I love riding early on semi-empty streets in Chicago. Especially days like today. There won’t be many more like this…sunny, mild temperature, hardly any wind. In a word: spectacular. My mind wanders on rides like today’s. I indulge myself and take advantage of less traffic and look at architecture, and type usage…

And then a snippet of graffiti caught my eye. Unusual in content, but larger than life and high above the ground. One word: FAME.

Which got me thinking about the past couple days. You would have to be living in a hole not to know that today is John Lennon’s birthday. He would have turned 70. An iconic figure that is ingrained in pop culture…so much so that he warrants his own Google doodle.

And he is woven through my life for as long as I have memories. From the time that my mother called us to our living room to watch the Beatles first US appearance on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964, through to his death in 1980, and beyond.

I smile when I recall meetings of the official (well at least Muskegon Avenue’s official) Beatles fan club in our basement. The girls on our block would meet and trade the Beatles cards that we got in bubble gum packs. I can close my eyes and remember how those cards smelled faintly of the pink bubble gum that they were packaged with. Oh how I wish I still had those! Most everyone was in love with Paul. After all, he’s the obvious choice for adoration: front man with dreamy good looks. But not me. John was always my favorite. Apparently even at a young age I was attracted to that brooding bad boy charm…

I remember when my brother brought home the White Album the summer after his first year in college. And more recently I’ve watched another generation of Beatles fan in my niece Ali.

These memories are part of the fabric that is my life. Aside from the music, these vignettes evoke feelings of joy and utter sadness.

As I rode along, I pondered how much all music has impacted my life and how there are specific memories tied to specific songs. Memories both good and bad. Inexplicitly tied together. Forever.

And I wondered what the world would have been like had John Lennon not been taken so violently and so prematurely. Perhaps I’ll think about this some more on my next ride.

For now I can only imagine.

 

Tagged with: art • beatles • bicycle • bike • chicago • cycling • graffiti • lennon • memories • music • ride • type • typography
 

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 9th, 2010 at 12:05 pm and is filed under cycling, photography, type, typography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.