Musical Journeys

Musical Journeys
Nearly everyone agrees that songs can conjure up memories from the past. Some memories are stronger than others. But they don’t usually turn into real-life experiences. That’s what happened to Jason Call.
Probably the main contributing factor, he decided later, was the bump on his head he received when he tripped over the rug in his bedroom and hit his head on the edge of the bed frame. Although his head felt sore for a while, he felt dizzy for only about a minute, then everything went back to normal—at least that’s what he thought.
A day later, while working at home on a graphic project for work, he saw an ad for a Glen Cambell tribute concert. That had him thinking about the first time he heard the song, Wichita Lineman.
It was while he stood under a cloudy sky outside the temporary barracks at Elmendorf Air Force base in Anchorage, Alaska. As a young twenty-year-old airman, his eventual destination was to be a remote air base in the Alaskan interior. Standing on the sidewalk outside the barracks, he was listening to music on his little portable radio when Wichita Lineman came on.
Now, many decades later, sitting in his home office and listening to the same song on his computer, he suddenly found himself standing outside the barracks in Elmendorf. Except this wasn’t a memory! He was really standing outside in the bitter cold!
Fear blasted through his entire body as he looked around wondering what the heck had just happened? This couldn’t be real, could it? And yet, he could feel the frigid cold on the exposed skin of his face and see his breath. Not only that everything around him was just as he remembered. The multi-story barracks building to his right, the power lines overhead, the distant mountains surrounding Anchorage to his left, the empty streets in front of him, and the giant hanger-like building to his rear. He stood there not moving until the song ended and then he found himself back in his home office sitting in front of his computer.
Too stunned to move, he just sat there, fear continuing to vibrate through his body like an engine, while his brain tried to come up with an explanation for what he had just experienced. It couldn’t!
It took a while for him to finally calm down. Once he did, he got up and went to the kitchen to grab a glass of wine from the fridge. While taking a few sips, he decided not to use his computer to listen to any of the songs from his past. In fact, no music at all. Instead, he turned on the TV but kept the volume low while he continued to work.
He kept up this routine for about a week, even in his car, where he tuned only to the local jazz station. Then one day, having thought a lot about what had happened, he decided to try a little experiment. Another song from his past that had a strong memory attached to it was the instrumental, “Classical Gas,” by Mason Williams.
As soon as Jason started it up on his computer, he found himself sitting in the tiny wood-paneled office that hung off the side of the main hanger on the remote Alaskan airbase where he had been stationed for months.
Alone in the office, Jason smiled as he glanced around the familiar interior. There were the filing cabinets against the opposite wall, the desk with the typewriter on top in front of him, the blinds covering the windows that looked out on the flightline, and his heavy cold weather parker hanging up in the corner. He felt a moment of nostalgia. And then the song ended, and just like before, he was back in his home office.
This time, instead of fear, Jason decided he liked the momentary journey to his past, which was why he started to experiment with several more tunes, some of which were from before he entered the Air Force. And that’s when he chose to relive the moment he met the woman who would become his wife.
Cindy Olson, dead these ten years from cancer, was at the same club he visited that night. They met while several disco songs played on the sound system. The main one connected to his memory was, “That’s The Way (I Like It}” by KC & the sunshine company.
Standing at the back of what felt like an over-crowded room of dancers, he became tired of hearing the same disco beat over and over. That’s why he decided to leave. But after turning around and seeing her lovely face, he hoped to say something witty, but all he could come with was, “This place is really crowded, isn’t it?”
Although she agreed, something about him must have intrigued her, because she accompanied him to the lobby, where they sat in relative quiet and talked for two hours. This led them to quickly becoming a couple. Three years later, they were married.
How many times do you think he replayed that song while sitting in front of his computer?