Blue Guitar – Giveaway
Greetings from home …
We’re back to where it all started, a tiny village in the countryside of Lower Austria, about 30 minutes east of the capital Vienna.
For the last few weeks we’ve been covered in dust and sweat, cleaning out the big country house we grew up in. 10 years ago we moved to the UK, and after living abroad for a decade now we think it’s fairly safe to say that we won’t be moving back here anytime soon. 😉 So, we’re getting ready to sell the place we had spent the first 19 years of our lives.
Dad built his recording studio here back in the 80s, Michaela joined us in 2003, and every corner of the house is filled with memories und stuff that needs sorting through. We try hard not to spend half of the time reminiscing as we’re flicking through old books and sort through childhood toys and pictures.
Time stood still in this house for the last 10 years and it was time to get it into a shape where it can become someone else’s home and provide room for new stories and adventures.
While clearing out the studio, we also came across one of our first guitars that we used in a few of our earliest music videos and that, despite being a very cheap and rather poorly made instrument, even made its way onto a few studio recordings. Dad got it for less than 20€ on the Internet and we always thought it sounded surprisingly good. For certain things it beat our more “high end” acoustic guitars, and so we recoded “The Wide Wide Land” with it!
We didn’t want to throw it on the skip knowing it would make a perfect MLT Club Giveaway for one of you!
How to enter the Giveaway:
– Leave a comment under this post telling us your favourite or a significant memory from your childhood home.
We will pick a winner at random next Friday and will sign and send off the guitar free of charge to one of you!
Shipping costs will be on us, of course.
Good luck and we’re sending you all big hugs from Austria!
Mona & Lisa
I was just thinking that being at your old home must have made you very nostalgic and I was thinking about nostalgic songs that you might like to perform. You’ve covered The Beatles’ In My Life, but how about The Beach Boys In My Room? It’s a beautiful song and, given how beautifully you rendered God Only Knows, I get goosebumps thinking about an MLT version of another Beach Boy classic
It is so beautiful to see you singing “The wide wide land” one of your greatest songs. Thanks
Hey Mona and Lisa! It sure is nice that you do all the things that you do for you MLT Club members. I just wanted you to know.
Are there any dandelions in the backyard? Maybe you could recreate the “What a Wonderful World” moment before you send off the blue 🎸!
I have no specific childhood memory that stands out. We moved into the house in which I grew when I was less than a year old. My brother lives there now, and it feels like home. We had a large yard, particularly to the side, and we often played baseball, whiffle ball and such. I remember eating outside and cooking out in the summer.
It’s great to read all the stories from every corner of the world!
There was talk in the forum about the blue Alba guitar a while ago, if I remember correctly. The Wide Wide Land is undoubtedly one of your masterpieces. Just like The Beatles made music for the ages with some cheap instruments, so have you.
I was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and when I was 1 year old, we moved to a house in San Isidro, a suburb of the sprawling city, where we lived for about 10 years. I have many memories in that house, which now is an outpatient clinic. It’s strange to think that my childhood bedroom is now a doctor’s office!
We had a swinging door between the kitchen and dining room. I liked to push through it and see it swing. My earliest memory is when I was 2 years old. I pushed through the swinging door and my uncle was sitting in the kitchen, looking rather gloomy, staring at the wall above the counter. I had to stand on my toes to look over the white marble counter to see four pictures leaning against the wall, it was the pictures of The Beatles from the White Album.
I was so proud of myself and said “I know who those are.”
My uncle obliged and asked “Who are they?”
“They are The Beatles!”
I was so proud of myself, until my uncle asked if I could name them. I was stumped.
“Anyway, they are not The Beatles anymore. They broke up.”
Maybe I had broken a teapot recently, because all I could think of, was a broken-up teapot on the floor.
“Can’t they be put back together?” I was devastated.
“No, I don’t think so. I think this is it,” my uncle lamented.
I thought I would never be able to listen to the music ever again.
It’s interesting that I was just two years old and The Beatles already had such an impact on me. I don’t remember anything before that, but clearly it hit me hard. After all these years, it’s a fond memory for me now, as it shows that there’s something that connects me deeply with their music. Something that I cannot explain. Only one other “act” has touched me so.
Thank you Lisa!
For getting back to me, I sure appreciate that! I totally understand how busy you’ve been… me too! I didn’t even mention the horseback riding and fencing lessons I took when I was a teenager; & the Tae Kwon Do. You probably get WAY too much candy sent to you, but let me know what you like the best anyway!
CHEERS! — Bud
One of my best childhood memories is that our neighbour’s cat used to come and sit in our garden every day, Looking very serene among the daffodils and green green grass. When my sister was born, she would sit on guard by her pram. Happy days and memories.
I just have to say that reading all these stories has been so much fun! This kind of sharing is one of the best parts of being a member of MLT.
Hello Mona & Lisa,
Now I understand why I haven’t heard back from you yet, on whether you received the large box of chocolates & other goodies that I sent to you! We have also had to clean our house out from years of accumulated things, & each piece brings back memories! Especially all the Music teacher lessons I’ve written out & bought over the years. So I can relate to your house cleaning! Good luck with all of that!
When I grew up in West Seattle, I lived in 2 houses. My parents were Dance Teachers who were very busy, & my favorite aunt & uncle were more than happy (w/no children,) to take care of me very often! We went on trips, such as to Yellowstone Park, or California, or Montana, etc. I was the only child between 2 households. Both of their houses had sweeping views of the Olympic Mtns, & nice yards. I loved to play with my friends, go on bike rides & walk my dog around the neighborhood!
My aunt & uncle also built a house, & owned an acre on beach property on a small island, with a view of Mount Rainier. I loved to walk around the island, run around with my dog in the woods, row our boat & play in the water. So I had a great childhood!
Once I started trumpet lessons, playing in school bands, getting a Music degree & playing professionally, my parents, aunt & uncle attended many of my concerts & gigs, & gave me lots of support & encouragement! They made me take dance lessons from them, but it was fun, & I’m so happy I got to see them teach, as they were so very good at it!
Since then, I’ve travelled around the Western US with different bands, gone to Europe 4 times, Kenya once, & still enjoy playing in a Band after teaching Music for over 30 years! I live with my wife, daughter & our 19 year-old cat in a different house now, but I will always treasure my childhood memories, with such a loving family!
I believe that whoever gets your guitar will enjoy having a great piece of MLT history! I have acoustic & electric guitars which I play often, and have used frequently in my teaching career. I would love to have your guitar, but I’m not greedy, so I’m interested in hearing who wins it, & how they will make use of it!
Thanks for your caring towards your fans, & your generosity! You are extremely hard-working & talented, & you have a wonderful, talented, & supportive family! I wish you both continued super good luck in your career! You are “One in 8 BILLION!”
Love and Best Wishes! — Bud Jackson
Thanks Bud, we’ll get back to you as soon as we’re home and back on track. Thank you also for sharing your beautiful memories ❤️
Hi Lisa & Mona, I don’t want to rush you when you’re busy! I just need to know WHERE I should look for a reply from you; in my home email, or somewhere on this site? I go on here every day. Thanks so much for all the great stuff you post on the MLT website! — Bud
Hi Mona Lisa Twins! I don’t have much of a story to tell here, so I’ll keep it short. I did have a childhood home, and we had a pool so we were always swimming (which I loved!) These contests are great 🙂 I hope to win the blue guitar- it clearly has so much character, and if it was played by you girls – it’ll be my favorite one!!
I have many good childhood memories from the house I grew up in Oakville, On. Canada from age 4 to age 21 though it was in our family until my Dad died in 2010 at the age of 94.
Every year my Dad made an ice rink on our side lot where we skated and played hockey after school and every Saturday there was a Fathers against sons hockey game which held many fond stories for both my older brother (4years older) and later for myself and friends for many years.
I have relatives that live in Oakville/Burlington ……
My dad was in the Air Force and when I was 7 we were stationed in Turkey. They had no military housing so we lived in a Turkish village above our landlord. There was a large bay in front of our house and my 5-year-old sister Lisa and I would catch little fish on safety pins baited with the mussels that grew along the sea wall. We had a cherry orchard behind our building and we’d climb the trees and help ourselves. Once we “stole” a donkey that was just standing in the orchard. My sister tried to get up into the saddle which apparently was not cinched tightly enough and slid around and dumped her to the ground. I’ll never forget that when I got too close to the donkey’s behind, it kicked me in the upper thigh. Quite a bruise! A bit later an elderly man came to claim his donkey back and complain to our mom in Turkish.
