It Was..."The Year Of the Cat"

One of my absolute favorite songs of all time is Al Stewart's "Year of the Cat".  I'm sure I listened to it over a thousand times my second year of university.  My most sincere apologies to my roommate, who probably has a much different reaction than I do when she hears the song now.  It popped up on my playlist last week during my morning walk and made my day!  I was 19 again and replayed it at least three times to accompany all of the memories that were passing through my head!  I played it again when I got home at ear shredding volume just to hear the instrumentals!  This song makes me wish I could play the piano and the saxophone.  It also brings me back to the year that changed my life.

 Feel free to have a listen while you finish reading the rest of this post.

My second year in university was one of my favorite years.  It's the year I finally got the hang of going to college, the year I was a resident advisor in a freshman dormitory, the year I finally declared a major (which I never used) and the year I met my husband.  I have fond memories of that year and they all flood back when I hear this song.  I am sure I have romanticized those memories to some extent which only makes them better!

Getting the hang of going to college, in my case, involved figuring out how to study.  I cruised through high school, making mostly A's, B's and the occasional C with just enough effort.  In retrospect, I could have done so much better but things like boys and my "cool" reputation were much more important to me then.  What a self-centered mistake all of that was!  Anyway, I figured out just how much more effort was required in order to make good grades, while working and remaining socially active (I still had my priorities!).  Some of the classes were even interesting!  Tax Accounting was not one of them... second year literature was!  This should have been a red flag for me to study something other than accounting.  If I only knew then what I know now....alas, hindsight is 20/20.

I met my husband at the first football game that year.  We were set up by mutual friends.... it was an old fashion blind date.  He came to my dormitory to pick me up for the game and I remember seeing him for the first time in his brown leather huarache sandals, plaid polyester cuffed bell bottom pants and thinking he was very thin and not as tall as I had expected (the only thing I knew about him was that he played a lot of basketball thus my expectation of someone about 6' 3" or more)  He was smart, funny, ambitious and a gentleman. Due to his persistence we continued to date that year.  I like a guy who knows what he wants.

I spent many an evening studying to this song, talking on the phone to this song, hanging out with my dorm friends to this song, shooting pool in our favorite watering hole and dreaming about life to this song.  I never expected that 40 years later I would hear it and have the same feelings I did way back then!  It stirs something inside me.  Music can do that.

Some songs I can't really associate with a specific time period or year but The Year of the Cat will forever remind me of my second year at LSU.  Good times!  If I had to go back I would do it all over again....and maybe study something other than accounting.