Day by Day
A week or so ago I was driving south on the interstate to meet a friend for dinner. I don’t enjoy driving, so one of the first things I do is turn on a hometown AM radio station to soothe my nerves. I love the familiarity of the announcers, the local ads for places that I know, and most of all, the oldies. There are just certain songs from your past that seem to hold long-forgotten feelings waiting to be unlocked if the timing is right. When I was commuting to work, I’d hear a song like that and immediately my mind would snap back to the work-related problems and tasks I was either driving toward or leaving behind.
It’s different during these retirement years. My mind engages in reflection mode as a default now. Oh, I love to anticipate something coming up, but my heart is in reflecting on the past to mine old interests, to relive youthful adventures, and to continue to explore what I have to learn from past selves at this stage of my life. So on this sunny April afternoon the song that caught my heart was “Day by Day” from the musical Godspell. As the song played, I was taken back about 50 years to another April, much like this one, in 1973 when I was 15. When I got home that night, I gave myself plenty of headspace to relive a quintessential memory of my teenage years.
Right off the bat, the year 1973 was full of events that would launch the United States into another time of upheaval we hadn’t seen since the sixties. Although Nixon signed off on an end to the Vietnam War, the war was far from over. The growing energy crisis and escalating oil prices were crippling the economy, leading to the stock market crash, which heralded the worst recession in memory. In spite of, or because of the struggles with affordable energy and the consequences of our dependence on oil, some of the best environmental laws of our time were passed during that year. Yet, it was the Watergate scandal that continued to elbow its way into the news on a daily basis as the focus. Most notable to me as I write this blog post, was that this particular teenage year marked the passage of Roe v. Wade. And here we are today, women of 2024, with fewer rights than we had 50 years ago.
But back in April of 1973, life for me was all naiveté and adventure. Early on a Saturday morning, my friend Paula and I boarded a plane bound for Boston. It was the first time I had ever flown in my life, and we were headed to Regis College to spend the weekend with her older sister at the dorm. Not only had I never flown, but I had never been to Boston or stayed in a college dorm. This was the stuff teenage adventure was made of! The flight was short, and I don’t remember being afraid, other than making a joke about bad omens when a nun got on the plane.
When we landed at Logan Airport, my friend’s sister and her roommate were there to meet us at the gate. Paula’s sister, Lili, was a stunner with large eyes and a head of dark curly hair. Her Farrah Fawcett-blonde roommate looked just like one of my favorite soap opera stars from The Edge of Night (Sarah-Louise Capice, remember?). These were college girls, so sophisticated and worldly. I was overwhelmed and numbed into silence by small-town-girl awe. This would be a trip where I was literally along for the ride.
Did we have luggage? Backpacks? I can’t remember, but I do remember once we got outside there was no car waiting for us. We would have to get to the dorm the way Lili and her roommate got there – we would hitchhike. Okay, that was undoubtedly another first from that trip. As we trotted toward an exit ramp to stick out our thumbs, we were picked up almost immediately. The 30-something driver had a hatchback type car (was it actually a Datsun?), and the back window was loaded with camera equipment. The four of us barely squeezed in, sitting on top of each other. He told us he worked for CBS, and that he was coming to cover the Boston Marathon, or maybe he had just covered it, anyway he took us all the way to the college dorm. We barely had time to drop our things off and change before we headed out for the first planned adventure, horseback riding. I made a quick trip into the locker room-style bathroom and saw several towel-clad college girls drying their dripping hair with the hot air hand dryers. College girls were just so cool.
Some other girls on the floor gave us a ride to the stables, where the four of us were matched with trail horses. My friend Paula and I both had horses and rode a lot, so I asked for a fast horse. What I got was a four-legged black sorcerer who ran at full gallop through the trails with his head turned sideways the entire time. It was hard not to focus on that wild eye looking back at me, but I barely had time to be terrified. Whipped in the face by branches and hanging on for dear life, I was convinced what would make this trip most memorable was my own demise. Finally, rounding the trail's end, he slowed down like he’d just been out for a village stroll. Stunned, I slid off to join the other girls, and the saddle ripped my denim work shirt right down the center! Fortunately, soap-star roommate gave me her sweatshirt. No one seemed to be aware of my wild ride, so I tried to shrug it off, and moved my wobbly legs toward the parking lot with the rest. I looked for the car with the girls who had dropped us off, but once again, no such car. Once more we headed to the main road to work our thumbs. This time no rugged network cameraman was coming to our rescue.
After what seemed like an eternity, a car finally slowed down on the shoulder and waved us in. This time, two guys were in the front, close to college age but definitely not college boys. When they got a good look at Lili and her blonde friend, they acted like they’d just won the Dating Game. The car was not the classic “unsafe at any speed,” but close enough. The college girls chatted flirtatiously, while I sat silent, motionless, and mortified. As the car rounded the corner into the dorm parking lot, one of the hubcaps flew off, and my memory says the engine even backfired. But we were safely back. The townies waved, smiled, and honked the horn on their way out. Pretty sure lovely Lili and the blonde had made their day.
