December, 1970

The first year of the 70’s is coming to an end. 1970 was a year of firsts – first time the family had moved, first time my mother piloted a boat, first time a child left home, my first friend, my first memory and, just under the wire, my first love.

My sister Sharon has returned from university for the holidays and she has arrived home with fuss and liturgy of a prodigal son (or in this case daughter). Everyone but my sister Debrah is happy to see her as she will be once again bunking with Mary for the duration of Sharon’s stay. Sharon is brimming with excited energy and anxious to tell tales about the city and her roommate and the university. If there is a common denominator of all our familial lot it is that we are prone to spinning the yarn. Telling tales to anyone who will listen is proving to be genetic. Best of all, Sharon has returned with new records and I for one am bursting to hear some new songs. Music has been a little absent since she left for school. Oddly, my father has yet to set up his room (the tiny room at the front of the house from which Matthew, at my goading, tossed away his bottle habit) since moving to Bay Roche. So, with Christmas tree, a Menorah and family about Sharon presents her stories to the eager audience with the new songs playing in the background.
I am not sure if I remember this or if it something told so often to me that I’ve made the recollection my own. One of the new albums has caught my attention. The cover features a bright blue sky at the top, white houses on either side drawn in perspective and at its center there is a hand pointing to the sky. I pull the record out and interrupt my sister in the middle of a story. I tell her I want to listen to this record and she tells me she will play it after the current one is done. I stand by the turntable (my father’s set up in the living room for now) holding the record in both hand waiting for m my sister to put in on the player. After what seemed like an eternity – which for a boy almost three years old is any span of time longer than five minutes – Sharon put it on the platter and placed the arm on the first track. I am told I got immediately excited and started dancing around holding the record with its finger pointed at the sky. There was a photo of me taken that night looking, in retrospect, the most excited I have ever looked in my life. Holding the album sleeve close to my chest with my face peering over the top with bright wide eyes and a big smile I am undeniably in love. I had just discovered my first love and my first favourite song.

From December of 1970
Come and Get It by Badfinger