Music, Memories, and Me

In the summer of 1957, my boyfriend Red and I had been going steady for almost two years. I wore his ring on a chain around my neck to signify our togetherness. In the fall, I would begin my Junior year in high school, and Red would start his Senior year, then graduate in June of 1958. Though young and naïve in many ways, we were an inseparable pair with plans to marry after high school.

At the age of twenty-one in 1956, Elvis Presley, the King of Rock & Roll, Elvis Presley starred in his first movie, Love Me Tender. The title song was adapted from Aura Lea, a Civil War Song that was a favorite of the Union Army. Elvis Presley and Vera Matson rewrote the song, and Presley introduced it in the movie.

https://youtu.be/093GjYcDg-4

Love Me Tender replaced Elvis' "Don't Be Cruel" and "Hound Dog" on the Billboard chart making Presley the first singer/songwriter to replace his songs in the No. 1 position. His music, especially the ballads, became a favorite of the romance-minded girls in our town, including me. I first heard it on the Ed Sullivan Show on October 28, 1956.

https://youtu.be/qwlrUUyxg9c

In the summer of 1957, Red and I watched the movie Love Me Tender at a drive-in theater near our town. After steaming up the windows of his Chevy sedan, we lovingly decided it would be "our song." It continued to be so for the first several years of our twenty-year journey together, including sixteen years of marriage. By late 1975, it was clear that we had grown apart, that we needed to separate, and later divorce. We were no longer attuned to one another and traveled very different life paths.

It was 1977 when The Dane came into my life, and a new relationship adventure began. He would play his favorite tapes while we cruised the Northern California highways in his hardtop 1969 Jaguar XKE. His number one favorite at the time was a 1974 hit, The Air That I Breathe by The Hollies.

https://youtu.be/ojhIYTc-OO0. It became my favorite too, and our song.

The Dane was a Master Baker from Denmark who had immigrated to the US. We had many wonderful life experiences during our time together, including eight years of marriage. We both felt restless and desirous of having a new adventure.

I sold my house in Paradise, CA and The Dane sold his bakery in Sausalito and townhouse in Larkspur. We bought a travel trailer and headed north for what we thought would be Montana. A new song, On the Road Again by Willie Nelson became our theme as it paid tribute to our many travels and adventures.

https://youtu.be/U52qN5MS6hw

In Grangeville, Idaho, an unseasonal early September snowstorm closed the pass to Montana. Our plans to visit friends in West Yellowstone had been thwarted, so we returned to a small Idaho town to which we were both attracted. While staying there for a few days in our travel trailer, we felt compelled to purchase two small commercial buildings. We made plans to open a small Danish Restaurant and bakery in a wood frame building and store our belongings in the metal one until we found a home.

We left our trailer on the lot next to our buildings in Idaho while we drove back to Paradise to settle our affairs and collect our belongings. While we were in California, we purchased a two-horse trailer to haul our Tennessee Walkers. The Dane’s mare, April, and my gelding, Caley, were soon to be pastured in their new home. We'd both wanted horses since childhood. The Dane realized his childhood dream of playing cowboy, and I got to take western riding lessons in the rodeo arena at the fairgrounds.

We arrived at our new home in early November before the snowy season arrived. We lived in the back of our uninsulated cow town building while remodeling the front for our restaurant. The place was filled with old restaurant equipment that had been left dirty and unused for nine years.

Our heat source was a small tin stove vented through sheet metal installed in a window. When the fire went out during the night, we kept warm in our heated waterbed. It wasn’t quite rough camping, as we were protected from the rain and snow. One night when it was thirty degrees below zero outside, we had to get up and stoke the stove frequently to keep from freezing.

We had no shower or tub, only a tiny corner sink, and toilet in the small unisex store bathroom. It was so cold in the front of the restaurant that mayonnaise and other condiments needed no refrigeration. It was not long before some of our future patrons became friends and invited us to their homes to take baths or showers as needed.

I became the country’s first professional map draftsman and worked at the County Assessor's office over the winter while we remodeled the building. Though it had been ten years since I’d worked as a draftsman, after a week, I was back in the swing.

