Childhood memories

When I was a teenager, my parents had a well-stocked bar and they often entertained their friends, other couples mostly, usually after a round of golf. They were like-minded military families. Many times I would come home from school and they had gotten an early start on the evening at the bar. My parents were martini drinkers. I've got an image in my mind of Mama sitting at the bar (which was complete with barstools) swirling an olive around in a martini glass, showing off her great legs.

I always thought martinis tasted awful, like I imagined rubbing alcohol would taste. My parents also had a record player and would play music sometimes, but I especially remember an album they had by Tom Lehrer.

Tom Lehrer is a very interesting person, and in thinking about this post, I looked him up (naturally) on Wikipedia, to find to my amazement that he is still alive. He's now 82 years old, and when he was young (and also when I was young), he wrote wicked satirical songs and put them into this album. He was a professor of mathematics at MIT and then at the University of California Santa Cruz, and according to that link,

In 1972, he joined the faculty of the University of California, Santa Cruz, teaching an introductory course entitled "The Nature of Mathematics" to liberal arts majors—"Math for Tenors", according to Lehrer. He also taught a class in musical theater. He occasionally performed songs in his lectures, primarily those relating to the topic.

It's not Tom's fault that almost on a daily basis I can still hear inside my head the lyrics from one of his songs, "When You Are Old and Grey." My dad loved to sing it loudly to Mama when he was "three sheets to the wind," if you know what I mean.  I guess it's because now I get it on a very personal basis.

Your teeth will start to go, dear,
You waist will start to spread.
In twenty years or so, dear,
I'll wish that you were dead.
I'll never love you then at all
The way I do today.
So please remember,
When I leave in December,
I told you so in May.

Reading that link above about Tom Lehrer, if you know nothing about him, will be an education. He only wrote a few songs and made two albums, but he has had quite an influence in the world. Once when Princess Margaret was given an honorary degree in the UK, she cited her musical tastes as being "catholic, ranging from Mozart to Tom Lehrer." This led to his music becoming quite well-known when the BBC played his songs on the radio. (The stuffy US radio stations in those days wouldn't think of it.)

I can't be the only sixty-something person with Lehrer's lyrics still rattling around in my brain.
:-)