend brought us a dog to rehome when her family moved out of the country, my mother renamed her Ling Toy (No. 18, Glen Dines’s The Useful Dragon of Sam Ling Toy).

Back cover:

No worries about running out of space, however, because Marika has, on separate occasions, sent two more.

While reading a post on Dawn’s blog, I began to remember how I once stumbled over my Morning Pages several years after I semi-did Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. I was surprised back then to see that many of my writing hopes had subsequently come true. So after reading Dawn’s post, I decided, I need to keep a manifestation journal. When I went looking for the extra Moleskines, I discovered that either Marika or I had put a sticker she also sent me on the front of one of those blank books.

There’s nothing wrong with being a dreamer. Put the work with your dreams, and they can come true. Thanks for the reminder, Marika and Dawn. On with the Lennon-skine.

Mother with David, age fifteen months.

May 14 is my brother David’s birthday. When the family was together recently, I got to retell one of my mother’s favorite stories.

When he was about the age you see him in these pictures–a toddler–Mother put him down for a nap one day. Then she and a friend sat on the porch to talk.

After a bit, Mother looked down the road and saw a woman holding the hand of a child and walking in her direction.

“That baby’s probably about the same age as David,” she mused.

The woman and child came closer. She laughed and said, “That child even looks a little like David.”

A few seconds and another glance later, she said, “That little boy is David!”

Unidentified child with David.

Apparently he’d taught himself how to climb over the rail of his baby bed and slide head first to the floor. He then made his escape through the back door and trotted down the road wearing nothing but his diaper. He was spotted by a stranger. She took his hand and began walking him in the direction he’d come from, sure sooner or later she’d find a frantic mother.

He still loves to walk, though he’s often guiding other people over mountainous terrain in the western states. And now he knows to dress appropriately.

We’re all thinking of you with love on your birthday, David, and we’re glad you always come back from your travels with stories to tell.

Another great photo from Geri.

A very happy Mother’s Day to all of you who are mothers–whether by biology, fostering, adopting, step-parenting, or acting as mother figures to those with whom you share a profound bond of love. I was fortunate to have the mother I did, and I also had others who nurtured and taught me, like Elnora and Pollye, and of course my wonderful mother-in-law Mary.

My mother loved to work crossword puzzles. Reading gave her a rich vocabulary, and the puzzles made good use of it and added to it. It’s a pastime my sister also enjoys, and when Debby was here recently and finished the book she was reading, she said she needed to get a crossword puzzle book. I still had the last two–and a pack of mechanical pencils–that I’d bought for my mother not long before she died: the giant puzzles with easier words, so they wouldn’t frustrate her.

I gave one of the books to my sister–I think only one puzzle had been started and left unfinished by me. I kept the other one, and found this puzzle that I’d done, probably while sitting next to my mother as she slept.

Notice that number 11 across is “mama”: the clue was “She’s remembered.”

She surely is.