Having finally been released from that damp and smelly backseat, we giggled all the way up to the room. Already mid-afternoon, Paula and I had just enough time to change into our teenage uniforms of bell bottom jeans, Clark Desert Treks, too small pastel cotton tees, and jackets that were not near warm enough for the current weather. We both brushed our hair (yes, we both wore it long, parted in the middle—so seventies), cleaned our teeth, rolled on some fruity Lip Smackers, and headed for the subway. Taking the T would be another first for me on this whirlwind Boston weekend.
Stock Image
On the subway, Lili pointed out a gorgeous woman, sitting tall and straight in her seat among the tired commuters. “A model,” she whispered to us, and we looked at her with fangirl reverence. To this day I have convinced myself we saw Beverly Johnson before she was on the cover of Vogue. When we came to our stop, Lili took us to Filene’s Department Store. I had never seen a department store like that. Coming through the door, we were squirted with perfume, and then instantly surrounded by beautiful purses, silk scarves, and jewelry and makeup counters with brands I recognized from my Ingenue magazines. Lili helped me pick out a brand name top that made me feel on trend. I felt like Cinderella when the impeccably dressed sales girl with the flawless makeup, hair in an updo, wrapped my Gunne Sax floral top in tissue paper and placed it in a shopping bag with the store’s name emblazoned in that signature script.
It was a beautiful, warm late afternoon in Boston, as we headed for Boston Common. Everything about Boston was new to me, but this park was incredible. Businessmen, hippies, old couples, rich ladies, college kids–just throngs of people out enjoying the spring weather, walking, jogging, talking, singing and playing drums and guitars. And everyone seemed to be eating these ice cream cones rolled in what looked like oatmeal. We stood in line to get one (had we eaten anything since breakfast back in Vermont?), and it turned out the cones were actually raspberry frozen yogurt rolled in granola. I don’t think in 1973 I’d even had regular yogurt, and I had certainly never had granola. I had never tasted anything so good. Down the walkway from where we stood, someone had dropped their cone. A meticulously dressed and well groomed, middle aged woman grabbed a napkin and picked it up. Paula and I looked at Lili, shocked. Was she going to eat it? “Pigeons,” Lili said. “She’s going to feed the birds.”
Filenes Photo: @oldschoolboston; Boston Common Photo: majunznk; Wilbur Photo: Internet Theater Database
We finished our cones and moved on to Tremont Street to The Wilbur. Lili had gotten us balcony tickets to see Godspell. Yes, you guessed it, another first. I had never been to the theater. Sitting in the balcony made it extra special, and when the lights dimmed and the stage lights illuminated the actors playing the disciples, I was mesmerized. I loved the music, the pageantry and presence of actors who were about the same age as Lili and her roommate, and most of all, I was secretly thrilled that my childhood regular church and Sunday School attendance had given me a heads-up for each part of the play. Knowing what was going on allowed the music to really reach me, and to this day, I still pretty much know every one of those songs. At the end of Act One when they were singing “Light of the World,” and they sang the line, “We all need help to feel fine (let's have some wine!)”, we actually were served wine, up and down the aisles. Even Paula and I, two15 year olds were drinking wine in a theater during intermission in Boston – okay, so the wine wasn’t a first for me, but it was still darned special. I loved every minute of that play, and every song – as soon as I could I purchased the album (oh, gosh, I think I actually had it on eight track!). Up to this point in my young life, I had never experienced anything so joyful. The spirit of community in that theater was something that deeply affected me.
The next morning, my friend’s dad showed up to drive us back to Vermont. What a trip! A network cameraman, a wild horse, shopping at Filene’s, Boston Common, and an incredible musical created and performed by a new generation of young people interpreting the most ancient and moving stories. I felt, as I do now when I travel to new places, engage in the arts, experience “difference”...I felt transformed.
Now, when you are only fifteen, it’s hard to know what to do with such big feelings. It’s hard to have a “new to you” experience that is so overwhelming that you feel you are not the same you as before. It’s like a deep secret that can’t be explained. You have to hold on to it very tightly, guard it. So when my boyfriend at the time picked me up a few nights later to see a movie, I wore the special top I had purchased in Boston. I wore my hair up, like the beautiful woman at the counter in Filene’s. I jumped into the car, eager to tell him about my trip. I was still on a huge theater and city-fueled high. And you know what he said to me as we backed out of my driveway and I leaned over to give him a kiss? “You look weird.”
As we age, we often hear the question posed, “What advice would you give to your teenage self?” Revisiting these memories made me wonder what advice the adventurous, whole-life-ahead-of-her 15 year old me would have for me about how to live The Precious Days to the fullest. Here’s what I think she’d say:
Don’t miss a chance to have an adventure, especially with a girlfriend.
Make sure each of your remaining years contains at least one “first.”
Get yourself to a theater before it’s too late!
Continue to nurture your love of horses through art that you can appreciate and admire—it will bring back some happy memories.
Fill everyday with the music you love from back in the day. Your life really does have a soundtrack.
Roll a raspberry frozen yogurt bar in some granola – you’re welcome.
And, most of all, ignore comments that rain on your joy parade (and yes, Readers, I dumped that guy).
