Barney to Britney

When my daughter was little she loved the typical things for her age group. She is now 19 so Barney was a favorite. I didn't mind Barney. I didn't have the strong negative reaction to him that so many adults did. Besides, how could I dislike anything that gave her joy and me a few minutes of peace? As she grew up she also grew out of Barney and developed different music choices. One day I was looking through her CD's and found a Barney music CD next to a Britney Spears music CD! And at that moment I wondered how did we go from Barney to Britney?

Well, in this week's mail I had my own Barney to Britney moment. I love People magazine. I have had subscriptions in the past and would have one now except it just ran out and I know my son (who is 8) will have to sell magazine subscriptions this fall so I am waiting to sign up then. But in the last few months I have not enjoyed the magazine as much. I only know who half the celebrities they report on are, I don't watch most of the shows these people are on, and I think the "who wore it better" section is just plain mean (I mean really, this week they even did it comparing children! How awful!). So, I am drifting away from People magazine much like my daughter drifted away from Barney.

Then this week a magazine came in the mail. It had my favorite musician on the cover, the articles listed on the cover were very interesting and I knew who most of the people they mentioned were. Imagine my horror when I discovered the magazine was AARP! So I had my own Barney to Britney moment. My guess is Bruce Springsteen never imagined that he would one day go from being on the cover of the Rolling Stone to the cover of AARP just as I never thought I would move from enjoying People magazine to enjoying AARP as much. Time marches forward. I wonder what it will be like for my daughter when Barney and Britney make their own AARP covers?

And as I ponder all of this I start remembering Al Stewart's song Time Passages so I leave you with that.

It was late in December,
the sky turned to snow
All 'round the day was going down slow
Night like a river,
beginning to flow
I felt the beat of my mind go drifting into
time passages
Years go falling in the fading light
time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight.

Well, I'm not the kind
to live in the past
the years run too short, and the days too fast
The things you lean on are the things that don't last
well its just now and then, my line gets cast into these
time passages
There's something back there that you left behind
oh time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight

Hear the echoes and feel yourself starting to turn
Don't know why you should feel
that there's something to learn
it's just a game that you play.
Well, the picture is changing now you're part of the crowd
they're laughing at something and the music's loud
a girl comes toward you, you once used to know
you reach out your hand, but you're all alone in those
time passages
I know you're in there,
you're just out of sight,
oh time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight