I'd sing it to the top of my lungs in the backseat of the old white "Comet" for Dad and Uncle Bobby and they'd just laugh.
Then I discovered "The Beatles", 50's rock-n-roll and Elvis and never looked back.
Growing up was a never ending battle for radio supremacy with me hitting the button for WSGA while Dad instantly flipping to WEAS.
It was his car so he always won and I got lectures on how Willie Nelson's "Red Headed Stranger" is better than anything John Lennon and Paul McCartney ever thought about doing.
I remember it as an intense hated of the other's music.
Looking back on it today though we found common ground.
Dad became a huge Anne Murray fan when she sang Kenny Loggings songs barefoot on the stage.
And I fell in love with "The Statler Brothers", an old white Gospel Quartet who crossed over into the country mainstream.
This opened the door for me to listen and love Waylon Jennings, Tom T. Hall and the coolest, hippest, country artist ever Johnny Cash.
Sitting on the Beloved Back Deck last night on a warm summer night with the ocean casting salt over the island, I hit Spotify and "The Statler Brothers" reminded me the Class of 57 had its dreams.
It's a haunting, poignant, beautiful recollection of how life turns out better for some than others in spite of the belief that "we'd change the world with our great words and deeds."
It takes me back to fond memories of Dad hitting the radio button for WEAS and Hank Cochran just after I'd hit the one for WSGA for Derek and the Dominos.
Dad's gone but I still have my dreams though "living life every day is never as it seems."
But here's to Dad and each of the Statler Brothers; here's to hopes and dreams that don't die; here's to still being here long after the class I graduated with is gone ...
Here's to us all.
