Writing Challenge -- Day 16

The instruction for Day 16 of the 30-Day writing challenge is: 

Put on music in the background today while you write. Write a scene that captures the feeling of the music...

I need to write a scene that captures the feeling of the music. My music is made up of guitar playing – something I can still hear, more than 50 years later. Although the singer told interviewers that the song had sexual connotations and included his experiences, I have always listened to it simply as a superficial level, governed by that all-too-familiar sound of the guitar, as the vocal opens to a tumultuous enthusiastic roar and approval of the crowd,

“…I got my first real six-string
Bought it at the five-and-dime
Played it 'til my fingers bled
It was the summer of '69…”

It was in the Grand Arena at Goodwood (Cape Town) that I first heard the opening notes of that all-too-familiar guitar sound live. Let’s face it, it was the only time. Its not every day that one gets to see and listen to someone like Bryan Adams, live in the flesh. Today, I have the next best thing, the CD playing as I write…

“…Oh, when I look back now
That summer seemed to last forever…”

Of course, he is some 12 years younger than me, and it he would have been 10 years old in 1969, so we can probably discount the 69 as a reference to the year.

For me the half-decade 1965 to 1970 was probably one of the most difficult and life-changing, from the time I left high school until we were married. University was something totally different and unexpected for me, having received absolutely no prepping or advice from anyone, other than “You’ll find this bloody hard and a lot more work than ever before…” 

It was also a time of gaining independence, and learning to live with non-family members and others of my age and mostly older. It was a time of learning to stand on my own feet, how to act in the workplace (without ever having had any training or advice), a time of learning about alcohol, which I consumed in relatively small amounts (because finances did not permit excess), meeting guys up to ten years my senior who were flush with cash for booze and birds, being their earnings as mercenary conscripts in Central Africa.

It was a time for encountering tobacco, but that was something I was forcefully against. It was some years later that I started smoking, something I still regret having done. There were drugs, I am led to believe, but I never encountered them personally, nor did I suspect that any of my associates were into such activities. I guess there was a bit of grass going around with some of them, but nothing was spoken about it.

Although I had been in a co-ed  class for the previous five years of high school and at University, it was a time for meeting girls on a different basis, and seeing other strata of society and ways of life, both rich and not-so-affluent.

It was also a time that I encountered small groups of guys of my age, who’d got together with some guitars and drums and tried to become pop bands.

“…Me and some guys from school
Had a band and we tried real hard…”

Some of them lasted a few years, most were absolutely amateur, and faded into oblivion

“…Jimmy quit, Jody got married
I should've known we'd never get far…”

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[ The instruction for Day 17 reads:
Your character gets on a taxi and tells the driver to take him/her to the airport. But the driver has his/her own ideas about where they are headed… ]