Red crayon covers the sleeve of the first cd I ever owned: "Anthology" by Frankie Valli and the 4 Seasons. My parents always gave me a present after a Taekwondo tournament, and back in 1989, my dad handed me my first compact disc, which he told me I could listen to on his stereo system. At that time I was a tad immature for jazz music, but my dad surrounded me with the oldies. In my kindergarten years I was playing Thundercats and listening to The Beatles, watching Who Framed Roger Rabbit and listening to The Lovin Spoonful, picking my nose and listening to Grass Roots, cartwheeling through the living room and listening to CCR, to The Rolling Stones, to Fats Domino, to The Animals, to Elton John. To this day, I can still put my first cd in my car, take down the T-tops, and cruise through Track One ("Sherry"), Track Six (my personal favorite, "Dawn (Go Away)"), until the final Track 26 ("December 1963 (Oh What a Night)").

Where am I going with this? I don't know. I guess I like the classics, the originals. No album could ever replace Frankie Valli in my collection. Ask me for the second cd I owned and I'd strain so hard to recollect that my cranium would suffer through an ice cream-esque brain freeze. The also-rans don't receive the same special space in the memory chest. Have you ever asked someone, "Who was your second love?" Friends don't tell tales about the second time they had sex. I can't recall hearing about the second car my mom owned. My first day in the dorms freshman year is still sharper in my memory than my first day of second year--- let alone the second day.

Where am I going with this? I don't know. I guess the second occurrences generally represent the beginning of a trend, where only the significant points get saved. I can remember the first sentence I wrote in this blooger entry had to do with red crayon on my Frankie Valli cd, but I don't know where the next sentence took me. The first time represents a beginning; the second time either confirms or follows the first. In life we remember the beginnings, the extraordinaries, the specials, and the ends of our experiences. What makes life all the more special is when we can remember those complementary parts, the step twos, the pettiness and tiny screws of our experiences. That first cd I own is special, but without numbers two, twelve, or twenty, the collection would not be built as strongly. Similar, yes, but not the collection I know and appreciate today.

Where am I going with this? I don't know. I guess, as the 70s classic says, "Lord, I was born a rambling man."