Lisa and I didn’t have any American kids to play with so we hung out with a couple of Turkish brothers close to our age. Neither of us spoke the other’s language, but with young children, that’s usually not an impediment to having fun!
BTW, before I got married my initials were MLT : ) Love your sound especially the harmonies. My youngest sister was born in Turkey and when we three were all in our 20’s we’d sing and play guitar together and get those lovely sibling harmonies. Good luck in all your endeavors and I’m glad I signed up for the MLT Club. Cheers!
Wonderful memories, Michele! I’m a bit envious of anyone who has spent time abroad, especially growing up. I can’t say I don’t have my fair share of warm childhood memories, but experiencing different cultures at a young age has to be special!
We lived in a same house with my mother´s parents when I was between ages four and seven. And my best friend lived just other side of the road. So all that the child needed was very near. Those years are a one good memory from my childhood !
It must be tough for you to let go of your childhood home with all its memories. Although we moved a few times since I was born its our third house I call home (moved here when I was about 5). It’s where all the memories are, including playing with Action Men (a sort of macho Barbie!) in the large garden. We would hide the army tanks in the bushes and have the men drop down ropes from the upstairs windows! Although I moved to England for work in early 1980’s I returned to the house in 2001 when just my mother and father were living there so you could say I am still living in my childhood home after all these years!
One of my fondest memories is summers with my cousin. He was an Elvis Presley fan and mine was Johnny Rivers. We made guitars out of cardboard boxes and sat out to lip sync in front of the dresser mirror nearly every song on their albums. This childish pastime grew into a love for music and both of us getting real guitars and then forming a band. Funny we never lost our love for Johnny and Elvis, but we never played any of their songs in our band. This all happened in the early, mid and late 60s. I am 72 and my cousin 70 and both still play.. He recently started a band with his wife and they play weekly in the Dallas Fort Worth area,
The first house I remember living in was in Salina, Colorado USA. It was a gold mining town in the mountains west of Boulder, Colorado USA. It was a two story house. The upstairs was open and my sister, brother and I all had sleeping areas there. The downstairs was our parents bedroom, living room and kitchen. The only heat in the house was a wood/coal cooking stove in the kitchen and a pot bellied stove in the living room. We had an outhouse and got our water from a communal well at the bottom of the hill our house sat on. I was in first or second grade and rode a school bus to Boulder to school. The school closed down many years ago (probably 25 or 30 years). The house burned to the ground several years ago in a forest fire. Strangely, the house my wife and I have lived in for 46 years burned down on December 31. 2021 from a wildfire in Superior, Colorado USA a few miles east of Boulder. I had gotten a guitar in the early 1990’s, but never really learned to play it. I lost it in the fire. I also lost a signed Paul McCartney guitar my neighbor gave me and my wife for our anniversary. All we had after the fire was our dog and my pickup. My wife’s car was burned also. We had no time to take anything. Anyway, all is good. Love what you do and how you interact with all the members.
I know I only get one entry, but I have to share a vivid memory of swinging on my best friend Danny’s swingset while we belted out Jim Croce’s “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim” and spitting right after the ‘you don’t spit into the wind’ line. We were both forbidden to spit, but did our best to hide the act from his Mom. It was during the summer between kindergarten and first grade, my last in my first home.
I’ve already related stories from the home of my first six years about my fictional twin brother George and my 🛼 exploits while singing Melanie’s “Brand New Key”, so I’ll reveal my favorite gift from my years in that house. It was a brand new white pedal pace car. Quite a step up from the second-hand tricycle and worn out scooter that Dad had to keep putting back together! Looking back, I know now it had to represent a good deal of sacrifice on my folks part, as money was tight back then. I even remember Dad taking me to the local grocery store where it was shipped to to pick it up. I couldn’t hardly wait for Dad to assemble it so I could start wearing the tires out from one end of our block to the other!
AWESOME giveaway! That blue guitar looks just like the one in your early “What a Wonderful World” vid, which makes it even more special! If I remember correctly, you first learned that song to honor your Grandpa on his birthday, so it played a part in two of your relatives’ lives!
Walking up the bloody hill to get home.🤬
Hi Mona & Lisa, its strange you mention childhood homes, as I am in the process of selling mine with my sisters after my Mum passed away just before Christmas.
I guess a house is just bricks and mote, but it is the people and the memories that makes it a home.
My home was somewhere, always warm and cosy, when I returned from school. It is so had to pick one memory but I will try. I think it would be me coming home when I was 12 with my very own first record player. We had an old radio gram, but the Marconiphone portable record player was mine. I paid my Mum each week money from my paper round to buy it. Taking it two my room and playing my ever growing small collection of records on it is a wonderful memory . I still have that record player and it still works 54 years later. It still works too.
Great memories, Jeff
What a wonderful giveaway, a piece of MLT history could belong to one of us. I would really like to win this iconic blue guitar but I know it will be in good hands no matter who wins.. When I watched the video of you in your old house in Austria I felt like I was part of your históry too, it came to my mind all my happy or sad moments when your music and your smiles was by my side… I have already visited one or two houses where I lived in the past, it really is a “rain” of emotions. I hope Papa Rudi makes a good sale of your house.. and for sure the song to listen to this weekend is the sweet WWT album.. Stay groovy dear girls and a great return to the UK.
Hello Mona and Lisa, and a bit late here but love this weeks video. Yes I lived in our house for almost 20 years before I got married, and every now and then I ride past the house and remember all the good times of playing with my friends and hanging out. We had a ball field very close to our house and we would go there for hours playing baseball, football, it tag ….etc…and playing till the street lights would come on and then we had to go home. I also remember my parents buying me my first drum set and it was only a bass and snare drum and cymbal and putting records on and playing along with the records. So many great memories for sure. So thank you for another great video and look forward to next Friday’s video. Hugs and love from Bill and Maddie Isenberg Huge Fans from Pitttsburgh PA USA
Yes, that is “ the Black Hills of Dakota” the setting for the Beatles song “Rocky Raccoon”
Sorry …Wide Wide Land!!
I grew up in South Dakota, USA…and my grandparents owned a cabin in the Black Hills in a little tiny town called Hisega. A lot of my summers were spent in that little mountain, what used to be a railroad town, fishing, and just exploring the mountains. They have since sold that property, and of course passed away…. I am currently building a small cabin in Hawaii with the same feel. Maybe my grandkids will have the same great memories that I did when I was their age. Every cabin needs a good name…. I think I’ll call this one Hisega! When you were playing Wide Wide World on the blue guitar….I’m sure there were tears in your eyes thinking of your grandmother, if not, they were certainly in mine!
My first 15 years were in Dumbarton Scotland. In 1968 we had a hurricane (unusual for Scotland). When I woke in the morning our garage was gone. We found it about 500 yards away in pieces in a field next to our house!!!
I was born in Cartagena (Spain). I lived with my parents and my brothers in a small flat with a terrace. It was a third floor without a lift. My brother and I used to race to see who could go up the fastest. In the square we played a kind of football with drink corks. One day, when I was about 4 years old, I was playing with a toy train in the yard and it went down the drain that went down to the second floor and I didn’t say anything to my parents. In Cartagena it rains very little, but the next time to rain, the drain got clogged and the water came gushing into my neighbors’ house. When the workers came to repair it, they found my toy train, which was what had caused the problem. That was a surprise for me because I didn`t rember anything. I think I was very young because my parents didn’t scold me, they just asked me why I hadn’t said anything.
I can remember living in a three story house with my parents. I could only have been around five as we moved to a better house. I remember going to the top floor which was not used and finding an old mike stand?!! This was very surprising because none of my immediate family are musical. I think this must have inspired my interest in music. Both listening and playing. It looks a lovely location where you are.
I remember when I was 8 and decided I was going to be the next Picasso and so I “decorated” the wall of the upstairs room with colored pens. I thought it was a vast improvement but unfortunately, everyone else was a critic and I didn’t sit down for a bit.
When I was 8 we lived in Paris, the family in the other apartment on our floor had a boy my age who had a number of disabilities. He was my best friend and to this day I give him credit for being open minded. If more people lived around folk with differences we’d all find it easier to accept others. I thus think of all the times I spent with Brian as my most significant childhood memories.
As a kid I spent a lot of time at my Grandparents’ house while my Mum and Dad were working. Also it was a gathering place for my Dad’s family, so there were always lots of people there. Some of my best memories from those times are of walking along the Leeds-Liverpool canal for hours with my Granddad around Aintree and Fazakerley. Not as many boats on the canal in those days and it’s great to see how much it has been cleaned up in recent years. Happy Days. 🙂
Hello Twinz! Thanks for the opportunity to win an MLT guitar; so sweet of you!
