remembering music, remembering my past

Most of the Christmas tunes flowing through my iPod these days have little chance to be highlighted on the radio, but there are exceptions.


On the way to work the other day Bruce Springsteen singing about the need to be good for goodness sake came into my presence. Memory is s strange thing. That song could have taken me to festive meals, favorite presents, traditions

Instead it took me to thinking about growing up listening to Philly rock stations in the 70's. Bruce was king around here and I must have heard him before 1978...


But memory is a funny thing and so who knows what is true. Did I discover Bruce Springsteen in the passenger seat of a 76 Monte Carlo as my dad drove me home from the doctor? maybe.

between a red wagon and the stratosphere

Wayne Stratz at Rhoads Gardens on 202

On Saturday my neighbor asks, "Do you have room for 20 perennials?"

On this I can answer with certainty. "Yes and many more."

But what about the time to plant them. Well it is Wednesday now and I just got done planting numbers 12 through 16.

Three cheers for Rhoads Gardens in North Wales. Last year we discovered their red wagon sale. Its how they dump off perennials at the end of the season on people such as I. I got twenty for fifty dollars. I have also been trying to give my garden a good soaking. It hasn't been too dry this summer so I think it has been limping along and when I have watered; it has not been deeply. I know better and I should have heard the garden speaking to me. It did finally get my attention.


On the way into Rhoads, M caught the name of the perennial by my left arm. Stratospheres was the variety of this Gaura . Well that takes me way back and into the present. Most of my nicknames have centered around my last name, for there is not much one can do with Wayne. At my first college, I was nicknamed Stratospheres because of Springsteen's line about taking month long vacations there, then Stratos. I guess my friend saw me as "a cosmic kid in full costume dress." Not exactly the proudest moments of my life and when the college asked me to leave, I had no choice and left Stratos behind me in Grove City. So now I deem myself Stratoz with a z, for I always liked the nickname, but not my behaviors at the time. The z is important reminder of how one can change radically.

So who knows where we are all headed. 25 years ago I was lost in the stratosphere, 10 years ago I didn't go to church, 8 years ago I didn't even own a house plant, and now my heart leaps for joy when the red wagon is full.