I believe most people have the wrong idea about time travel. They think it’s impossible. But maybe they just don’t know what it is.
I’ll show you as soon as I find my sheet music. Now WHERE did I put that Pee-Chee? Please, God, don’t make me call somebody in here to help me look. That is so embarrassing!
Ah, here it is. My old school folder. Tucked inside the white notebook from 1984. What’s the 1972 Pee-Chee doing in the 1984 notebook? No wonder I couldn’t find it.
Look at this scribbling on the cover. Nancy, Nancita, NanSea ... spelling experiments, trying out different letter shapes.
Down here is NanSea+Tim. Tim who? Was there a Tim? Maybe I should ask.
There she is, 13-year-old me, sitting on the floor, music papers spread around, guitar at her side, pencil in her mouth. Good thing Mom doesn’t see that. She’d be all, “Nance, germs!”
“Hey, kiddo, who was Tim?”
She doesn’t seem startled, just annoyed. Then she shrugs, picks up the guitar, strums a G chord, then a D, E minor, G ...
“Nice. Is that called a walkdown?”
She points at a chord chart. “It’s called a chord progression.”
Ah. Progress. Her frown is gone. “Have you finished verse one yet?”
The lamp casts a soft light on smudged staff paper full of erasures and cross-outs. She straightens the page and grins at me. “Wanna hear?”
I nod. She plays another G chord. Young alto voice. “Blue-eyed baby, whatcha doin’ now?”
This is my old room. Yes, that really is a freezer in the corner. The folks couldn’t figure out where else to put it. I slept each night next to frozen green beans and extra bread from the day-old bakery outlet.
“Where you been since last I saw you? Whatcha done since last I saw you?”
The rest of the room is pretty normal. Over on the dresser, those are Davy’s shoes. Not baby shoes. His 5-year-old church shoes. She has his blankie, too, tucked away in the 3rd drawer on the left.
“Blue-eyed boy you know I miss you now. Nothing’s right since you’ve been gone.”
Davy was our little brother. She grabbed some of his stuff after the accident. October 12, 1971. Mom probably saw the shoes in her room, but she never mentioned it.
I still have those shoes.
I’m gonna say it’s October now. That’s when teenage me usually looked this skinny. You see those baggy Levis? She’s probably 94 pounds soaking wet. But let’s not mention it. She’s already kind of prickly.
“I like your chorus. You raise the energy then bring it back down.”
She nods, taps the page. “But there’s only one verse.”
I don’t know if you noticed, but that’s one of the pages I found in the Pee-Chee. See down there? The Pee-Chee is half under the bed.
“Well, sweetheart. Verse Two is not my department. We need to ask the expert on second verses.”
And there’s 19-year-old me, on the bed, holding a bag. She fluffs the pillow and leans back. “Hey, kid, what’s shakin’?”
“Hey yourself. No shoes on my bed.” The frown is back.
19 doesn’t move her feet. “Have you been eating? I know it’s October, but you really gotta eat!”
She digs in her bag and pulls out another page. “Here. Try singing this one.”
That must be page two. It’s crisp. No smudges. Tiny uniform print. The whole page smells like college.
13 plays a G chord again. “Blue-eyed boy, why did you have to fly? There’s no good answer that I know. Just empty space where you should go.”
19 nods slowly. Her expression declares, “This is what MATURE lyrics sound like.”
My phone rings.
13 jumps. “What’s that? An alarm clock?”
“Don’t be silly. That’s a tiny car phone.” 19 looks at me, then at the phone.
Oh, please, let me press the right button. It’s so embarrassing when I can’t figure out FaceTime.
It’s two of my granddaughters, calling from different cities, all on the same call. Don’t ask me how they do that.
They jabber about college and work and siblings. The younger one sings a snatch of a song. “That’s good, huh? Maybe I should get paid to sing.”
The older one rolls her eyes. “Maybe pay you to stop?”
And they’re laughing and waving and hanging up.
19 stands up, still staring at the phone. “Wait, were those ... grandkids? How old ARE you?”
13 picks up her sheet music. “It’s not polite to ask old people their age. And we really need verse three.”
Should I tell them I just turned 67, or should I make them guess? And what about verse three? I’ve pulled this song out numerous times over the years, then put it away again. I just couldn’t figure out the last verse.
“Maybe I could start with, ‘Close my eyes, I can see you now.’”
13 shrugs. 19 nods.
It’s true. I can see him. I can hear him, too. His silly songs. That laugh. Just like the girls on the phone.
“And how about ‘Your echo laughs with our young kin.’”
13 looks at 19. “Kin? Sounds like a Scottish romance novel.”
Hm. Such a smart mouth. I’m ready to finish what she started.
Now where did I put my pencil?
Song: Blue-Eyed Baby, Lyrics & melody by the author. Produced by Suno AI.
