From radio to playlist

It is said that people in general do not develop new musical taste after their mid-thirties, and continue to listen to the music they listened to when younger. In other words, someone my age should only be listening to the Oldies station, with music from the 60’s through the 90’s (and yes, it’s frightening to me that the 90’s are considered oldies).

My husband and I seem to be exceptions. First, we introduced our favorites to each other, so he became immersed in folk rock and I in classical. Second, our musical tastes have expanded because I love listening to musicians with reputations of being groundbreakers and avant-garde performers. Before Itunes, these weren’t accessible to me because I didn’t like prowling through record stores (ah! vinyl!) and hated to buy a whole album as an experiment. With today’s technology, I have a world of music in front of me.

Sometimes I do listen to the oldies. Right now I’m listening to an 80’s singer-songwriters playlist, and I recognize most of the songs. In 1981, I would have been starting college, and in 1989 I was in the middle of my PhD program. But I’m just as likely to listen to Brian Eno or Erik Satie or Ludovico Einaudi or some electronica.

Places to go

This is where I might be a little more stereotypical. My husband and I have favorite places we like to go — Kansas City, Starved Rock State Park. But we do go new places too and try new food — oh, we always try new food. We haven’t been on a cruise (nor do we intend to go on one) so we don’t have that senior destination in mind. We do want to go on that big ferris wheel on Navy Pier in Chicago (at least I want to; not sure about Richard.)

I guess we’re not that settled

We’re somewhat settled — after all, we’re not skydiving or bungee jumping (although indoor skydiving in on our list). But we still want to try new things, which makes us still somewhat young for our ages. I’ll take it.