Most people have a special song...for the elderly it may be a big band number, for the early baby boomers a rock and roll song, for the later boomers maybe something by the Stones, and so forth. And there are other pieces of music that, innocuous though they may be to everyone else, bring back a special memory.

Watching the Lost in Space DVDs has that effect on me, not the episodes themselves, but the theme song, which has the power to catapult me back to some mid-sixties summer evening. If I was allowed to watch Lost in Space, it would have been during midsummer, when everything else was in reruns, because my dad only watched it very grudgingly. In fact Lost in Space was the reason I finally got my own television once the series went into reruns--I had a major crush on Major West. :-) But Daddy couldn't stand Dr. Smith, to the point he hated everything else about the series.

So he would probably be outside somewhere when the episode aired, watering the lawn in the twilight. The windows were thrown as far open as we could manage, for there was no air conditioning, and the front and back doors wide agape so any errant breeze would come through the screen doors. I might be on the sofa, sweltering in a pair of shorts and a shell top, or sitting cross-legged on the floor, probably with a book in my hands--I almost always had something in my hands, whether it was a book or a composition book that I was writing a story in or a drawing pad--watching the black and white picture on our 19" Magnavox. The theme song brings back the sluggish breeze and the smell of heat fading from the concrete sidewalk and the muffled shouts of the men across the street playing baseball. Mother would be sitting behind me keeping cool in a duster and light slippers, sipping lemonade. If I had a drink it would still probably be milk--I didn't have to be encouraged to drink it! Or it could be Eclipse lemon-lime syrup, spooned into a big glass of cold water and deliciously, tartly sweet.

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 4:38:00 PM

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