Once more into the breach dear friends. (With apologies to Firesign Theater and the infamous “Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers” album.)

It’s time once more for Mama Kat‘s Wednesday Writer’s Challenge (which shows up on Thursday). This week the prompts are:

1.) What was the first CD (or record or cassette) you ever purchased? Write about the way that particular album made you feel then. Write about how it makes you feel now. writersdigest.com

2.) You were recently laid off. Instead of moping around, you’ve viewed it as a chance to start fresh. Pick a new career and write about your first day on the job. writersdigest.com

3.) List your five most recent favorite things.

4.) I’m hungry. Share your very favorite recipe!!

I choose to write about #1.

The very first vinyl (yes vinyl) record I ever bought, excluding the selected Donald Duck records I had as a little kid, was The Cowsils‘ “Indian Lake” single. This record, aka “Indian Lake”/”Newspaper Blanket” (MGM 13944, 1968), made it up the charts to US #10. As a further hint, 1968 is near the end of my junior high school career.

That album, with the rather simple thrumming bass line and the plaintive lyrics greatly appealed to my younger self. In the midst of the pubescent angst and other agonies of my life the time, it served as an oasis on the edge of the harder rock that I would discover in a year or so. A few years later I was reminded of this song by Mungo Jerry’s “In the Summer Time” as bubble gum headed toward funkifacation.

I find that the music continues to speak to me even now. In spite of the fact that it is a forerunner of bubble gum pop, I like it. It gets crammed in there between the earlier Iron Butterfly “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” and the later Led Zeppelin “Stairway to Heaven” in my set of musical road markers of the journey that is my life. In fact, way back in October, I waxed rhapsodic about “Indian Lake” and some of the impact it had on me. Click here for the highlights.

Strange how an acid rock afficianado like me could like a bubble gum song like “Indian Lake”, but there you have it. Just no explanation for good taste. {*grin*}