Childhood memories? That’s challenging ’cause I’m sooooo old! But I think my one of my favs would be watching The Beatles on the The Ed Sullivan Show when I was only eight years old. The “British Invasion” had begun! I danced and sang along to “She Loves You” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand” like Little Richard!
It was a great memory!
Love to you both from Asheville, NC, USA
Kelly
I do hope that you find a chance to rest after this project! Cleaning out a childhood home and sifting through all the memories can be very draining – fun to relive memories, but emotionally tiring to say goodbye to such a prominent part of your lives.
I was fortunate to grow up in a paradise of sorts. My first home was in rural, eastern Ontario – lots of hills, rocks, and trees. Our home was just down a gravel road from my Grandpa’s farm and was bordered along the back and side by a winding creek. I had all sorts of adventures there – skating in the winter, fishing, exploring, and dodging very large snapping turtles! The other side of our property was bordered by a neighbour’s farm field and so we had lovely cows gazing with their huge brown eyes over our fence, ready to converse with us – or so it seemed to me. We also had a large garden filled with raspberry bushes and all kinds of vegetables. One of my best memories was being at my Grandpa’s house, sitting beside his wood stove, listening to him crank out jigs and reels on his old fiddle while he shuffled his feet in a kind of stepdance. My Dad played too and we had some lively, musical times! I also loved watching my Grandpa witch for water with a forked willow branch. We moved from that property to a small town in Southwestern Ontario when I was 7 years old, but my first place of residence was always my true home – in my heart.
Whereabouts in Eastern Ontario , rurally, did you live !?
I lived in the countryside near Stockdale, a tiny village not far from Frankford, a slightly bigger village, a few miles north of Trenton. The gravel road we lived on was called Gunter Settlement Road and there were only a few homes on it at the time.
Ah, ok, not familiar much with that area, but I know where Trenton is and have heard of Frankford 😊🐮🐄
I was in in 4th grade in 1964 when Beatlemania hit the U.S. Apparently I looked like Ringo Starr, so the 6th grade girls started hanging out with me during recess. One time I had four girls holding onto my arms and legs carrying me around. Sadly, by the time I reached sixth grade and was interested in girls nobody cared who I looked like.
It was one of those spring days when the air is cold under a clear blue sky, but there is warmth in the sunlight. Outside in the yard, the radio in the kitchen was audible through an open window. The Every Brothers were singing “Cathy’s Clown”.
Music was there in my first verifiable memory, back in April 1960, and it has never left.
My favorite childhood memories were centered around being outdoors, where I spent much of my free time.
I don’t play a guitar and music is just not an area I have much natural talent in. I just love listening to music, especially Twins music.
Your little impromptu of “The Wide Wide Land” impressed on me just how good you two have become. “The Wide Wide Land” is still one of my favorites; a song about a subject that is so hard for most people to deal with and yet it manages to put it in a positive light. Some people look at a rose bush and see thorns; I see flowers, and I know that you do too.
Have you considered redoing “The Wide Wide Land” as a duo session?
I looked at the area using Google Earth and can see the miles and miles of farms in the valleys of the Danube and its tributaries, and the Alps rising not far away to the south. It looks like it must have been a great area to grow up in and perhaps spend your life if music hadn’t taken you away to England.
My childhood was wonderful, nobody had any money but everyone was happy. The war was still fresh in our minds in the 50’s and our neighbourhood had refugee families and migrants from Europe and England and we had so many kids our age to have fun with. Such a happy childhood we all had in those times.
As we’re talking guitars here, I’ll base my memory on one of the nicest I’ve played. When I was about 14 (aound 1973), my older brother who was away in the Navy trusted me to take care of the guitar he played in his fairly successful garage band. I attempted to form a band of my own and had all the necessary players for the time – drummer, bass player, lead guitarist, and me on rythym guitar. We were all relatively decent players at the time and could knock out OK versions of songs like ‘Walk, Don’t Run’, ‘Old Brown Shoe’, ‘Smile Away’, and every drummer’s favorite ‘Wipe Out’. Sadly, the band never made out of the back porch of my house, and after a couple months, it was history. We had fun while it lasted though.
Eventually, my brother returned to reclaim his guitar, which is still in VERY good condition. When I visit him today both my son and I enjoy a chance to play that very nice starburst ‘63 Gibson ES-335. ;^)
’63 ES-335 😲👍👍
There are so many amazing memories that it’s hard to choose. I was lucky to grow up in a home filled with love and the neighborhood was an extension of my home. I have so many exhilarating memories of playing with all the kids on the block. When I was five, I remember playing outside and thinking life is so beautiful and I’m lucky to be alive. That memory of pure happiness has always stayed with me.
Back in the day (early 70’s), going out for pizza (getting a few quarters to play Pong) and a movie. This was such a rare treat and I was the luckiest girl in the world.
As it happens, I’m living in the family home where I grew up, even though there were several decades of separation between then and now. You never know destiny’s play (MLT), and a combination of apparently unrelated events prove you can go home again. Except it’s the same only different. The inner sanctum is, of course the presumed privacy of a teen aged boy’s bedroom. Along with the usual bed, dresser, and study desk, as well as posters of musical heroes, I was blessed with a late 1930’s, upright, wood grain, Westinghouse radio, a hand-me-down from my grandparents. Two short wave frequencies, and the ever-familiar AM band, was my portal to much of North America. In any case, that radio is with me still, and we may have to share space in the coffin, so that I might still listen to those seminal musical influences, like the Beatles and a myriad of others.
Going back home is always precious.
I have so many great memories
Playing with my dog would certainly be one of those memories
Mona & Lisa enjoy your memories !
I’m really moved by your short performance of the Wide, Wide, Land. Some how it is so gripping, there is so much heartfelt love there expressed in your singing, that comes through. Absolutely beautiful, absolutely loved it.
What an amazing send off for the guitar.
Hey everyone, I grew up in Montreal and then we moved to the suburbs in a city called saint -hubert . I am still there taking care of my father now . I grew up with 3 sisters . In Quebec, during the winter months we receive lots of snow n in the summer months lots of heat . During my childhood lots of skating playing hockey sleds etc.. during summer months the water hose , biking , playing hide and seek etc… love it here
I was born and grew up in Northern California with my two older brothers in the fifties. We lived in a small rural town in a small house with a backyard that used to have a cattle pasture and barbed wire fence, When I was about 6, the town decided to build a new elementary school there, which I attended. They constructed a ten foot tall cyclone fence right along our back yard to separate the school and playgrounds. I was too lazy to walk the half mile around the front to go to school and was constantly climbing this fence going back and forth to the school and playground. I became a pretty good climber. But the big advantage was the baseball field was right behind our house. I loved baseball and I remember that so many high foul balls were hit that fell into our back yard that I never ever had to go buy any baseballs.
My oldest brother plays guitar. I grew up in a house with a band always rehearsing in the basement. Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin, Pink Floyd. Great childhood. This was 1972 to 1978 or so.
Growing up on a large piece of property, I remember that we used to play a lot of baseball and basketball. Usually it was my brothers, myself, uncles (who did not live far away), and my father. So much fun.
What a treasure! My #3 all-time favorite MLT song. Rather than a tl;dnr exposition about my childhood home, I’ll just share a short poem I wrote about it many years ago:
do you remember
the stately old
black locust
that shaded the front yard
or just the stump
that quietly took its place
one year
or the exuberant young
cherry trees that
played in the neighboring field
growing high above the tall grasses
until one summer they
sprouted furniture, appliances, walls,
and a plaque that read “3833”
the trails and secret hideouts
in the wild woods
brambled ravines and
covert creeks
the natives looked suspiciously like
children
the cars that drive there now
will never know
Beautiful, Roger! The adjective “loverly” also seems apt.
Roger, your poem sets a wonderful setting and reminiscent mood in my mind. Very nice!
I grew up in the sixties and was a big Beatles fan, but the Monkees were big on TV and the first picture of me with a guitar my dad took while I was holding a friends red plastic guitar lol. Love all your music, enjoyed the Why album very much and getting the orange vinyl was great, makes me think of other colored albums I had in the day. Keep up the super work!!
Glad you are having a nice time. Going back home after a long time can be odd. Whenever we go to my hometown, about two hours north of here, I bombard Marlo with every little difference I notice. We hope you find some treasures as you are going through what got left behind all those years ago.
These spontaneous moments where you find yourselves with a guitar in your hand and just start singing are priceless. WWL is one of hour favorites. This has got to be one of your coolest give-aways.
