July 5 - Vienna

Today's memory still makes me smile. Because that is now what this song represents to me - a very good memory. I am not sure how old I was - but if I am to guess, I would say around 12 or 13, maybe a little older. I was visiting my uncle Olav (the oldest of my dad's two older brothers) and aunt Sigrid, and as usual I believe I had been stuffed by some good home cooking. I believe I was spending the night there, and at one point they really wanted to show me my cousin's room. Tor Øivind is still about 6 years older than me, and he worked in an electronics store at that time, so what caught my eyes was the magnificent stereo. If I remember correctly, he had what I at least considered a state of the art Bang & Olufsen system. And I wanted to test it. The problem was that my music and my aunt and uncle's music didn't always align. My uncle was really into the old crooners, especially Frank Sinatra, if I remember correctly, and I was pretty close to not listening to anything but Kiss (I believe this was a little bit later). But that's when I saw it: A CD that I was convinced I could play at least one song from and they might actually even like it as well.

I asked them if I could play one song. I remember the hesitation, but they let me do this (now, Tor Øivind, if you happen to read this, please know that I treated it with respect - and your parents were just very proud of your "boys' room" - and of you - and wanted to show it off). So I took the cd, placed it in the cd player and pressed play, and Ultravox's song Vienna filled the room. In the beginning, they seemed a little skeptical, but as the chorus started building to the "this means nothing to me" part, I could see that I had won them over. Maybe it doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things - after all, it was my cousin's cd and not mine - but to me it meant a lot to be able to share a musical moment with my aunt and uncle.

I last saw my aunt and uncle in my sister's wedding in 2006. My aunt passed away in 2007, and two years later it was my uncle's time to go. In my sister's wedding, I had a couple of hats to wear (which probably was good, because the tux really didn't fit me at all) - and one of them was being the usher for the wedding. I didn't realize how tough that job would be. Because here came one person after another who had a profound impact on me growing up - and I hadn't seen any of them in at least 7 years. I tend to be an emotional wreck, so holding back the tears for every person walking in was really difficult - and my aunt and uncle were the personification of that. All of a sudden they just were right there. In front of me. It is just another great memory from a great day. But the song of the day really makes me think back to that evening, in my cousin's room, listening to the voice of Midge Ure of Ultravox singing Vienna.