The courthouse was a three-block walk from our building. One morning, while I was walking to work with my face covered to keep ice sickles from forming in my nostrils. I was enthralled by the beauty of the ice crystals dancing in the air before the backdrop of a strikingly blue sky.

I helped The Dane install insulation, drywall, and paneling in the evenings after work. Using paneling, we created the ceiling above the dining area to appear like the inside of a gambrel-roofed barn. While at the courthouse, I trained another employee to use the drafting machine, so I could quit my job and become the manager and budding chef of Copperfield Inn when it was time to open.

Although I was already an excellent cook, I had never worked in a restaurant or prepared short-order meals for the public. It was all new territory for me. Prior to our opening, I created colorful menus by hand and designed the restaurant advertisements. I hired and trained employees, made a cleaning schedule, ordered supplies, and created daily specials in addition to the menu of meals.

The Dane taught me how to run the business and the cash register, set up the bookkeeping, and prepare it for the tax accountant. In a few short months, I became a full-blown entrepreneur, the chief cook and bottle washer, and I ran the restaurant on my own while The Dane baked to supply our restaurant and fill the pastry case before opening the restaurant each morning.

Meanwhile, the Dane took a job as the new city engineer and became the volunteer fire chief, thus fulfilling two other childhood dreams of driving heavy equipment and putting out fires. I was kept busy seven days a week. The restaurant was my home, employment, and social life all in one. Our hours were from 6:00 am to 8:00 pm Monday through Saturday and from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm on Sunday. The Dane took the early hours before starting work at eight am.

The following summer, we were married on horseback on the ten acres we'd purchased across the river where we had planned to build our home. We made many friends and became the go-to place for breakfast and lunch. Because we served no alcohol, keeping dinner hours was more simply a convenience for travelers and people with children. We were closed by eight pm.

The Dane loved to dance, so Friday and Saturday nights, we'd be at the saloon dance hall where the women were after him to be their partner. He'd won a national jitterbug contest in Denmark, so he was a natural in western swing. I was never a great dancer, but after a drink or two, I was able to cut a rug.

I loved dancing with the older ranchers and business owners as they treated me like a queen. Besides, most of them were great dancers. We hardly ever had to buy a drink. Our friends and customers showed their love for our contribution to the town by sometimes too generously supplying us with alcoholic libations.

About two and a half years after we opened, the mill in town closed down. During that time, several Idaho mills were shipped to Mexico for cheaper labor. Consequently, though it was a difficult decision to make, we were forced to close the restaurant. The locals who had depended on the mill for their incomes could not afford to eat out for breakfast and lunch. Only the restaurants with lounges survived. During hard times, the bars are always full.

I temporarily took over a restaurant located behind a bar just up the street from our buildings. It was another new experience as the dining area was set for forty people, and I made all the selections in the salad bar from scratch. I cooked four kinds of steaks (which I cut myself by hand), burgers, butterfly prawns, fish & chips with tempura coating, pork chops, roasted chicken, and a nightly special. The kitchen was smaller than most home kitchens, and dishwashing was done by hand.

In the middle of winter, we moved to Sun Valley, ID, where The Dane had gone ahead and was working as a baker for the resort hotels. Friends drove me to Sun Valley as my right leg was in a cast after slipping on an icy puddle hidden under the snow in the alley next to the house we’d moved to near our restaurant.

At first, I was stuck in our upstairs apartment, but in a few weeks, I was able to babysit for skiers while they were on the slopes or out partying in the evenings. When my ankle was healed, I took a job in resort reservations. I later worked as a bookkeeper for a property management company with long and short-term rentals.

Resort town pay was low, and the cost of living was high, so we each worked at least two jobs simply to pay the rent and feed ourselves. This eventually wore us down, so we decided to head back to Northern California and were on the road again.

We stopped for about six months in South Lake Tahoe where The Dane got work at a casino bakery. We rented an apartment and put most of our belongings in storage. I worked in the soft count cage for two different casinos counting money from the gaming tables. Fed up with that dirty, unpleasant job and the tacky atmosphere of the casinos, I took a job as a resort reservations agent for a few months. When we couldn’t see out the windows in our rental house because there were ten feet of snow on the ground, it was time to move again.