Have a safe GROOVY trip home.
Marlo & JP
A childhood memory that pops in my head was at my grandma’s house. She lived five blocks from the Oklahoma River which goes through the middle of town. And her house was in the stockyards district with cattle trucks going up and down the street all day and night. Now there is a legend in the Spanish speaking world about an old hag called the Llorona (Yorona) who threw her baby in the river. My grandma’s version was that God told her she needed walk up and down the river wailing for her kid. So as little kids when we stayed overnight we would hear the horns and the roar of the cattle trucks all night. And would be so scared that that was the wailing of the Llorona that many times we would wet the bed. Anyway Peace be.
Hi Joe,
I saw a movie a couple of years ago about Llorona. In the film, she drowned her two children in a lake (or a river?) and then years later her spirit came back looking for other kids. It was a little scary but suspenseful.
Bobby S.
The story is well known here in New Mexico. We have a park down by the Rio Grande named “La Llorona Park”.
I imagine you have many good memories of your home in Austria. What a great place to grow up. Your dad and grandparents made you who you are. You should be very proud.. very lucky. I grew up in the city. Plenty of neighborhood kids to play with in the streets. In the late fifties dad built us a cottage “Up North” on the bluest most beautiful lake in the world, according to National Geographic, at the time. “Up North ” in Michigan is a big deal. A mass migration every week end. As much as I’ve been there I’ll never get enough. From Memorial Day to Labor Day We were either fishing or water skiing. Those were the “good old days”. Glad you finally let the sun see you. Good for you! You were starting to look a Whiter Shade of Austrians..
Always loved that song The Wide Wide Land,I’m thinking that would be a good Duo Session ,Beautiful song. I grew up on the East side of St. Paul, Minnesota, one memory of my childhood was an empty lot across the street from the elementary school we went to. We would spend hours there on weekends and summer breaks playing baseball , football, all sorts of games,we even used it as a driving range when we were a little older.Those were fun days.
My Dad and I would play ball when I was very young, then at about age eight he taught me how to catch and throw a baseball. Countless hours and lots of fun on the front lawn. Prepared me for growing up and playing sports with friends in school.
For some reason, it reminded me of Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany, which was my second home away from home. It was not flat but had small rolling hills around it. Also, Austria was my first ski trip in the Alps.
As a sports-minded little kid my childhood memory of my home was our basement. One side had a ping-pong table and a pinball machine. Tons of board games and my dad’s tools were against the walls.
The other side became a mini roller hockey rink, equipped with a net and a taped-out goal crease. Many hours were spent skating and shooting pucks.
As time went on, we outgrew the space, but we kept on playing. The final game was decreed by my parents, as a buddy of mine bodychecked his brother into the furnace. The sound freaked them out upstairs, and our basement hockey careers were over.
When my mom sold the house years later, the masking tape was still on the floor along with permanent roller skate lines on the floor.
Good times!
Thank you for a few lines of “The Wide, Wide Land”. The old guitar still sounds great.
I can relate to a little of that, Christopher. As a kid I used our carpeted hallway as a practice putting green, until one day I walked toward the ball while absent-mindedly holding the club upside-down above my head, and broke an overhead light fixture. That spelled the end of indoor golf for me.
Our hallway served many activities purposes…. roller skating ( the type where you’d strap on over your shoes ), soccer, hockey with little balls and stuff we’d find for net posts, marbles with cutout cardboard holes to aim marbles into, my 2nd oldest brother had those revving up Derby cars where you put the long jagged stick thing with handle into hole on derby cars, yank it out and let them rip, setup Hot Wheels orange plastic track setup, set up blue plastic train tracks, play Rebound Game, etc…. Yeppers that hallway was a playing playground paradise ……in my childhood custom built bungalow, obviously, the carpet was removable in hallway unlike the majority of house (yes, my Mom at some point decided carpet in both bathroom/kitchen over original flooring was ideal….lol…. Thankfully that was not the case eons later, we got rid of both after Mom was in hospital or after she died ….we did however treat Dad to a quick mini makeover surprise in kitchen during one of his times he was in rehab stays due to his strokes/seizures , by repainting walls, putting in self sticking tiles over original linoleum flooring so he had a great surprise awaiting, he was surprised and liked what we we did, also happy we got rid of bathroom carpeting in both small bathroom off kitchen and our main bathroom, ah, almost 50 yrs of memories had in the house before we sold it around 2001-2003 -ish ….
Many, many years ago when I was 10 years old my sister wished for and got an Elvis Presley guitar for Christmas. Of course, she did not want to play the guitar, so I picked it up and learned the basic cords. So, year after year of practicing I became so much better at playing the guitar, that I formed a rock and roll band. We became a very success 1960’s region band named “Sweet Nothin,” We primarily played at various clubs an colleges in a 4-county area. Our manager wanted to have us go professional, but 2 of the band members wanted to finish college. So, now I look back with may fond memories of our playing years. George.
I guess it’s when I started playing the guitar and our neighborhood was full of kids and girls. We would play Rock N Roll in the garage, there were 4 of us playing songs like Louie/Louie, Gloria, the kids all came over and that’s how I got to meet a lot of our neighbors. Of course, don’t leave out the girls! My first gigs. Have fun Ladies and Stay Groovy!!!
Well I grew up the eldest of 3 brothers and we all spent the summers, in particular, playing sport (cricket, football (soccer), rugby, tennis and others) and the winters also, weather permitting. The back garden was ours for this purpose and the grass soon disappeared due to over use and became referred to as Mudby (an oblique play on Wembley).
We broke many a window, it was a speciality of mine, but our mother (dad had already sadly died) happily put up with this as she wanted us to play sport and we were never told off, our techniques were questioned though. It also meant that our great (in so many ways) uncle Jack would be called upon to replace the glass. He was a painter/decorator and got trade prices for all the materials and was also a keen sportsman and enjoyed doing it. We just loved him coming round (no we didn’t break the windows on purpose!).
The front garden was mother’s and was immaculate although we were allowed to play tennis and have cricket fielding practice on the grass there. Quite how we managed so much sport in what were really quite small gardens was down to our ingenuity.
Friends would come round and join in but they would be knackered the next day whilst we just went out and did it all again. Chris, my then best friend, once spent the following day in bed he was so exhausted.
Happy, fun days and the 70s summers in the UK were generally really good so we spent weeks on end outside, often 10 hours a day.
Other memories are the amount of freedom that we were given to go out and about virtually where we wanted (we did have breaks from sport occasionally). This was all on the proviso that we behaved ourselves and we so valued this that we did. The feeling of having the complete trust of your mother was something that cannot be described. I do not know what the punishment would have been for breaking this trust because we just knew that it wasn’t worth doing it. It was also a great set up for living and coping with our lives as individuals when we left home.
I better stop there, although there are many other stories, and it has made me realise what a wonderful upbringing I had despite losing my father so early.
really nothing too much happen at my house growing up but what i looked forward to was my time with my grandparents on both sides of the family Durning the summer.
i would spend half with dads side on the farm outside of town and the other half with moms side in town so i understand how speical the song wide wide land is to you
thank you for your music and stay groovy
I had a pretty unique setup in my childhood home and had both sets of grandparents living with us. My German grandparents lived on the 3rd floor of our house, we lived on the 2nd floor, and my British/Swedish grandparents lived on the first floor. We never had to travel for the holidays, and my parents had built in baby sitters for my brother and I. Lots of great memories there! I still reminisce about my grandparents and mom, and get a bit emotional whenever I listen to “The Wide Wide Land” – a truly beautiful song and touching tribute to your oma. Best of luck with the move and sale of your childhood home. Safe travels!
I love the wide wide land, it is one of my favorite MLT songs, especially knowing it was written about your dear grandmother. Anyway, my favorite memory from childhood is playing outside on long summer days with all the neighborhood kids. I was lucky to grow up in an area where there were lots of kids my age, and we had lots of fun every day.
First I must say just the 2 of you sitting in a field with a guitar singing was so beautiful. Nearly teared up… Thank you!
I was raised on a farm. We had a half section of cultivated land and a half section of pasture in a wooded valley and raised cows, pigs and chickens. It was a lot of hard work but the memories of all the fun and the freedom I had will remain with me forever. Where else could you drive a fully loaded grain truck from the field down the road about half a kilometer to the yard at 9 years old and do it legally? Not sure if it still is legal though. 🙂
I remember my grandparents place. He ran a sawmill and had chickens a few cows. The calf was named “Beefstake” because my mom and her sisters and kept Grandpa from killing their pet cow during the great depression. He had an old tractor and old 4×4 logging trucks we used to play on. I remember the same rules – a kid was allowed to drive in connection to farming, ranching etc.
It was a different world then up to the latter part of the sixties. When I was a kid all the vehicles were in the yard with the keys in them and the house was never locked even if away on vacation. Just in case a neighbour needed something. Was always neighbours helping neighbours in time of need. Things slowly changed and had to lock up everything or it would disappear. Innocence was lost with progress it seems. Ahhh, the memories. 🙂
nicely said!
My story is a little less rose-colored.
When I was in high school I had a midnight curfew. One night I was late coming home from my girlfriends house. My mother had already locked up because it was past midnight. I climbed up on our porch roof and was going to climb in my bedroom window to get in the house. We had an elderly lady who lived behind our house who was real nosy. She saw me on the roof and called the police because she thought someone was breaking into our house. The police showed up with spotlights and bullhorns while I was trying to pry my window open. The cops saw it was me and started to have a laugh (it was a small town they knew me) but my mother didn’t find it funny. I don’t remember how long I was grounded. My girlfriend didn’t like that either.
Having grown up on military bases most of my life, I don’t have a specific memory about a house I grew up in. Rather, I have a collection of memories from different places I have lived. Like collecting bees with a neighbor girl in 4th grade when I stayed at my grandparents. Or watching the moon landing on TV when we lived in Las Vegas. Or going through the big earthquake when living in Alaska during the early 60s. There are many other memories of course. But rarely is there a collection from just one house.
When was a small fry in the early 60’s we would have regular gatherings at our house with aunts, uncle and cousins. My father and his sisters were all piano players (one also played a violin) and my oldest brother played accordion. Not regular jam sessions by today’s standards, typically old fashioned piano songs and such, but it was such good family fun. I still have the old upright piano that belonged to my Grandmother, although I don’t hardly play anymore. My interests have been taken over by my guitars in my later life and I’m certainly no David Gilmour. But I love where it has taken me so far.
“Without music, even the richest child is poor.”
My most memorable time was when I was about 13 years old, a group of us would go to a small café after school where I first heard Beatles songs. I saved my allowance and bought an electric Silvertone guitar🎸, from Sears and Roebuck, that had an amplifier built into the guitar case.
I always went straight home to learn how to play Beatles songs and I never went back to the café after school. I never left my house except to go to another friend’s house where he would “teach” me how to play. The word teach here is used loosely. Some great times! The times, they were a changin’.
I grew up in the house my Grandparents built in 1940. My parents bought it from them in 1960 and I lived there until 1971 when I went off to college. My younger brother ended up with the house and it has been in the family more or less it’s entire life. I live currently about 2 blocks from my childhood home now and walk by it daily on my 3-5 mile walks. I received my first guitar around 1965 from my mother who saved S&H Greenstamps from the grocery store and other retailers that gave them out according to the amount of your purchase. When we had enough to go trade the stamps for the guitar, we made the 30 mile trip to an adjacent town and brought the guitar home!! I had it strung up and playing by the time we got back home. I had a ukulele that I had tuned the strings to the bottom 4 strings of a guitar and had learned to play that way, so the transition to guitar was relatively easy. I have always wished I had kept that guitar to this day to add to my collection of over 70 years of living!! Keep up the good work. I have all of your work you have published and will continue to collect your wonderful music forever. I still think “Still A Friend Of Mine” is one of the best songs you have ever written. Peace And Love Always!!
😃
I spent the first 20 years of my life in the home I was born in. Like you, we had a large open wide wide space around us, where we made the best of a stream running through the field, paddling, fishing, making dams, and jumping across often falling in, and going home soaking wet and getting a good telling off by my mother. I found watching today’s video very touching and emotional, and when you started playing Wide Wide Land…. well…., I just had to wipe my eyes- beautiful memory for your family.
My memory was right after the war (WW2) we moved from Robbinsdale Minnesota to Louisville Kentucky because of my father’s job. While in Kentucky we visited many special places Lincoln’s birth place, My Old Kentucky Home, Churchill Downs, Fort Knox etc and all of our relatives and friends from Minnesota visiting us. After six years we moved back to Robbinsdale, Minnesota to relief of our family. I still live in Minnesota just 100 miles north of Robbinsdale on a lake.
Hi ladies, I remember when I used to play football in our back garden with my brother, but as he was nine years older than me, obviously when things got competitive, I tended to come off worse. Unfortunately he passed away a few years ago, but it’s always nice to remember those days when we were kids.
An early memory of my childhood home in Glasgow was coming home from primary school (Americans would call that school year “second grade”) and finding the rest of our family (my father had obviously come home from work early) watching children’s TV on our new black-and-white set, which had been installed that day. It was also November 5th (in 1959), so we had garden fireworks in the evening to remember Guy Fawkes.
Childhood memory? I think one of the best is when I joined my school orchestra and suddenly realized I could perform music instead of only listening to it. Nice moment. It changed me.
I do not remember anything from the first house I lived in, we moved when I was 3 years old, I do know the house because I still live in the same village.
From the house in which I spend the rest of my childhood I have only good memories. We, me and the neighbor kids, always played outside e.g, football (sorry soccer) or hide and seek. If it was raining, and it rains a lot in the Netherlands, we did, inside, all kind of bord- and cardgames together. 2 of these neighbor kids are still my best friends, and they are also still living in the same village; so it can not be a bad place to live.
The last memeory of this house is from a few years back, when my mother moved out, and we had to clean the house; memories in each corner and a lot of photo albums to check.
I remember when I was 8 and living in Oak Ridge Tennessee, I contracted rheumatic fever and was not able to go out and play with my friends for several months. That was when my parents gave me a cheap guitar and a 45 record of Elvis’s Nothing But A Hound Dog. I leaned to play and it made a wonderful summer out of a potentially sad one.🙂
Love hearing you play and sing sitting in your yard. It brings back a memory from my childhood home of summer days when family and friends would sit around the yard playing guitars and singing, Maybe some food on the open grill and cold beverages. Good times, I really miss those days. Have a great summer.
Our actual home was a small house that normally slept Mom and Dad and around 8-10 kids, a couple dogs and cats. When our cousins from Wyoming or Michigan would come to Wisconsin the adults usually slept in the house while the kids slept in tents and cars or just on a blanket under the stars. We had a river and ponds to swim and fish and a drive in theater not too far away. There was a campground accross the road where we could buy soda and walk around visiting the campers. There were acres of public forests and swamps nearby too. And an automobile junkyard up the road. We thought it was just a poor rural neighborhood but looking back now it really was a paradise for us kids.
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Thx again for the Friday smiles. Nice seeing you play live. I can only imagine seeing you live doing both acoustic and electic sets!!
I was an Air Force brat so we moved every 2-3 years until I was 12. We ended up on Cape Cod and I remember my paper routes, sandlot baseball games, the chicken coup, the library and the barn that came with the house we lived in. My parents bought me a drum set which we placed on the second floor of the barn (very smart of them). I played briefly and switched to guitar and harmonica while my youngest brother took the drums up and still plays them weekly at the tender age of 64!! I also remember getting to the beach every Memorial Day and diving in ocean for the first swim of the year (which on the Cape at that time of year is still quite cold but we didn’t care)!!
Hope the rest of your stay at your first home goes we’ll and safe travel back to Liverpool (currently where the British Open is taking place). We hope to take a trip to London, Liverpool, Manchester and who knows where else next Spring.
When I was in kindergarten, in a store window, I saw a toy robot driving a tractor. I really, really wanted it, so my mom got it for me for Christmas. I was very surprised and very happy. It was my favorite for years. I never knew what happened to it though. About a month ago, my wife and I were at an antique store, and wouldn’t you know it, we came across the exact same tractor! While my backed was turned, my wife bought and totally surprised me with it. So, at 72 I’m happily reunited with my favorite toy.
Howdy,
I was born and raised in lower Manhattan (NYC) and lived in an apartment building. I had several friends in my building and in the neighborhood. I remember playing various types of ball games and other childhood games outside. There was a huge park just a couple of blocks from us, with a nice playground with swings, see-saws, and monkey bars. The park also had large fields of grass areas, ball fields, a nice amphitheater, and a path to the East River.
Thanks for sharing a bit of Austria with us. The Wide, Wide Land sounded great today. It made my day.
