Monday, Monday

No, not the Mama's & Papa's hit from the 60's but the day of the week.

I do love that record though - ok I love just about any song from the 60's. My teenage years were the 60's you see and I think that music from your teenage years sticks with you the longest. God help teenagers now if that's the case !!

I wasn't particularly happy in the 60's and nothing very 'swinging' was going on in my life. I was as far from any sniff of hippydom as I am now.....and that's pretty far I can tell you. The styles and fashion of those days were alien to me. We didn't have the money for one thing and I didn't have the looks or confidence to stand out from the crowd.

So where did I spend my teenage years that all these groovy, fab, dope smoking days passed me by ? I was in boarding school !! Worse than that, it was a male only boarding school. Worse than that, it was a Catholic all male boarding school. You get the picture. Priests and nuns in positions of authority and with absolute power to mould young minds and bodies. I'm not talking Jedi Knights here either. This 'power' was not a force that was used for good. To continue the analogy, these so called religious representatives made Darth Vadar look like Pee Wee Herman. Read into that what you will !!

But in the midst of all this misery, I had music. And what music it was. Sure it was simple, but you could hear every word. Ok most of the words were nonsence dreamed up by the previously mentioned pot smoking, swinging hippies of the age. But the tunes (and most of the words) have lived with me since those days when most other things have been long forgotten. My MP3 player is stocked with 30gb's of 60's music and when you realise that most songs of that age only take up about 2-3mbs each (many were under 2 mins long), you'll have some idea how many I've got. There probably weren't enough songs released in the 60's to fill an MP3 player but I've got most of them several times over in various compilations. I just can't resist downloading every one I find. All are from the UK and USA as I'm afraid European songs don't do it for me and anyway, I'm not sure there WAS any other music back then !

I spent from 1962 to 1970 at that school and like a lot of teens, I listened to the pirate radio stations like Radio Caroline and Radio Luxembourg who as well as playing songs from UK groups, would open up a whole new world to me with surfing songs from The Beach Boys and Jan & Dean, soft melodic hippy songs from The Mama's & Papas and hard hitting, thought provoking rebel songs from.......The Monkees Maybe that's where I developed my love for most things American. It all seemed so laid back, so free, so exciting to a spotty, 4 eyed, greasy haired teen for whom California might as well have been on the dark side of the moon.

For some unknown reason, it took me another 23 years to get there and as I drove the rental car through LA on the way to Malibu and the beach, I found an oldies station on the radio and was in heaven. Actually I got lost and ended up in south central LA so in fact I was in Hell first. Thank God for central locking.

But I've digressed. As I said at the start, this post isn't about THAT Monday, Monday. It's about today - Monday. The day of the week. My question is this : is this the first day of the week or was that yesterday ? Given that many work places open 7 days a week now, can Monday even be called the start of the working week anymore ? And why do I care anyway ? Hell I'm retired now and every day is a holiday. Woooohoooo for me.

But this week it does matter. This coming Sunday is my birthday. Not a day of any great importance even to me anymore but given my dilemma with these darn days of the week, can I say my birthday is at the end of this week or the start of next week ? Now that IS important. I like to be accurate in these things - comes with age. Like another birthday.