When the highway opened, we drove to Sacramento, CA, where we stayed with my mother in her senior mobile park for a few weeks while looking for work. Then moved to a one-bedroom apartment in Benicia, CA, as we were hired to co-manage and operate an all-you-can-eat buffet in nearby Concord, CA.

The job turned out to be terrible, six ten-hour days a week. The restaurant we were told we’d be managing after our ten-week training period did not exist. We quit when we realized we’d been scammed. The one good thing that happened while we lived in Benicia was that I passed my test in Sacramento to be a licensed California real estate agent with Century 21.

Danish brothers, former employees of The Dane in his Sausalito bakery, needed managers for their new Bakery in Napa, CA. We moved again to a house on the south side of town. The Dane took over the baking, and I became the retail manager. The Dane taught me to decorate European-style cakes with quality ingredients, including real butter.

I loved what I was doing and wanted to focus on decorating as our cake sales rapidly increased. It was hard to keep my eye on the store and be creative. So, we decided to hire someone to manage the front of the shop. During that time, I also worked part-time selling real estate with Century 21.

When we moved to our second house in Napa, The Dane got the seven-year itch. The attractive twenty-four-year-old woman we hired to manage the retail end of the bakery had her eyes on both my job and my husband. Unbeknownst to me, while I was selling real estate, The Dane was teaching her how to decorate cakes.

It wasn't long before he convinced me to work nights fulfilling a contract for dozens of giant gingerbread cookies. He claimed it would give me more time to focus on real estate. The truth was, I'd be tucked away working alone at the bakery while he spent time with his new paramour.

I discovered what was happening when my son, who was working at the bakery, told me he saw them kissing.

Shortly thereafter, I confronted The Dane and demanded the truth. It was then that our journey together ended. We’d been through so much together. This wasn’t the first time he’d been unfaithful. After his first indiscretion, he promised me it would never happen again.

Though I loved him deeply, I could no longer trust him to be honest with me. On arriving home from spending a weekend out of town with friends, I discovered his clothes and other things were gone and that he’d moved in with his girlfriend while I was gone. It was then that I filed for divorce. Though I hadn’t planned it that way, he was served with the papers on Christmas Eve.

Depressed, distraught, and alone on my own for the first time, I decided to relocate to Santa Rosa, CA, where I'd lived in the past and still had some friends. My sixteen-year-old son also moved with me. After a falling out with his dad and stepmom with whom he’d lived since he was twelve, he moved to Napa to live with The Dane and me while getting his high school equivalency certificate while working part-time in the bakery making donuts and learning how to make pastries.

When we moved to Santa Rosa, he was seventeen and employed as a cook in a restaurant. I rented a two-bedroom townhouse, so we each had our private bedrooms. However, his promise to share with the rent payments didn’t pan out. I had to give up the townhouse and rent a room in nearby Rohnert Park. I shared a house with a woman, her two boys, and two foster children.

While sitting alone in my room one evening listening to my favorite record albums, one of the songs touched me deeply. Although the locations mentioned in the lyrics differed from those in my own life, the sentiments expressed paralleled my feelings of hurt, anger, sadness, and disorientation. I felt like the guy in that song, lost, alone, and confused.

Once again, my life had dramatically and drastically changed. I didn't know who I was anymore or where I belonged. The song that resonated with me was I Am I Said by Neil Diamond in 1971. I played it repeatedly while allowing my tears to fall where they may. I did this several other times until I'd flushed out all the negative emotions and began to create a new future for myself. https://youtu.be/JrJ7iSofCs8

I worked temp jobs for a few months because the real estate market had tanked. The interest rate had increased to seventeen percent, and nothing was selling. Selling houses was no longer a viable option. Not long after my musical purging process, I found a great job as a property manager for six homeowners associations. It was a position that required having a valid real estate license.

I learned to manage over six hundred units, worked with vendors, attorneys, insurance companies, building and landscaping contractors, and onsite managers for five of the associations, and held monthly board meetings and annual homeowners' meetings. The valuable skills I learned also helped me with future entrepreneurial endeavors.

