Music.

It’s always amazing to me how our brains link things together. Since I have only the one brain, I can’t say whether my experiences are unique or universal. Things like tasting a particular food and immediately conjuring a memory.

Things like – hearing crooner Dean Martin’s voice soaring from the shop’s speakers and immediately thinking of my Dad, the biggest Dean Martin fan I have ever known. I’m guessing that – because he had it on the television and I was intrigued enough to watch with him, I remember segments like Crazy Gugenheim and Foster Brooks, the (now politically-and-socially-incorrect) lovable drunk who could not get out a complete sentence without a hiccup.

Now, I just have to hear Dean Martin singing and I can remember my Dad in his big green easy chair, watching the TV program.

Foster Brooks, the lovable drunk, lived to the age of 89. Singer and actor Dean Martin was 78 when the curtain dropped down. My father had just pushed 50.

So, I hear his music and think of him. Because we never had that time together as adults. Never spoke together as men. Always – dad and kid son.

I grew up, but he never grew old.

And that darned brain. Connects us like a time machine to other places and times with – whatever – as that fragile thread hanging tough against the winds of time.

Just now, I passed through the shop office, where the television was in action for no one (got to justify my cable bill, you know…) and KOTV was running their (probably obligatory) program about Oklahoma. Lawton, was said and I turned around and saw my childhood neighbor Tony, an award-winning photographer, now working in front of the camera as well. They were visiting Wayne’s Drive Inn, in Lawton.

Bam!

Immediately after seeing an image of the place, I was mentally hearing Roxanne, by The Police. You know it, probably. Roxanne. Roxanne. You don’t have to turn on your red light.

You don’t have to wear that dress tonight.

It was the first hit for Gordon Sumner, the Englishman in New York who called himself Sting.

When I heard the song on the car radio, I was waiting for a to-go order for Alicia, me, and soon-to-be born Dustin at that Lawton OK drive in. We lived off Cache Road. Just visited Wayne’s the one time, but it had nothing to do with the food. I recall a great burger, but our family’s time in Lawton – at that point – had just about played itself out.

Crazy brain stuff. See a Lawton, Oklahoma burger joint and immediately flash to a memory of Sting and Roxanne and my wife and baby boy. And just moments after enjoying a dose of Dean and the vivid recollection of my long-dead father. In truth, these three generations have music as a common thread.

Maybe there is some DNA thing about things like that. Father, son, grandson – have all performed before audiences. My great-grandfather Caleb had a musical program in San Francisco in the early days of radio. Hit a couple of notes of just about any song and I can quickly dish up a memory of a place, time, or experience.

Too bad the genetics didn’t come down from a silversmith, athlete, politician, or conman: some DNA that would have made for an easier living. Family. Gotta love ‘em anyway.

We’re like family here! Come visit!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main Street, Broken Arrow, OK!