Downtown

The girls, Esther and I went to a birthday party at the Ranch today. (We all rode the zip line--Evelyn by herself! Amelia & I were tandem, & even Esther took the plunge. It was GREAT!) As we left, we were given some leftover balloons, and tonight after dinner I told the girls a balloon story from when I was little.

I was about six or seven, and I'd gotten the balloon from a school fair. We were still living on the Alameda in the city, and as I got out of the car when we got home, I accidentally let the balloon go. It disappeared into the sky. I was devastated, cried, and couldn't stop thinking about what had happened to my lost balloon.

That night, as I lay in bed mourning my balloon, my parents started playing this song. The stereo was in the dining room directly below the room Jon and I shared, and in retrospect they must have been really cranking the volume (were they down there dancing?? Now doesn't that just bring a smile to my face to imagine! Mom--do you remember this? I really must ask you and Dad about this album--this secular album.)

At the time, I didn't think about how loud the music must have been for me to hear the lyrics so clearly. All I knew was that God had given me a sign. He was telling me where my balloon had gone--downtown. I could imagine it floating through the night sky over the harbor, the Constellation, and Federal Hill. And, finally comforted, I fell asleep to the sounds of Petula Clark. To this day, this song makes me smile.

Enjoy the groovy effects and Petula's adorable way of pulling her (plastic??) collar up to keep out the downtown chill. And BTW, this album pre-dates me by a good couple of years. While I DID have a birthday this week, I was NOT yet born when this song topped the US charts. :)