Sunday, July 11, 2010

Going Way Back

A few days ago I returned to Seattle after visiting my past. I took Big Boy and Miss Bossy Boots to Cincinnati's Kings Island Amusement Park where I worked in the summer of 1990. I hadn't been there in twenty years, and the day transported me like a vintage Michael J. Fox movie. Miss Boots took this picture of me posed in front of the mirrored windows of the "fancy" park restaurant where I once waitressed. In the picture I'm trying to explain to a four-year old how long ago "twenty" is.

Many books or authors evoke a general time for me, the eighties or college or my California years, but some make me think of a specific point in my life. West with the Night by Beryl Markham resonated for me in 1993 after I jumped from the East to West Coast.

A recent plea for help identifying a book by a few plot elements at the Smart Bitches website led to a long thread about various way-old romances and someone mentioned Jennifer Blake. BOOM I was back in the mid-eighties in Ohio in my light grey bedroom with geometric black and red accents (red rubberized picture frames, I kid you not), reading Royal Seduction. Does anyone else remember Rolfe, Prince of Ruthenia, and Angeline? Perhaps you recall the feather scene? Or the back cover text, "Angeline, awakened to sensuality, was not entirely unwilling to be his captive!" Well, yearn no more - it's being reissued by Sourcebooks on August 3. Now I can shed twenty years for $7.99 instead of the price of a plane ticket to Ohio. (Mr. Richland, if you are reading this, you have an idea for a birthday present.)

Anything outrageous - songs, music, a food, a Wa-dog with cheese - that takes you back in time?

1 comment:

Kate Diamond said...

There is a book called Jayhawk. I feel the need to read it somewhat regularly. My best friend, T, loaned it to me in 7th grade... though I'd already read all of the L.M. Montgomery books (which my husband refers to as my "proto romances,") this was my first real romance novel. Re-reading it reminds me of EXACTLY why I fell in love with the genre!