Rant #2,454: Don't Breathe a Word

Today is Thursday, September 26. which holds no significance to me, personally, other than it is exactly three months before my sister turns 60 years of age.

She is taking the whole thing pretty low key, but the fact of the matter is that she is not one to like birthdays, to begin with, and the big 6-0 is an occasion that is not to her liking.

I am so different with my sister in many things, and one of them is the celebration of birthdays. I just love to celebrate my birthday, because to me, it is a fun day, a day to honor, a day that signifies that you have made it through another year.

For my sister's birthday, we are certainly going to go out with her, her husband, maybe one or two of her kids, and our parents. It will be a restaurant of her choosing, and that is how we are going to celebrate the big day on December 26, which is also Boxing Day and the day that begins the observance of Kwaanza.

But you see, as my sister's big brother, I hae other plans for the day, which I have spoken about at not too great length at this blog. I plan on making the day a memorable one beyond what it already is, and to me, the theme of the day is "You Past Is Your Present," and quite frankly, that is the only thing my sister knows about how we are going to celebrate after we go out to eat.

My sister is not a computer person at all, and she does not go onto Facebook, so if I wanted to, I could freely discuss the things I have assembled to make her day so memorable, but I won't do that just yet.

But what I will talk about here is the music I have assembled to put the day into full swing.

Music is a major part of the celebration, because it has to be. So many of my memories, one way or the other, revolves around music, so it has to be a major part of the celebration.

My sister and I shared our bedroom from the time she came home from the hospital after her birth in late December 1959 to July 28, 1971, or thereabouts, when we moved to Long Island and for the first time, had our own bedrooms. We lived in two places during the period we shared a room, in Kew Gardens Hills and Rochdale Village, Queens.

It is one thing to share a bedroom when you are the same gender, but when you share your bedroom with someone of the opposite sex, there is a wholly different dynamic there. And to share it at such an interesting time in our history--from the very late 1950s through the entirety of the 1960s to the early 1970s--made it even more special.

Our room, split in half. must have resembled our own East and West Germany when one walked into the room, with my stuff hitting you as you walked into the room and her stuff on the other side, with our wall--a wall of blinds right in the middle of the room--seemingly nailed shut, never to be opened, serving as a dividing structure.

But often times, we did use the room together.

Sometimes we played games together--mostly her girl-oriented games like "Mystery Date"--and sometimes we played with her Barbie Dolls, and sometimes we read her teen magazines together.

I did it because that is what a big brother is supposed to do, and believe me, at times I couldn't tolerate it, but I did it just because.

Anyway, one of the most fun things we used to do is to listen to the family's Hi Fi--not a stereo--together. It was in our apartment's foyer, and we would wheel it in and listen to the latest 45s we bought and singles that we already had in our collection.

I think it was one of the few instances where I actually enjoyed "playing" with my sister, as we spun those records and often laughed at what we were playing, or talked over the music and got to know each other a little better.

So as you can see, music has to be part of the mix when I present my sister with my own personal celebration of her big day in three months.

What did we listen to? We listened to everything from the then new releases from such acts as Lulu and the Cyrkle and Question Mark and the Mysterians to James and Bobby Purify and Len Barry and the Monkees (once the Partridge Family and David Cassidy came on the scene, these listening dates were no more, as all my sister wanted to listen to was anything with David Cassidy, and by that time, I had had enough, anyway).

So what I did is that I assembled much of that music and put these great tunes on a thumb drive that my sister can listen to in the car. Much of the stuff I still have in my collection, and it has been digitized previously, so all I had to do was pick and choose what I needed, and it took no time to transfer the stuff over to the thumb drive.

I also put many, may other things on this drive, including seemingly complete inventories I have of the Partridge Family, David Cassidy and the Supremes, the latter of which was also a personal fave of hers. If she listens to the entire drive from the first song to the last, it will take her probably at least six months to do this--I left no stone, or song, unturned.

I entitled the folder that I put everything in as "Singles We Used to Listen To When We Were Kids," and I think she will love those songs, in addition to the songs I put in the other folders on the drive from the Partridge Family, the Supremes and ... Danny Bonaduce (don't ask).

I still have some things to put in that folder, including songs from Jackie Wilson and Bobbi Martin and Ricky Nelson (pictured), as well as from the 1910 Fruitgum Co. and the Cowsills, but I still have three months to worry about that.

So everything is shaping up. I will discuss some of the other things I got for my sister as we approach the big day, but I won't spill the beans yet.

And if any of my nephews--I have four, three from my sister--read this blog entry and tell their mom about this, I promise that I will pop them in the head.

So, this is OUR little secret, OK? And let's keep it that way.

I don't want to ruin such a big day in my sister's life.