I stumbled across this little gem.

I don’t remember being terrified of The Muppets as a child, but why don’t I? If we’d had a television the size of our television now, I think I would have been, but perhaps tiny, grainy TV screens helped preserve my sanity.

On a related note, perhaps I was (was?) a little insane, since I did used to (used to?) terrorize people with my animals on a stick!

For Jimmy, I give you Winston and pals.

Yes, one of those is Frankenstein. Just be thankful I no longer have a vehicle with a sun roof.

 Apparently JamesT’s mom has quite a sweet collection… Animals, Simon & Garfunkle, America, Peter Frampton, Rod Stewart, Gary Wright, Neil Diamond,  Bob Seger, Beatles…. Leo Sayer… yes, Leo Sayer. James is reading off these titles to me and commenting on “the only songs he recognized” as a youth and how he would play a song or 2 of most of these and go through the stack pretty fast. He gets to Leo Sayer and I’m like “Whoa!? Seriously?” That was one of my first two 45s, bought as a youth at a yard-sale for a dime, as I recall, “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing/Magdalena” –the other was Rita Coolidge “Your Love (is lifting me higher)”.  Technically they were the first records I ever had that weren’t red or blue or green and went along with storybooks, though they were still played on my same toy record player. I SO played the heck out of those two 45s that mom and dad broke down and got me a real stereo with record player that Christmas and encouraged the fam to get me records to play on it… ANYTHING… so I’d leave those behind. I have vivid memories of Dad and myself playfully arguring that Leo Sayer must be a woman with a voice that high pitched.

As I recall, with the stereo that year I got my first LPs… Kenny Rogers “The Gambler” from dad, K-Tel’s “Full Tilt” 1981 collection, Rick Springfield’s “Working Class Dog” and the ever mysterious “Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk”, which contained the words “Star Wars” and thus I forever tried to love, but didn’t really “get”… at least at 9-10 years old.

Four records, of course, weren’t nearly enough, and thus began my “allowance” phase — which I was given bi-weekly along with a trip to Hills, where I could pick out a 45 or save up for an LP (save! ha). I think Mom and Dad were compelled to give me an allowance  just to keep me from playing the same record over and over (which I actually still tend to do even today, a cd may not change in my car player for a month or until I have the same passenger more than once and I get self-conscious about what was playing for them last time). I remember more than once being reminded that the “stereo” had more than just a record player, but was also a radio — though, without an antenna all I seemed to pick up was country music stations so it was worthless to me.

Anywho… as the still mostly tipsy JamesT is enjoying his nostaliga moment with all these records from his mom’s collection, and inspired mostly by the “Frampton Comes Alive”, I had to share a bit of nostalgia of my own.

The nostalgia was probably a requirement of these family reunion weekends anyway, even though I like the new traditions, too. Making our hats was fun, making (and eating!) the derby pie was fun, and our derby “lotto” made the race fun to watch, even if I didn’t win. I think we should probably make our hats in advance and just show up with them in the future… so we could be more elaborate, and though it was rich and delicious, I wasn’t fully pleased with my chosen derby pie recipe, so i think i’ll make the tradition to try a new recipe for it every year until we find a winner.

But… gah… it’s late for this crowd, and the wake-up call for breakfast will be all too early, so I’d better shut up and get some sleep. Sunday is the “official” reunion day, and we have to get that overwith so we can have our yearly gossip-fest.