First things first: A big thanks to Corey for trusting me to take over The Nostalgia Diaries while she vacations with her family in the tropical oasis that is Toledo, Ohio. I’ve never vacationed in Toledo, but I’ve spent a bit of time in other parts of Ohio and the Midwest and frankly, I’m a big fan of laid-back Midwestern summers.

My grandparents lived in Eastern South Dakota along the Missouri River, and every July or August my parents would take my brother and me on a road trip to spend a couple of weeks in Yankton and Vermillion, South Dakota.  To this day, I can still remember the enveloping heat of the heavy, humid air and the rich smell of dark fertile soil in fields of 7-foot tall stalks of sweet corn. Not a lot of that in Wyoming where I grew up, so the feel of the Midwest was always a striking change.

And I loved it.

I have not been back to South Dakota in years, yet thinking about it now sparks many nostalgic memories of my youth—a youth filled with the smells and sounds and sights of summer’s simple pleasures: hot concrete and cool chlorine-infused swimming pool water, the buzz of cicadas and the sad song of mourning doves, the blur of telephone poles and trees zipping past the car window ticking off the miles on the long road trip east. Continue reading “Channeling Nostalgia | The Music of Television”