After a few more short-term relationships that didn't work well for me, I met a man in the early 1990s with whom I could relate at the soul level. Despite the difference in our ages, we were hand-in-glove close and looked at life as if through the same eyes. He was fifteen years my junior, and yet we loved each other and our life together. Our relationship lasted for almost twenty-four years, twenty of which we were married.

We enjoyed the same movies and read aloud and discussed more than two hundred books together. We felt that we were partners for life and talked about growing old together. We were intellectual equals and on parallel spiritual paths. During our first several years together, we took workshops and classes in the Expanding Light Center at Ananda Village near Nevada City, CA. I became a meditation teacher, and we both were initiated as Kriya yogis.

As a conscious couple, we worked together beautifully, each contributing our unique expertise to create whatever we desired. He was a techie, an introvert, a problem solver, and a computer programmer. I was people-oriented, already a hypnotherapist and life coach. I’d had experience running a business and was the one who led us forward by taking calculated risks.

When we started spending time together, the programmer had recently recovered from a few years of being flattened by Lyme Disease. As if by magic, he regained his energy and returned to work as a full-time programmer for a major software company in Sausalito, CA.

The company hired a new female General Manager who made changes to benefit her golden parachute. Her greed and lack of care for the employees resulted in poor morale among the programmers. Many walked out due to the added stress and loss of benefits. The man who was to become my husband was among those who left. While waiting to decide what was next for us, I started cleaning houses as I didn’t want to commit to a job. Besides, it paid better than office work.

Meanwhile, we’d been offered an opportunity to help start a retreat center on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. While watching one of our favorite movies on video, the song I’m On My Way from the movie Paint Your Wagon became our theme song as we prepared to head north on our first big adventure together. We watched the movie several times and memorized the words. You know the one, “Got a dream, boys. Got a song. Paint your wagon and come along.”

https://youtu.be/5jRq19uqZRM

Much like On the Road Again, the song I shared with The Dane, I’m On My Way, exemplified our soon-to-be nomadic life. During our travels together, we started and ran three businesses and experienced a total of eleven moves from California to Washington, then to Idaho, and lastly to the Central Oregon Coast. Our relationship ended in the spring of 2012.

Our first seven years as a couple was magical. Then disaster struck, and he became chronically ill with an autoimmune disease triggered by his earlier bout with Lyme Disease. He could no longer focus on working as a programmer. Any stress made his pain and discomfort worse. Due to Chronic Fatigue and Fibromyalgia, he lost much of his long-term memory, especially of the power couple we had been together. Most everything we’d created together evaporated and became only memories.

I put my belongings in storage and headed back to California by myself to once again start my life anew. I had just turned seventy years old that February. I left with what would fit in my Honda Accord.

After the tragic ending of our cherished relationship, I thought there would be no more theme songs for me, though I Am I Said would sometimes play in the background of my mind. If I had to choose music that signifies my life today, the song that speaks to my heart and soul is the music and lyrics of Find My Way, written and performed by Rachael Schroeder. It’s not a popular song, but one that presented itself to me on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/OdOV6qDwOP4

Since leaving the house I grew up in to marry at eighteen years of age, I have moved a total of sixty times, twice halfway around the world. I lived at different times in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and Da Nang, Vietnam, which are very different cultures from ours. Both experiences opened my eyes and expanded my worldview.

At age eighty-one, I have yet to stop moving. I have no roots, no family or place to hold me. As an adopted child by older parents, everyone I knew in both my birth and adoptive families is long gone. My only living relative is my fifty-five-year-old son. He doesn’t understand my desire to have adventures in other cultures, although he lived in Saudi Arabia for about a year split between his eighth and ninth year of age.

On the 29th of May this year, 2023, I’m relocating for six months. I’m moving to Ajijic, Mexico, to live at Namaste Village, a community of spiritually minded, loving people who support each other in becoming their highest and best selves…all that they can be. I feel pulled by the energy at Namaste Village. I want to be part of a community in a beautiful warmer part of the world that I can call home, one which resonates deeply with my heart and soul. No doubt another song will replace Find My Way, and I look forward to learning what tune I’ll be humming next and what lyrics will resonate with my next adventures in life.