March 31, 2017 SLOW DANCING SWAYING TO THE MUSIC

 I LOVE listening to songs from my youth while driving back and forth to work. I guess I'm a bit nostalgic. Anyways, it was about 7:10 a.m. the other day and I was on the road again--half asleep.  I started flipping  through the radio stations and SUDDENLY-- I was back in 8th grade slow dancing in the gym with......I ACTUALLY still remember-- how pathetic! Anyways, I was immediately WIDE AWAKE and belting out "Slow Dancing Swaying to the Music" like I was 14 years old again. Boy did I love that song--  it was THE LAST SONG AT EVERY DANCE--a time to snuggle with your sweetheart. I know it's a cliche but I find myself shaking my head asking  WHERE HAS THE TIME GONE??? I literally haven't heard that song in 35 years. It was wonderful to hear it again but at the same time  bittersweet. The passage of time is something you can't understand until it happens to you. For me,  the radio has become a  constant reminder--sometimes  sad while other times glad.  Today while driving home-- I heard Maxine Nightingale's "Right Back Where We Started From." I  smiled as fond memories of a  mini golf course that blared top 40 hits from the seventies popped into my head. All of a sudden I was holding the golf club singing the song at the top of my lungs--deluding myself into thinking I could actually sing. GOOD TIMES.  The Burgess family from Elizabeth Strout's The Burgess Boys also had good times until a freak accident changed their lives forever.

The Burgess family live in the fictional town of Shirley Falls, Maine. Theirs is a pleasant life until the day their father is tragically killed. Brothers, Bob & Jim, can't wait to leave their hometown  as their family is now oddly famous because of the accident.  The brothers grow up,  become lawyers and live their own lives in New York. Jim is a very successful corporate lawyer while Bob works for legal aid.  Their sister Susan, the remaining sibling and twin to Bob, stays in their hometown. Bob and Jim think they have made peace with the past, but that is put into question when Susan calls seeking their help. Her life is a mess. She divorced, penniless and her son has just been arrested for a highly publicized hate crime. The last thing the Burgess family needs is to be famous in their hometown for something else.  This is the story of a damaged family reconnecting. It's also the story of  family dynamics, learning to let go and move  forward. Find out what ultimately happens to Bob, Jim, Susan and her son Zach when you read this wonderful story.  It's about 350 pages--or a 4 mile run--by a Pulitzer Prize winning author worth reading.