Best Wishes Always,
Bobby S. 😎🧛♂️😍
Okay, here’s a few photos to give you idea of the house itself from tge outside and of customized built kitchen inside (don’t mind me being in tge kitchen pix…lol… focus on the cabinets, countertops, etc instead … 😉🙃🏠
My apologies, but couldn’t post/add photos to my comment here but will try posting in Forum …
This must be a special time for you both going back home after so long. I will be making my first trip to Austria when I will be spending four nights in Vienna this December which I am very much looking forward to. My special memory as a boy was when I was only 12. I had just become a member of an organisation called the Boys Brigade and the first year I joined the senior section our camp was in Switzerland. I remember dressing up in our grey short jackets and berets and heading overland to Interlaken. We’d travelled on the overnight ferry to Liverpool from Belfast then train to London and then on to Dover to cross to Calais in France. Another overnight train to Basle before going to Interlaken where we spent a week before doing the whole journey in reverse. Planes were much to expensive in those days. I still have clear memories of that even though it is now 56 years ago.
This will be a very emotional time for you both and I hope it goes well for you.
Hiya, Wow…. Glad you got to go back home , though kind of bittersweet, and I believe this is the Mother of All Giveaways up to now, knowing the special significance this guitar has …
As for Childhood Home memories….
The house I grew up in was a sort of Wedding Present to my Mom & Dad built by my Grandpa Rea and an Uncke ( Mom’s oldest brother ) and whomever else took part back in 1961-62-ish .
The bungalow was custom built, especially the kitchen for Mom, the upper cabinets were a tad lower in height than standard as also was the countertop, in that is was lower than standard to accommodate Mom’s 4’10” – ish height stature . The cabinetry was made from pine , I think.
Almost 50 years of family memories were had in that house before we sold in 2003–ish due to Dad’s health decline, etc Mom died in LTC in 1985, Dad died on my Birthday in 2011 in hospital but was put in LTC nursing home in around 2003 from hospital. The house was built on property owned by my Grandpa Hopper ( Dad having been born just up the road a tad from us on a farm , no longer there with 2 older sisters, one died at 8 mos while the other still living, almost 90 )
Used to play /ride bike in cemeteries across from the house, walk to convenience store for bag of chips, candy, soda pop, Popsicles, etc….
Held a 2 day Garage Sale to sell most stuff…and the ones who bought our house, a business, it was for the property space thus demolished our house, and my older brothers and I didn’t go by area at all during demolition until it was over…our aunt ( Dad’s sister ) moved back into a childhood home of her and Dad that was heat door to our place and gave my brother and I updates on house demo … the house she moved back into , she and my Dad and Grandparents all lived there for a time after they sold farm ( I think someone built that house that my Geandoa H knew but not sure of that ) , and then my Grandparents and Dad eventually moved back up the road a tad and lived in a bungalow built until Grandpa died, Grandma moved to live with my aunt & uncle until she died.
Spent many a day playing/riding bike in the 3 cemeteries that were across from my house, walked to convenience store to buy candy, pop, Popsicles, etc.
Many memories held in that house I grew up in , even had a couple of pet dogs buried on the property …
Though it’s a sort of bittersweet time to pack up then sell the house, it’s the memories held there is what’s precious and of value most.
Thankyou for the lovely acoustic spontaneous version of Wide Wide Land, this posting made my Friday and Wknd …. May the new owners down the line give your childhood home the same loving cars, etc as you all had, enjoyed during your time there….💜🤘🏻🏡
My first real home was a small semi detached house. My brother was born he became seriously ill with whooping cough and croup. He was in hospital for months and my parents visited every night. I was only 4 and so I forgot him. When he came home he was a stranger. He was obviously very weak so we couldn’t play out together. It took me ages to accept him again. It wasn’t until we moved into our next house that we became true brothers again. He unfortunately passed away 18months agoof cancer.
Have you caught up with the old rythm section?
I was wondering about that too, Tom. They had a really good sound. Wondering if they are still playing music.
Most of my favorite memories of my childhood home were Christmas-time memories. When I was in 6th grade, my parents gave me cross-country skis for Christmas. I made a trail that basically went entirely around the 3/4 acre property and spent hours each day on that trail. Good times! I still have the skis, but haven’t used them for many years. Maybe next winter??
Ladies,
that’t the guitar yuo covered the 1st Everly Bros. song with.
Was it All i have to do is dream? i think.
I remember the girls playing “Wake Up Little Susie”. But I’m not sure which was the first song they did.
Bobby S.
With a family of 8 all boys I grew up in a large 3 story house that was built in the 1870’s by a local doctor. Who else could afford to at the time. Purchased by my parents in 1957 then bought by me in 1980 which I then sold in 2005. Christmas time was always special with everybody getting together even as we all got older. But the thing I looked forward to was a annual touch football game on Thanksgiving no matter how cold or if it rained or snowed. It would be my dad and 5 brothers against ever who would show up usually friends. That tradition last for about 30 year and our record was 25-5. I still have 8mm and video of some of the games. What a great giveaway I hope you don’t regret it being one of your first guitars. I started a band when I was 13 (because of the Beatles of course) and played bass and still have my 1973 Fender Musicmaster which I will never get rid of. I hope you enjoyed your trip I am sure it will be hard to say goodbye in the house you grew up in. Thanks for all your posts.
Hi Keith,
I think it’s great when people keep their first instruments. I have my 1968-69 Fender Telecaster Bass, 1965 Harmony Acoustic Guitar, and my 1950’s trumpet.
Bobby S.
Hi Robert wow very nice selection and glad to hear you kept yours too. I probably will never get rid of or sell mine, it always brings great joy and memories when I take it out of the times when I started a band with three great guys at the age of 13. Today I am lucky enough to still be in contact with them via zoom. Thanks for your comment.
What a great idea you had. This blue “Alba” guitar, I searched for it for a long time without success. I found sometimes that kind of guitar in either red but not blue, or blue but with the wrong rosette design. So here’s a small memory from my childhood home for a chance to win this beautiful guitar. I lived all my childhood in Brussels in a old master house from the19century and the most significant memory that I recall is that there were three cellar floors downstairs. When we went down to the bottom, for me at 7 years old, I had the impression of going down to the centre of earth, I was terrified. Not really funny, romantic or nostalgic as a memory, but striking. Good luck with the sale of your old house and the heat.
Thank you very much for the opportunity – I’m far away and I’ll leave the guitar draw for other, more deserving fans.
The Wide Wide Land is such a wonderfully-written and bittersweet song (and video). Best wishes to all of your family as you relive the old memories and complete that period of your lives. You have generously shared so many of those memories with us through your archival videos.
The area around your original home reminds me a lot of the countryside around Portage la Prairie, Manitoba – where my spouse and I spent many happy vacations with my aunt and uncle. The buildings of your original home town have so much beauty, ‘character’ and history (as seen through Google streetview). It’s not Lansing in Dahoam – but one can imagine how similarly close-knit and complete a community it once was.
All the best with your challenging move!
It’s hard to pick my favorite, but one thing I enjoyed was the fish tank we had built into the wall. It was like a living portrait in the living room. We accessed it from shelves in my room and one of my jobs was to make sure the fish had food.
I love that song, even though it makes me worry as I’m getting older and more forgetful.
I still live on the same land I’ve always been on– 3rd house.
My favorite memories were working in my dads tv/radio/repair shop, and listening to shortwave radio on an antique Zenith radio.
Hard to imagine, but back then it was special to be able to listen to music and news from other countries.
It’s funny how people think of places like Austria as mountains.
I live in New York, and most people think of the city,
I live in the country- trees, hills, fields- even still some dirt roads to explore.
Thanks for all you do my friends, Hugs
There is not much to remember about the neighborhood. I grew up in.
Up until I was 16 years old except for. It is now just vacant lots of land going to waste.
I grew up in an 1895 three-story Victorian; as our family grew and changed my father did laps around it renovating rooms as needed. One of the stand out memories from that place is the light in the garden. The village here was changing out all the street lights and discarding the old ones so Dad got one and set it up in the back yard. I think it’s from the 1940’s, and it’s still there. The house was sold about 15 years ago when my folks hit their 70’s and didn’t need so much house or the maintenance that comes with it. Sadly, the new owners are not keeping it up and it looks like a frat house at a clown college these days.
Big hugs to Austria! 🧡 Wow that short rendition of the Wide, Wide Land is so amazing and beautiful it just tugs at my heart strings, teary eyed first thing in the morning already here. Thank you so much for that beautiful moment. Going back to your childhood home certainly must have brought back so many fond memories, and I am sure of your grandmother! So glad you got to get away for a few weeks to Austria. All the very best of luck selling your old home, I’m sure it will become someone else’s cherished and enchanted home.
