For Wilshire Baptist Church
It’s official: the big event of my summer isn’t going to happen. Wildfires have burned up tens of thousands of acres at Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico and torched the dreams of thousands of Scouts and leaders from coast to coast. The 12-day, 79-mile trek with my nephew and his troop has been on my calendar for more than a year, but with continued fire danger and now the risk of flash floods and mud slides on the newly-barren landscape, Philmont has cancelled all backcountry activities for the summer. But all is not lost.
I hurt for the kids and adults who had invested so much effort and anticipation in the adventure with practice hikes and gear checklists and fundraising drives. I know how much they will miss because I have great memories of the time I got to go in 1974; that’s why I wanted to go again. But I also have great memories from two years earlier when I was left behind.
That was 1972 and it was the first time our young scout troop sent a crew to Philmont. My brother got to go, but Philmont has a strict minimum age requirement of 14. I was six months too young and felt cheated that I couldn’t go. I’m sure I moped for a while until I realized that it would be the first time in my life that I had an extended time without my brother around. No offense, but we shared a bedroom and everything in it, and for two full weeks I would have it all to myself.
The one thing I remember most – the only thing I remember, really – is that I started turning the radio dial in new directions and listening to new sounds. You see, my brother was into country music and I was too by default because I tagged along on lots of things he did. But during those two weeks he was away, I twisted the dial and began listening to more pop and rock. It’s not like I was a stranger to that music, but I began to listen more intently to melodies and lyrics, and with Top 40 stations repeating the same songs all day long I began to memorize the ones I liked. So much so that I parked a cassette tape recorder next to the radio and punched the record button whenever I heard the first notes of a song that I liked. By the end of the two weeks I had my first playlist and the soundtrack for that summer.
That cassette tape is long lost, but often over the years when I’ve heard one of those two-dozen songs my memory has jumped back to those two weeks when I was my own person. On my iPhone today I have a playlist titled “1972” that is my attempt to recreate the tape I made that summer. Every now and then if I listen to it, I adjust the order when I recall which songs followed each other, or I add a song that has been missing and has been brought back to me by a memory of that time.
For the record, I also have a playlist of classic country songs from the early ’70s that my brother and I still enjoy, and a playlist from the jukebox at the restaurant I worked at in high school — a transforming experience in its own strange way. My newest playlist is a collection of songs that I started listening to when I was first getting to know LeAnn. That’s my favorite this week as we celebrate our anniversary.
Still, my all-time favorite may be the playlist from 1972. I won’t bore you with the titles and the artists because they won’t mean anything to anyone. Some of the selections are probably cringe worthy anyway and I’ll spare myself the embarrassment. But for me, they are a fond reminder of a time when I felt like I was breaking out and becoming “me” in a new, exciting way.
And that’s my prayer for anyone whose summer plans – or life plans for that matter – have burned up, or anyone who is feeling left behind: look and listen for new tunes, twist the dial and explore new sounds. Watch for new opportunities to discover more about who you are. Keep an eye out for something unexpected that will allow you to break out in a fresh new way.