Blast From The Past

33s and 45s
Originally uploaded by cathyguballa.

Those of you, who like me grew up in the 70s and early 80s, listen up...

I'm indisposed again this week and so I've been spending a great deal of time nowadays indulging in my two favorite past times - reading and blogging. I got a happy surprise in my mailbox yesterday morning. NM of Nostalgia Manila wrote to trade links with me. Apparently, he's a midlifer too because he found Midlife Mysteries much to his liking.

Before I agreed to do so, I checked out his blog first. Whoa! What a fun site! I got stuck there for the next hour browsing through an awesome collection of entries that sent me back to my childhood! I felt like Michael J. Fox in "Back To The Future" for the next hour or so. NM writes in a really funny way and his topics will certainly tickle the hearts of anyone who grew up in the 70s and was an adolescent in the 80s. After reading his blog, I immediately called our yaya over at showbiz mom's house and asked her to dig up some of my dad's old records.

Sergio Mendes and Tom Jones were the usual fare that would blast out of my dad's Pioneer stereo. Dad was a big music fan and he passed the passion on to me. I remember how sometime in the early 70s, when I was around 8 years old, he bought me a small 45 record player from Farmer's in Cubao (wala pang mall noon...) that was a bright fire engine red in color. I would play my 45's over and over again until I would get all the lyrics to my favorite songs memorized. I knew all the Carpenter's songs by heart by the time I was 9 years old. I think I was really born an old soul.

We would buy (more like, hoard) records and books from Uni-Mart every week-end and listen to them as soon as we would get home. My parents would always be able to tell if I was in a foul mood because I would play sad music at a very loud volume and sulk and cry in one corner of the sala. I was the original soap opera princess before Flordeluna came along.

Nowadays, psychologists say that if you really want to know what is in your children's hearts, you need to listen to their music. And so I try. They seem to have so much more angst nowadays, but on the other hand, they also have so much more artistry and fun too. And thank God there are a lot of revivals and so we get a lot, "You know that song?!?" from our 15 year old at home. Though it isn't exactly flattering to be called "retro", the flipside is, you get to be "cool" in your children's eyes.