50 for 50: 1974

YEAR: 1974

AGE: Turned 4 on Nov. 6

LOCATION: Chicago, Wood Street in Bucktown, then McVicker Avenue near Riis Park

SONG I LIKED THIS YEAR: "Sing" by the Carpenters

CUBS' RECORD: 66-96

I collect old episodes of American Top 40, with Casey Kasem. The vintage shows are syndicated, and there's an iHeart station the plays nothing but countdowns from years past. Lori thinks I'm a little nuts for recording the episodes, but I love the nostalgia value and once religiously listened to it every Sunday in the early '80s. (Plus, I prefer real digital copies I can listen to anytime on my computer or iPod, rather than luck-of-the-draw streaming.)

AT40 has aired since 1970, but I've sort of set a age limit on the episodes I record: nothing before 1974. I'm not necessarily against pre-1974 music -- 1972, for example, might be the most eclectic year in the history of pop music -- but I don't remember the songs from then as much as listened to them anew in the forty-something years since.

Something clicked in 1974, not so much a light switch as a dimmer that turned on just a little. I don't necessarily remember much from this year, but I remember enough that it's not a mystery the way the years before were. 

I remember our apartment on Wood Street -- the layout, the stairs that went up and up to reach the third floor, what my room looked like. I remember the neighborhood, my grandmother's Bonneville, and Pa, my great-grandfather who died that year. I remember songs and TV shows and toys and books. And surprisingly, I remember being ... introspective?

We moved from Wood Street to a house on McVicker Avenue in the Belmont Central neighborhood on the northwest side. I remember the day it happened. My Uncle Howard had a new car, a little Toyota Corolla, and I thought it was so neat that instead of one big horn button in the middle of the steering wheel, it had nine small ones, each with its own little horn logo on it. I sat in the car that day and admired the horn and the whole dashboard, but also to get out of the way. We were moving, and I'm not sure if I wanted to go someplace new. 

For years, I thought this move took place in 1975. Although our time on McVicker seemed longer (we moved from that house in May 1977), I could have sworn we lived on Wood Street longer. I had these memories, including the vivid one in Uncle Howard's Toyota, and there's now way those memories were that strong as a 3-year-old.

Then I looked at a photo album and pictures of my fourth-birthday party (and I'm wearing an outfit that's suspiciously close to lederhosen ...) that are clearly in the McVicker house. Our time there was as long as I thought -- probably 2 1/2 years if we moved in the fall of 1974. Mom doesn't quite remember exactly when.

Who knows -- maybe more of the Bucktown memories were from after the move? We still had relatives in the neighborhood, which really wasn't that far away. My mother always admires my crazy memory, but this feels really crazy.

And what does the crazy memory from 1974 mean? Maybe nothing, other than the things my senses interacted with -- songs, toys, my surroundings -- imprinted the same way they do today. There are days I'm tempted to put in a Thomas the Tank Engine DVD or read Mo Willems books because those are takeaways -- and new nostalgia -- from the boys' toddlerhood that already is a decade in the past.

Ben and I visited Bucktown a few years ago on vacation, and I took pictures of the old apartment building (from the outside). I looked at the spot on the street where I sat in the Corolla and wanted to press every horn button and create a noisy ruckus on moving day. And I told Ben what it was like to live (and visit) the neighborhood before it gentrified. Memories are strong, and so are the stories we tell.