I had a few ideas of childhood memories, but after hearing your Wide Wide Land played so beautifully, the only story I can think of sharing is the house I grew up in, where my younger sister currently lives, whenever I go there I am enchanted by the red tree and many tiny shrubs around the yard I planted with my mom so many years ago. I remember my mom planning where to plant everything, while I would dig the two feet hole in the ground. The tiny tree and shrubs are all huge and massive now, but something very special whenever I see them, reminds me of something I did together with her that still flourishes, hopefully for ever. I was 20 at the time, but I always feel like a child when I think of her.
What another wonderful giveaway, that blue guitar is going to make someone so, so very happy, you’re both awesome to do this.
Sending much love from Canada
Jung
My childhood home was in Covina, California, about 40 miles east of Los Angeles. One of my earliest musical influences was Tiny Tim; I wore out my copies of his first two albums, which contained a remarkable variety of musical styles…I still perform “Tiptoe Thru the Tulips” and “Down Virginia Way” today! My mother could not stand him; she loathed his stringy hair, white makeup and large, hooked nose. Of course, this made him all the more attractive in my eyes, which may be why I hung an enormous poster (one of those which you created by taping together 16 pages of Tiger Beat magazine) featuring a 4’x3’ b&w profile shot of the falsetto-voiced singer over my dresser, where my mom had to look at it every day as she walked down the hallway from her bedroom. My poor mom put up with a lot, back in the day!
I’ll bet that you have bittersweet feelings about going through your childhood home. Some of my best memories of my childhood home were all of the parties our family had in the basement that my Dad finished. It had a player piano where everyone would sing along to. Great memories! Have fun digging through memories!
I was born in New Zealand and my family ,moved to Fiji when I was five years old. The stand out memory from those days was singing whatever was then played on radio acapella with the Fijian kids on the school bus home. “I Love You Timothy” is one I remember along with Beatles and Herman’s Hermits. A big happy blur.
Back in New Zealand at age eight, it was lots of songs that Peter, Paul and Mary performed during school assemblies with piano accompaniment.
Oooohhhhh, La La……
Wow. That’s awesome and a little sad. For me, it has always been hard to let go of the past. The little, classical, blue guitar sounds beautiful in the hands of a professional like Lisa!
Agriculture area is how I grew up. I began teaching myself how to play drums on a piecemeal set I made from junk I found at the dump. By the time I was fifteen I had a real set of drums and was playing with an older girl who was an amazing piano wizard. On a chance meeting I was asked to join a band. I did, and when I was 16 or 17 one of the band’s guitarist was going to trade his in for a newer one. I bought his Fender Mustang for the trade in value of $50. He gave me pointers now and then and I credit him for teaching me how to play guitar. After divorce from my first wife, and desperate for money, I sold it for what I paid for it: $50. Yes, I wish I hadn’t done that, not because of today’s value, but sentiment. Same thing with my Ludwig drum set… desperate for money.
Later when I got back on my feet, I bought one of the first Fender acoustics made in Japan. It was the only year Fender used the quality of wood in the manufacturing process. Because they lost money on those guitars, they began using lower quality wood. I still have that one, and it will go to family when I am gone. Some memories can’t be bought. 🤗💛❤️
Hello Ladies,
I was born in Nashville Tennessee. We (parents, brother, and sister) lived in a Military Housing unit. House where former military persons could live.
There was a guy that came once a week to mow the grass. “Tractor man” usually came during nap time. Once in a while we got to stay up and watch him. He had a big gray tractor with a big red deck blade cutter on the back. Much like someone cutting a field. Since all the yards on the street were attached he would cut them all at once. It was a big treat to see him. As for my age, from a new born to 5. I do remember at age 3 getting to see him and being so excited.
Ladies it was such a joy to hear you sing Wide Wide Land again. I remember our conversations about your Grandmother, and I occasionally still get a comment from one of the Alzhiemers groups.
Thanks Ladies.
Best always
Rick Ross
My first home – where we lived when I was born – was in Camp Springs, Maryland. This is where all my “firsts” happened including my first steps (which I don’t remember).
In this house I first heard The Monkees. My sister and her friend Ellen were listening to the album More Of the Monkees. I was two years old. The way the photo was taken on that album cover I thought they were giants! And I remember Ellen getting me to dance with her.
This is also where I watched the moon landing with my family. My grandparents were visiting at the time.
We moved from there when I was four.
Patrick
I’ll bet that more than a few MLT club members are seriously considering making an offer on that house!
One of my earliest memories is of sitting at a small desk in the basement and using a purple crayon to draw a big letter Z on a piece of paper, large enough to fill the whole sheet from top to bottom. My mom was so impressed that she taped it to the wall, and I was super proud!
Years later I mentioned that to her, and she said that I was always frustrated that my drawings never turned out looking anything like what I had pictured in my head, so she did that to boost my self-confidence.
My parents,sister,and I lived in an apartment til I was 2 years old.
Then we bought the house next door to my Grandmother(where my Mom grew up).
Just like the both of you,I have amazing memories of spending time with my “Grandma Katie”.We are a very close knit family,and all my Aunts,Uncles,and Cousins lived within walking distance of us.I often think back to all the great times we enjoyed together back in Brooklyn NY,and it always brings a smile to my face.As luck would have it,many of my cousins are within 15 to 30 minutes away from me now in Long Island.So I guess you could say,we just moved the parties a little further East!
Oh,and Thank You for my Birthday Card!! 😘
It got my day and weekend off to Groovy start.
My cousins and I will be going to a Free Concert in the park tonight,featuring Beyond Fab(I think you can figure out whos music they play).
Sending the Love,Hugs,and Groovy Wishes right back to you!! 💛 💓
Tom
I have so many childhood memories that it would be impossible to choose just one.
However, the one thing I remember is that there was always music playing.
That comes from my mum who used to be a singer in the George Mitchell Choir. And they appeared in radio broadcasts and even films.
Sadly she had to give up that before I was born in order to care for her terminally ill dad. Because back then it was the “duty” of the females to give up their careers to allow her brothers fulfill their dreams.
And that is why I have such a wide taste in music from classical to the 40s right up to the present day. Many of them on original vinyls plus a few 78s.
Apart from Punk and Rap that is. 😉
Hi Mona and Lisa. Like you, I was going through a few boxes of memories when I came across a pair of my old drumsticks from when I played back in the late ’60s. I was the drummer for a garage band called “The Radicals” back then. I’d rather have been a guitarist, but failed miserably. That guitar is long gone, as are my drums. Interestingly, I recently bought a set of Roland e-drums to see if I could recapture the magic. Hasn’t happened yet, but still trying. I’d love to have your blue guitar to hang on my wall with my old sticks. Maybe they’d marry and create some new tunes. Who knows?
Hi Mona and Hi Lisa
I moved from the city i was born and raised in when i was 19 – to an even bigger city – to study architecture.
Thinks that the place you come from – will always stand as something special and beautiful.
Love your video – and remember to have fun while you pack.
My dad had built this amazing swing on the large tree in our front yard that my sister and I spent many hours swinging on. When we moved years later I went passed my childhood home and the tree was gone. That’s when I realized it wasn’t home anymore.
My first guitar was a 12,000 yen Julian guitar from Kurosawa Gakki, which my mother bought for me as a Christmas present, and I practiced it with my sister.
My second guitar is a Morris W-40, which I bought at Misuzu Gakki in Nagano. It was 40,000 yen.
My third guitar is a Martin D-28, which I bought at Kurosawa Gakki in Ochanomizu. It was about 300,000 yen.
I still have these three guitars.
Three years ago, I made a successful bid for about 40 guitars on an auction site called Yahoo!
I retired from work three years ago, and now I am resuming my old hobbies such as guitar, astronomical observation, and motorcycles.
My childhood home was my grandfather’s home (we lived with him). It was on a little hill in Inman, SC, a town on the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It had a wonderful front porch where my grandfather and I would sit each evening. We could see the screen of the Moonlite Drive-In theatre about a mile away. It looked like a postage stamp against the Blue Ridge Mountains. Every night we would watch the movie. My grandfather would tell me what they were saying and doing. It was the same movie for seven nights in a row, but a different story every night!
When I was fourteen my elder brother brought a guitar home from a friend. One day when I was alone I took the guitar and tried to play on it. But it did not work. Then two years later we moved into another town and I got new schoolmates. Some of them were playing skiffle music. That fascinated me and I started to learn playing guitar, because my elder brother bought me one as a Chrismas gift. In the band the guitar player retired, and so I took his place. That´s all it started till now!
I have so many memories that I have come to realize, I am blesses with a large family, (10 kids). There are so many wonderful moments, I could never pick just one.
