A friend from high school posted today that we are coming up to our 43rd anniversary of our high school graduation. I’m fortunate to be connected here on FB with hundreds of my fellow graduates. When you consider we had over 800 students in our senior class, that is pretty impressive. We chimed in and discussed our memories of that night. I have to admit, my memories are pretty vague. I can’t tell you who I sat between. I don’t remember what I wore or who was the Valedictorian. But, I remember the music. One of my classmates composed a classical piece that the orchestra played at the ceremony. He and his girlfriend, also a classmate, were the first classmates we lost when they died the next year from carbon monoxide poisoning. A tragedy.

Music has a way of taking you back to a certain point in your life. I’m working around the house today and I turned on my iPad. The first song was “Maggie May” by Rod Stewart. It came out in ’71, the year I graduated from high school. Warm memories of summer nights driving down country roads with the wind whipping my hair out the window, laughing and totally carefree, came to me as thick as cobwebs. Three years later, I was living in England, a newlywed, a new baby, and an 8-track player sitting on the floor of my flat…down on my knees waxing the cork flooring and Rod starts singing about Maggie. “You led me away from home, just to save ya from being alone.” We’ve recently talked about hindsight being 20/20. That marriage didn’t last too long but it gave me my beautiful firstborn. Hearing Rod Stewart always takes me back to those hopeful days of youth when I thought I knew something.

And it makes me smile.