Maybe everyone was born at the end of an era. The pre-me era.

Reading some of these threads, I hear the last rumblings of an age now gone. I was born at the end of a lot of things that were commonplace when I was a kid... ice boxes and ice wagons, milk delivery, mail delivered twice a day, the circus coming to town on the train and parading down Main Street, barefoot summers with no television... All of that is so familiar to me, and yet it sounds like something out of an old movie to my sons. I guess my life is an old movie.

A friend of mine, Eric Garrison has slowly evolved as a songwriter. Eric is probably about 15 years younger than me. At first his songs were about love (found, lost, misplaced..) But through time, he started writing songs about when he was growing up. I found it very interesting to see his perspective and hear his life through his songs because even though he talked about hearing the Beatles as a little kid, his experiences sounded much like my own, growing up. We just had a different soundtrack. He can talk about the first time he heard I Want To Hold Your Hand. I can remember the first time I heard Earth Angel. Small town life is small town life is small town life. Admittedly, most small towns are dealing with drug dealing and occasional violent crime. But I look at the kids in our neighborhood here in Derby and their life doesn't look that different than mine was. I walked the neighborhood in the winter asking people if I could shovel their sidewalk, and kids are still doing that around here. They go sledding over by the reservoir and shoot baskets in their driveways. Their language may be saltier than mine was, but not all kids talk like the most foul-mouthed rappers and hip-hoppers. Life hasn't gone to Hell in a handbasket yet. Even if nobody knows what a handbasket is, any more...

Jerry