Wiki Wacky

There is a lot of teasing that goes on about Wikipedia because it can be changed so easily and sometimes you do have to double check the information, but I'm crazy about Wiki because it is where I keep my brain. We all have "senior moments" even if we aren't seniors, but if you can get somewhere in the vicinity of a memory, Wiki can probably find it for you.

For instance, today I was trying to remember songs on my radio when I was five. Strangely enough, I could actually remember one, "Far Away Places", simply because I remember exactly where I was when I first heard it. I couldn't be absolutely sure if the memory was faulty and what's more all the other songs of the era were sort of mushed together in time. What I needed to do was put "Far Away Places" on the radio in 1949.

As you can see from the link above, there it is on the Billboard Hits on December 31, 1948 where it stayed for 18 weeks. Now how about the other songs? Type in a year, any year - In this case 1949 Songs - Look what pops up: 1949 In Music. Now I can click from year to year to put songs in the context of places, which will come in very, very handy. If you can just ask the right question, Wiki will at least get you started on the road to the answer.

So there I am, barefoot (I still hate shoes), sitting on the floor of my bedroom in Fresno (I still don't like chairs). My favorite Childcraft book - the one with the poetry - is open (I still love books). By now in the space of five years, I have been in Los Angeles, Oakland, Walla Walla, Boulder City, and now Fresno. It's been an interesting five years even if I only truly remember about three and a half of it, when a song comes on that just perfectly fits my ongoing love of being elsewhere any chance I get.

One Thing

FAR AWAY PLACES

Far away places with strange-soundin' names
Far away over the sea
Those far away places with the strange-soundin' names
Are callin', callin' me

Goin' to China or maybe Siam
I want to see for myself
Those far away places I've been readin' about
In a book that I took from the shelf

I start gettin' restless whenever I hear
The whistle of a train
I pray for the day I can get underway
And look for those castles in Spain

They call me a dreamer, well maybe I am
But I know that I'm burnin' to see
Those far away places with the strange-soundin' names
Callin', callin' me

(I pray for the day when I'll find a way
Those far away places to see)

Those far away places with the strange-soundin' names
Callin', callin' me

At the top of the page are the three queens of the Cunard Line: Victoria, Mary, and Elizabeth. Sitting at the apex of my personal "bucket list" is to board a great liner for a trip around the world. Other things on the list have come and gone, been achieved or discarded, but this is the one thing that remains.

It was 1949 and at the age of five after already having moved seven times, I was sitting in my bedroom, reading my books while the radio played, Far Away places. There was no way to know that moving would be something I learned to do very, very well while destroying the address books of loved ones and friends. In just one 12 year period there would be more than 20 schools between first grade and high school graduation. The only period of being stationery would be from the purchase of a house in 1964 to divorce in 1971, and "Anywhere I Hang My Hat is Home" and "It's Just the Gypsy in My Soul" would become theme songs.

A cousin who had lived in only two homes and in sixty years had never been more than 30 miles from home except for rare long vacations, asked if there was anything I had missed. I answered that the only regret was not having a "home town". You may not be able to go back again. I don't even have an again to visit. It is probably fortunate that being born a Californian, I'm used to the shifting of tectonic plates.

So today's question:

What is the "ONE THING" on your bucket list that has never been erased or questioned, that you are still longing to do?

Far Away Places

I think I first heard the song below when I was about five years old. By that time I had already lived in Los Angeles, CA; Oakland, CA; Walla Walla, WA; Fresno, CA; Westchester, CA; and Boulder City, NV. That was just the start of the itchy feet that always need to be scratched. It involved 21 schools in 12 years followed by forty years of gadding about to the extent that it is now almost impossible to stay put.

Gypsy

There isn't anywhere I wouldn't go
With one suitcase and a smile
Everything left behind
If you don't mind those
Who don't understand
that where can be more important than when

Airports are fun enroute to new
adventures where you are sure
something waits
just beyond passports and exit gates
You can pursue changes
Rearrange your life
Into something different.

Two years in one place is too long
Let me be somewhere I've never seen
Or wage a war against boredom
Pack a case and leave home
Kiss old loves goodbye in order to claim
Houses my soul has never been

Outside the door grab a cab
Off to somewhere never known
A where there over the rise
A place my eyes have not looked upon
The past gone and clean
Wiped away by never been.

I'll be back. I promise
When least expected. I'll return
The earth is round you know.
I'll come again memories stowed
But it may be when you
No longer want me around.
So I'll just leave town.