Blues Night
The significance of a Sunday night hourly radio show.
Every Sunday a local radio station has this segment, and it features just blues artists. I’ve dubbed it “Blues Night” for several years now. And I know what you’re thinking, so what? The thing is… it’s a lot more than just a short segment of good music.
When I was a kid we had this (fairly) old stereo that held it’s place in the garage for more years than I was old, and it’s still going strong to this day. I am convinced that thick layer of dust, oil, and grime is single-handedly keeping this thing alive. Anyway, every Sunday night my dad would turn the station to the blues segment and he’d sit outside in the warm summer air with a beer. I’d plop down next to him, minus the beer of course, and we’d stare off at the blinking lights from a city far away.
Cicadas and crickets chirped while fireflies lit up the sky all around us as Muddy Waters or Otis Rush crooned out from the radio, their voices carried off into the humid night air.
I have experienced a lot of wonderful things so far in life, but this simple little thing is honestly one of my best memories. It wasn’t this big, expensive trip to Disneyland or that brand new Playstation. It was just this peaceful moment, existing, together.
I think there’s something to be said for these simple moments in life, that when it boils down to it, it’s not always the newest gadget or the expensive trips that bring us comforting memories on a chilly winter’s night, but the little things like sticky summers with blues music, or that one night you spent over an hour scrubbing kitchen cabinet’s at one o’clock in the morning because you decided to take a cake decorating class with your mom and the mixer exploded batter all over the kitchen.
Sometimes I think we can get swept up in the hefty illusion that we need to spend a lot of money in order to have an experience in this life that’s worthwhile, when that’s not really true at all.
There is a raw happiness in just existing with one another, and enjoying the little moments we’re living in each and every day.
And now on Sunday nights, my husband turns the radio to that familiar old station, and we both yell “Blues Night” as we each get lost, together, in an old song’s familiar tune.
