FLASH BAM (an old memory re-posted)

An old song has come to my mind today. I think  remembering it has to do with being stuck in the house in self-exile due to the snow and this long Kentucky winter. I desire another time, another place, and so I look backwards, in the direction of warmer times.


The first warm song that popped into my mind was "Orange Colored Skies" remember it. I doubt that you do, it was popular when I was a girl in Texas. It was warm and dusty in Abilene in those days with no paved streets to speak of, so I skipped down the dusty streets to the down town movies, singing along the way,♪ "I was walking along minding my business when out of an orange colored sky,".........., love that song. ♪“Flash, Bam, Ali-ca-zam,” I would breathe a little then clear my throat with a hearty muddy spit, and keep on moving and singing.

A few main streets had sidewalks and you could jump over the tumbleweed that occasionally made its way to the ‘citified” part of town. They were always blowing around in any open field with the wind, they had a little rhythm, so they didn't mess up my tune…♪ “wonderful you came by," Nat King Cole some times joined me in my head, that is. I would echo his beautiful tones in my wobbly, though loudly sincere efforts, and we would duet all the way down that long street. I noticed, during my street concerts the times my Mother and Brother, if they were indeed with me, would drop back a few feet, and I am sure it was to give the singing sensation the proper space due to a star.

At times the sunny sidewalks caught my special attention, ♪ "as I was hummin' a tune drinkin 'in sunshine," they were all stained purple from the ripe fruit plopping down from the Mulberry trees, the only trees that I remember in that town in those days other then the spindly looking little cottonwood trees. Who needed trees, I needed sunshine, and I got it. My dusty tan Kentucky freckles had turned into great Texas (everything is bigger in Texas!) terra cotta freckles.

I also sang while on my wheels (roller-skates) those long hot days. My skates were a little off kilter and I was way out of tune, what a pair. ♪ “When out of that orange colored view, I got’a look at you,” the song had to come out, around the block I would go entertaining the neighborhood I am sure. Oh yes I am sure! ♪ "One look and I yelled timber watch out for flying glass, cause the ceiling fell in and the bottom fell out," oh yeah I lived out that song to the amusement of many of my audience on my rounds with my crying baby sister in tow. ♪ "I went into a spin and I started to shout, I've been hit, this is it, this is it, I've been hit!" A few heads would turn certain that because of his embarrassment, my brother (or some neighborhood bully) had attacked me.

A great surprise, ♪ “I was walking along minding my business when love came and hit me in the eye,” and oh yes it did! He wore cowboy boots, everyone did in Abilene, and he was beautiful. However these were the days that I was not quiet ready to admit that boys were human or at least on the same level as girls. I didn’t know what to do with these feelings; it was like ♪ “Flash, Bam, Ali-ca-zam out of that orange colored, purple striped, pretty green, polka-dot sky," big finish now, ♪"Flash, Bam, Ali-ca-zam and goodbye..." and "sure-enough" Texas was over.

It was time to go home to Kentucky, the dry heat had done its work and brought the miracle healing to my brother, and that was the reason we sojourned to Texas in the first place. I have been cold for six months of the year ever since our return over sixty-two years ago, I even walk with curled up frozen toes. I'm so happy that song of old found its way to my memory today, I needed the orange, the heat, the Ali-ca-zam and Goodbye! ♫