Summer

I've owned a copy of Legend for as along as I can remember buying my own cassette tapes. Bob Marley has provided me with years and years of inspiration and beautiful memories. Most of which take place during the summers of my life. It has become a kind of personal tradition for me, when celebrating the first day of summer, to open up the house and play my Legend cassette. Not the first calendar day of summer, but the first day it truly FEELS like summer.

I even had an old neighbor tell me once, that he always thinks of me playing Bob Marley on the first summer day of the year. Over the years that same old cassette has traveled with me up and down California, to the beach, to Mexico, and on a million trips up to camp on the Stanislaus river. Many memories of camping with my then boyfriend, later my husband, and our family up at our property, are set to the back drop of that same Legend cassette playing.

Those first days of summer are always the best. Last year though, after I don't know how many years of having it with me, that cassette of Legend finally died. I have a few Marley CD's, but I never purchased Legend on CD. It may seem strange, but I love this entire album. Not one song, but each and every one, in the specific sequence in which it plays on the album. So nothing else really compares.

As we fastly approach the summer of 2008, I continue to kick myself, because everytime I have a few extra bucks, I forget to go buy Legend. It is the definitive summer listening material, and tops my list of albums I can't live without. Though, I have been living without it for almost a year. But just Barely...