I would love to hang that guitar on my music wall. You guys give away some creative and amazing things. I love being here.
Thank you.
We moved to a new house in 1961, right before my 6th birthday; I’m not sure when this memory is from but not too long after that. I’ve thought about this a number of times recently since I’ve started spending time with music again.
I remember the day my mother asked if I wanted to take music lessons. I didn’t hesitate — I said yes. Then she asked what instrument I wanted to play, and again I had the answer ready, I said violin.
She kind of sighed and looked at me and said, “Your two older sisters are taking piano lessons, why don’t you take piano lessons instead?”. So that’s why I play piano and not violin.
I remember about 9 years ago, not long before she passed, she and I had just watched a wonderful performance of classical music and she said, “oh, Chris, I wish you had learned to play violin.”
So I told her that story, but she didn’t remember it. I also told her that more than once since that day I had thought about buying a violin too, so it wasn’t her fault I didn’t play violin. I had dragged her to the music store when I was 14 so I could buy a guitar after all.
My first memories as a child living in our new home after my dad passed away was how strong my mother was and kept the family together with love. She put some money together and purchased my first guitar.
What a beautiful rendition of ‘the wide wide land’ there by you both , sat playing and singing against such a wonderful ‘energy filled’ landscape. Your grandma would be so proud of you two.
My own childhood in the early years was for a time in Munster, Germany. I loved the traditional Christmas times there and my parents, both English, brought back that feeling to the UK when they returned. So my sisters and I had many more German style Christmas’s for many years to come, even if there wasn’t quite as much snow, rather rain which you both will be getting used to by now in Lancashire Mona & Lisa..lol xx
One of my roommates in graduate school was from Munster!
I have fond memories of living in south africa where I was born I remember clearly asking my mums mother If I could have a BOAC flight back she said I could have a carrier back for my sports kit as it would be just as good however I did get the BOAC flight back
By the time I was 19, I had lived in 6 different homes. The 1st predates my earliest memories – it’s the next two that I remember with the most fondness. The first of those was a suburban house in a small town neighborhood… sidewalks, tree-lined streets that were gorgeous in the autumn… several kids my own age on the same block and everything was in walking distance; school (literally across the street) the library, public swimming pool, movie theater, etc. It was the perfect place to be a kid. Prior to starting the 2nd grade, we moved from there to a house in the country, where there were maybe 4 farms per square mile. We had a cow pasture behind us and corn fields on the other 3 sides. Our closest non-bovine neighbor was an old farmer living on the other side of the cow pasture. For a kid not old enough to drive, it might as well have been on the surface of Mars… but it would become the house that I most regretted moving away from.
My childhood home was a large house owned by the crown like you in a small village.
We shared this home with my Grandmother and Great Aunty. We had a very big garden and my father grew vegetables which we stored to take us through the winter. We had an apple and pear tree also a very large Walnut tree which grew right in the middle of the lawn, of course we used to climb it! We had chickens and a couple of pigs to provide eggs and meat. In order to earn our pocket money my older brother and I had to clean the chickens and pigs out each week. No luxurious Toilet as this was a fifty yard walk down the garden with a torch!!!
Such memories’ how did we manage!
Lovely video of you both in Austria. Big decision but it is nice that you have decided to make your home here in England ,perhaps one day I will be lucky enough to meet you all.
Take care x
Too many happy memories from the house I grew up in – the crowded, happy tables at Thanksgiving, the Christmas stockings hung by the chimney with care, sleeping on the top of a triple bunk bed…
I can’t imagine the feelings you must be having. I hope you have only happy times in Austria!
Well now, Mona, Lisa… you’re certainly The Sound of Music to us. LOL. It’s true that when you hear of someone from Austria, the first thing you picture in your mind is scenery from The Sound of Music. 🙂
My earliest memories are of two Steinway & Sons grand pianos that we kept in the family living room. Pianists of all kinds traveled from a long ways away to come play on our pianos, so we had a lot of musical guests over every week. My dad knew the classics. The first grand piano our family got was relatively inexpensive because it had a crack in the soundboard, and we’d try different mechanical solutions but would have to tune it every year, or you would start to notice. Later on, we got another new Steinway & Sons grand piano that was fabulous, so we had dual grand pianos. No one had that set up like ours. Both parents were professional musicians, so we grew up hearing all of the great musical masterpieces like JS Bach, etc., as well as the new 1960s tunes coming out on the radio that we would quickly adapt to the piano so that we could re-create them any time we liked. As you know, some of these popular songs were already built around the piano and were a matter of figuring out the composer arrangements. For instance, back then, you would simply hear a new Beatles tune come out on the radio, it would instantly be memorized, you’d sit down at the grand piano, and figure it out on the spot. That’s how I figured out the Imagine tune on my own. Then, one day, it was all gone, replaced by these unmelodic songs crowding out the few good songs. By 1980, it was all over with, and only a happy memory.
The MLT family members reminded me of my own parents when I first ran across this group, and I really liked the fact that the girls wrote loving song about one of their family members. That made me their fan since then. Thank you Mona, Lisa, and Team MLT!
Mike
https://thumbs2.imgbox.com/a7/05/qLkjgR0G_t.jpg
When I was in about 7th grade, setting up my first complete drum kit (a second-hand mish-mash of random drums, cymbals, and hardware, including the red sparkle snare drum I started learning percussion on a couple of years earlier) in front of my second-story bedroom window (the only space for it). I’m sure that my “practicing” kept the neighbors fully entertained (and annoyed!) during the warmer months when the summer breeze—and my drum solos—were unrestricted through the open window!
Kurt, at one time along the way, I also had a red sparkle snare drum. It did not have any wood in it, just a plastic of some sort, but sparkle. 😅
My really first memory was when I was 2-3 years old. It was the first house I remember, a victorian 2 up, 2 down with a steep flight of stairs in the middle. I remember standing at the top of the stairs wondering what it would feel like to slide down the stairs. So I slid hit the wall at the bottom with my head and dislodged a full size mirror that was screwed (not very well) to the wall above where my head hit. The mirror fell on me, luckily not breaking, but it pinned me to the floor, I was, at max, only about 3 years old. My mum rushed in to the hallway, to find me flat on my face, head and surrounding floor covered in blood, pinned to the floor with the large mirror. Not my favourite memory, but my first that I can recall.
Hallo Mona, hallo Lisa,
my favorite memories of my parents’ house? When I think back there, I feel like you: a house full of stories and beautiful memories. Easter was always something very special. When the weather was warm enough, my father would whitewash the trunks of the fruit trees. Actually because of the insects, but it always looked very solemn. And then the Easter Bunny came into play. On Easter Sunday, colorful eggs suddenly lay between the blooming crocuses and lily of the valley. And behind many a bush, a small chocolate buddy of the big Easter bunny was waiting to be taken along. That was great. Just like the pear trees in our garden. One was so big that I could climb up and at a dizzy height there was a beautiful view of the garden and the surrounding houses. Special memories that will always accompany me and keep the inner child in me.
My favorite childhood memory was setting up my model train garden at Christmas at the house that my brother and I grew up in for most of our childhood to high school lives. I always loved Christmas and my trains made it even more special for me.
Hi Brian, it seems we share a similar memory. Every year at Christmas a model railway was set up under the Christmas tree. My fondest memories of the Christmas time.
When I was very young my mother planted a Mexican Fan Palm in the backyard of our house. It grew very quickly and is now a very tall thin monolith pointing the way back to my childhood home thanks to her.
One of my favorite memories from my childhood home is the piano (that I later found out was a standing grand) that came from my grandma and was the reason I started taking lessons. The piano now stands in our house! 🙂
In the very early 1970s when I was around 6 years old my parents bought a new home in which they also put a new Decca stereogram and colour TV. Both were very heavy with wooden surrounds. I remember sneaking up early in the morning to peak at the TV (which had shutters around the screen) and the stereo. I still have one of the albums my parents used to play, which features, among others, Ruby Tuesday sung by Melanie. Might make a nice MLT cover?
Hello ladies, so nice to see you reminiscing. For myself, as i get older it seems i am reminiscing more often. A few years ago i had such a strange moment. I suddenly remembered where i left the present ( a tin helicopter with blinking lights)i got from my parents after having an operation.I was only four years old as i had the operation. And allmost fifty years later i remembered where i had left it ( i pushed it and it fell under a car and wasn’t able to get it from underneath the car….😭😭😭. Strange how memories work, isn’t it?
My favourite moment, is when my parents did buy me an organ. It was a Hammond rommance 125 see. I really loved it. I was around 10 years old then.