The Soundtrack of My Life #1

"The Three Bells" by the Browns

A little bit of background, many years ago, I read an article about curating a list of songs that might provide a soundtrack for your life. The idea immediately intrigued me. And I began the process.

Part of the process included limiting the number of songs that could be placed on a vinyl album, about 12 songs. Even though CDs could hold far more than that, the author felt that limiting the number of songs would make the curating process more challenging and, ultimately, more interesting.

He was right. I've been working on this list for several decades, at least. I remember storing the first list on my Palm Pilot

To be clear, this list is not necessarily a chronological record. Life usually has recurring life events that don't roll out in precise order but happen when they happen! So, some of these songs have meaning during more than one time in my life, but they are kind of generally chronological.

So here goes…

I had a nearly idyllic childhood. My family had close contact with uncles and aunts and cousins on both sides. My mom had four siblings and ultimately there were 17 cousins on that side of the family. My dad had one brother and we ended up with four cousins on that side of the family.

We knew all these cousins and saw most of them at least once a year when we made the family pilgrimage to the Redwood Valley about 30 miles east of Eureka, CA. "The Ranch," as we referred to it, initially consisted of about 500 acres in the redwoods of Northern California and ultimately became home to 5 or 6 families. My grandpa, Oliver Warren Cookson, purchased the land in the mid-1930s and very shortly after that began "giving" chunks of it to other families who wanted to live the rural life. 

He also, working with members of the Seventh-day Adventist churches in the region, began a summer camp on the property that runs to this day. Grandpa Cookson purchased the material to build the school house, which soon became the church, as well. The church got a steeple and bell, the bell courtesy of a scrapped ship at Mare Island Navy yard in the San Francisco Bay. I could tell many more tales, but they are beyond the scope of this story.

I was born in nearby Scotia, CA and we lived at the ranch for most of two years and then moved to the Northwest. However, the ranch remained our vacation destination for most of my childhood. My Cookson grandparents, my mom and her sisters and, sometimes, their husbands did the cooking and maintained the modest and rustic facilities, . This meant that us cousins had the run of the place for a good chunk of every summer. Our stomping grounds included Redwood Creek, a small river that runs through the property all the way to Rattlesnake Rock, a favorite hiking destination. It remains, to this day, nearly sacred ground in my soul.

In addition to this tight family structure, we were (mostly) all Seventh-day Adventist church members and when in the valley at the ranch, we worshiped in that small country church that my grandpa built.

The bell in the steeple was rung at sundown, every Friday and Saturday night, indicating the setting of the sun and bracketing the Sabbath. For most of my childhood and youth (at least through high school) that little church was an icon in my life, representing safety, peace and a stable world. No matter where we were, the ranch was home. And, that bell, with rare exceptions, signified peace and calm no matter what was happening beyond the corridors of that peaceful valley.

I had planned to start this soundtrack with another song until about six months ago when this song came up on a Pandora playlist while I was running. I knew immediately I had to make a change to my list. Even though it is not a perfect historical recreation of my life, the feeling is exactly what my life felt like as a kid…safe, quiet and eternal.