Do you have a favorite season of the year? If you are like me it is summer. When I was a kid we could not wait to go outside. The endless days were filled with games, adventures, contest and various ice cream trucks. We’d play board games: Monopoly, Sorry, Trouble, Life, Clue and Scrabble. Then play cards games: war, gin rummy, black deuce, tonk, old maid and go fish. Someone would break out the jacks, hoola-hoop, skate boards and roller skates. I remember foot and bicycle races, tug-o-war and tag. When everything would slow down some adult would open up the fire hydrant and we would all get wet. I remember someone always needed their hair braided but could not resist a turn in the double-dutch rope and “a red hot –p”. Some days were filled with long bike rides and walking trips to the playground or the swimming pool. Can you believe with all that excitement we still had time to master the latest dance steps? My friends and I would “break-out” as if we were in trances and dance when someone played Parliament Funkadelics’ “ One Nation Under a Groove” or the Commodores’ “Brick-house”. We would try to keep a lid on it if adults were around unless they were offering quarters.
Lately, I’m so particular I don’t want to hear no rap music. The hairs stand up on the back of my neck and cover up their ears. I remember really liking a song awhile back. I claimed it as my jam (favorite). Do you remember Lil’ Jon “Get Low… skeet- skeet”?J What I am saying is, “I have become protective about what these ears can take”. Some music goes too far. But I still believe summer is about music if it is about anything and when I hear something I like “ Nothin’ on You Babe” by B.oB., I smile.
I enjoy my Kirk Franklin, Mary Mary and Donald Lawrence etc. I like walking while listening to music on my MP3. Lately I’ve taken to walking as if it were a hobby instead of an exercise. I forgot how I used to dance. I was walking one evening when “Patti Austin’s “Heat of Heat” came on. Picture this; I am on the corner (not quiet the bus stop) of Riverview and Nassau. Getting down like “Dancin’ Bear”. That song sounded so good I danced through 2 performances before I realized I could not continue to walk while listening to that song. People were pointing and honking their car horns. I turned my back to the street and danced until the song stopped. I felt happy and fun and alive. It was summer all over again. I want to invite you “ to catch yourself tripping” find something fun to do just like when you were a kid.
