Appreciation

The first time I remembered this song, was not with Sesame Street singing their version, but rather recently when a family member began telling me their story about the first time they ever heard it.  I hear a lady who seems eagerly excited about having guests, one in particular. I see her as "ready to just bake a cake for appreciation," a gagging example of feminine power reduced to traditional and docile behaviorisms. I mean a kitchen producing a delicious decadent rich calorie-laden cake offers more reward than a good conversation over tea ?  The family member thinks out loud, clearly states, "Who was this person, the Pope. Would you make a cake if you knew the Pope was coming and would it be angel food ?" I bear with the humor and encourage the story-teller to continue.

The house was on a corner with two roads intersecting and just a stop sign. Traffic was not heavy back then and life was still an earful but not an a nuisance. Nature was not interrupted and birds still chirped harmoniously. He recalls, "A green four-door car, the driver looked both ways and proceeded on his way while I listened to his radio until he got way up the street." The song is nice he says but the memory is better being at a time when it was actually that quiet outside you could hear a car radio going up the street.  Silence and tranquility should be appreciated while you can have it if you can find it. The abscence of an airplane, truck, car, even a mortorcycle is the most beautiful sound. Silence is golden and where one must be to perfect the subtle connections with ones higher self is totally free from interuption unless you are expecting company . . . 

I still can't get over the popularity of the placement of a woman cooking in a kitchen as 'a glorious sense of excitement', sorry thats just me ! There is agreement that this song looks at appreciation of simplicity though. Solitude, deliciously created out-of-doors, could be also appreciated as story-teller mentions  nature is not interrupted by mass air traffic, loud trucks and speedy-gonzalez motorcycles--there was calmer times back then. People slowed down and appreciated what they had in their backyards, guests or not.