Eric Clapton, Cocaine, 1977
It's a little surreal to think back on my childhood in the 1970s. I've become an old person and this is something old people say but ... "it really was a very different time." Things were slower and more easy going. Maybe it was an age of innocence that no longer exists in today's world, I don't know, but it was sure different.
As the temperatures have turned bitter cold here in North Alabama, I keep thinking of special summer memories of my childhood spent camping with my grandparents.
My mother is the oldest of five. In 1977, my uncle was 18 and quite frankly, he remains my only firsthand experience with anyone during that time who was even remotely a stereotypical hippie in any way.
One summer night during a family fish fry while my grandparents were camping at what was then Point Park in Florence, my uncle and his friends showed up. A few of his friends were in a band and they were playing at the amphitheater there in the park. We all walked over to hear them and the sights and sounds marked me for life. I was mesmerized by it all.
They played "Cocaine" and I remember it as if it were yesterday. Forever memorialized in the mind of a child. People dancing and singing along -- my mother as a young adult smiling and laughing. Of course, it was years later before I realized "Cocaine" was a real song and Eric Clapton is a God.
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