It’s funny how evocative music can be. Music’s always been there for all your life events. I bet most of you can remember the first cd you played in your first car. Or the song that was on when you first got laid. Everyone has those songs that remind them of some forgotten person, event, mood, feeling or situation. For me, my favorite summer song is Flock of Seagulls “Wishing” (I Had a Photograph of You). Sure, FOS “I Ran’ was a great summer song as well. So why Wishing?
Because it instantly takes me back. Takes me back to Wildwood, NJ. Takes me back to that arcade on the north end of the Boardwalk. So I guess it was Summer ’83? I’m that kid in the arcade, getting more quarters to play the original Mario Bros (with the turtles and crabs and flies, etc). This song was playing overhead, as I looked out to the Boardwalk. Just over to the right was one of the amusement piers that jetted out to the ocean. Pac Man paraphernalia hanging from the ceiling, blowing in the early evening breeze. I can see this scene so vividly, yet it also seems to have taken on a postcard kind of tint. Every summer, there was a big fad, or trend that took over the boardwalk. For a while it was Pac Man. It was whatever the big movie was that year. It was painter hats and water snakes. Def Leppard and ZZ Top. How I loved those days.
I didn’t get to the shore often. In fact, it was only one weekend a year. My older sisters and their friends rented a converted garage in Wildwood. All year I would save my paper route money, so I could go play arcade games. The Boardwalk also has those carny-like games of chance. Wheels spinning. Water pistol games where you had to move a monkey up a tree by constantly hitting its target. Horse races where you had to roll a ball down an alley and aim for the hole that moved you up the most spots. There was a big bucket in one of the bedrooms where everyone put the tickets they won at the arcade in. At the end of the year, someone would go and pick out a Miller Lite glass and keychain that ultimately cost everyone $300 to win.
That one weekend was a focal point for me. I would plan for months. (I was like, 12, WTF was I planning for?) I would go down with all my paper route money. And I was such a loser, that I would actually save quarters throughout the year. Then I would take down like 10 pounds in quarters. I guess that whole exchanging-paper-for-coins thing escaped me at the time There was only one arcade that had Mario Bros. It was my weekend to live large. Blow wads of money on some bogus skill game just to win a Def Lep poster. That was really one of my earliest experiences of seeing a bunch of people just getting along and laughing. Sure, the house was small, sometimes people would have to sleep in the tiny screened in porch. And there was no AC, and stray cats would fight right behind the house (You look at me once, you look at me twice, you look at me again, and there’s gonna be a fight).
Yup, so one song can trigger all this recall. It’s funny how often I pause while writing this as another long forgotten Wildwood memory surfaces. The pizza place right down the street. The Suitcase Motel at the corner. The garage didn’t have a phone, so whenever my sisters got in, they would have to go to the phone booth down the street, call my parents and hang up after 2 rings. That was the signal that they got down safe.
As far as Wishing, it’s funny that I somehow manage to still hear it on radio occasionally, only during summer. I’m sure a lot of people my age don’t really recall the tune. It really just might be a case of the song being played in the right place at the right time for it to so connect with me. Now that I’m in the mood, I’m gonna play that song on my PC and play Mario Bros online. Now only if it were sunny and 80.