Musical Style Instructions: singer-songwriter, soft rock, folk-pop
[Verse 1, 1972]
Blue-eyed baby, whatcha doin’ now?
Where you been since last I saw you? I’m
Whatcha done since last I saw you?
Whatcha doin’ now?
Blue-eyed boy, whatcha playin’ now?
‘Member when we used to play?
Run around the yard all day
Whatcha playin’ now?
[Chorus]
Blue-eyed boy, you know I miss you now
Nothing’s right since you’ve been gone
Had to sit and write this song
How I miss you now
[Verse 2, 1979]
Blue-eyed boy, why did you have to fly?
There’s no good answer that I know
Just empty space where you should go
With memories left behind
Hide-and-seek in corn so tall
Choke the bat to hit the ball
Story time would make you yawn
you’d lean on me and then be gone
[Bridge]
You left a mark on all our hearts
The kind of love that never parts
It’s in the stories that we tell
You cast a sweet and gentle spell
[Verse 3, 2026]
Close my eyes, I can see you now
Memories fade and years fly by
Still I stop and wonder why
I can see you now
Close my eyes, I can hear you now
Your silly songs, your childish grin
Your echo laughs with our young kin
I can hear you now
[Chorus]
Blue-eyed boy, I still miss you now
But I’m all right since you’ve been gone
I just sit and sing this song
I know our love lives on
[Outro]
Blue-eyed boy, you’re shining like a star
I feel you close, however far.
Show & Tell:
Years ago I wrote the story of losing a brother. I was a young mother then, and a young writer. Today I wanted to tell a different story, of collecting memories, changing perspectives, and a song that took a long time to finish.
A young teen is lonely. She’s probably moping, but also, she’s doing things. She has a guitar. She’s scribbling lyrics, humming a melody. Over the years she keeps coming back to it until technology and perspective allow her to finish what she started.
How do you tell that story without wallowing? Without long, boring paragraphs of explanation? And without gloating that you actually found a piece of paper from 1972 when half the time you can't find your own keys?
Here are some of the things I relied on to help me. Maybe they will help you, too.
Start with the object in your hand. In this case, a Pee-Chee. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pee-Chee_folder)
Let the song say the sad stuff. (Or a letter, someone’s words, an object …)
Leave the funny parts in.
As for the Music ...
You can still use a pencil and some staff paper. But I’m a little slow, and impatient, so I used Suno AI.
These days you can get your own melody into Suno, either by singing it or playing it on a music keyboard hooked up to a computer. But good luck getting Suno to use a different voice in each verse.
I wanted a child’s voice for verse one, a young adult for verse two, and an older voice for verse three. That might work sometimes, but Suno can be moodier than 13-year-old me. So I made three versions, each sung by a different age voice. Then I downloaded them, and put them together in other software. If you want to try this sort of editing, I suggest a free app called Audacity, or even GarageBand if you’re on a Mac.
Author’s Note
A few days after I wrote this, I came across a story written by Robin Stewart in the September Issue of Genealogy Matters Magazine. The author begins with a short memoir and follows it with an author’s note that effectively turns her memoir into a record that can be used by a Family Historian years from now. So I decided to try turning my speculative memoir into a proper record. How do I feel about it after writing it all out? Well, my story purposely does not dwell on the accident. Adding the record feels a bit like dwelling. But I think I solved that by sticking to mostly flat facts with citations. Did it work? You tell me.
The Record
I wrote this immediately after my granddaughters called on August 30, 2026, so I can safely say that any dialogue with them is true to life. All other dialogue (between me, myself, and I) is invented.
The subject of our song:
David William Carver, born June 26, 1966 in Portland, Multnomah, Oregon (adopted at birth), died October 12, 1971 in Boring, Clackamas, Oregon. Source: Oregon Death Certificate #’71-014982.
Funeral: October 15, 1971, Mt. Tabor Seventh-day Adventist Church, Portland, Oregon, Elder John Todorovich and Elder Bj Christiansen, officiating. Nancy Stagl, Organist. Mr. Richard Lange, Soloist. Pallbearers: Larry Hudson, Cecil Roy, Daniel Whitehouse, Timothy Whitehouse. (cousins and cousins’ husbands.) Source: Funeral Service Card (States funeral was at Jacobson-Hart Chapel, but it was at Mt. Tabor Church. Jacobson-Hart handled the details.)
Burial: Willamette National Cemetery, Happy Valley, Oregon. Source: U.S. Veterans Gravesites, ca.1775-2006 (Ancestry.com)
About David
Age at time of accident: 5
Went by: Davy
I called him my “wild child.” He was on the move, always looking for adventure. He threw a softball side-arm. He loved fire engines and paper airplanes and Mr. Rogers. Gramps called him “The Boss.”
The accident
An incident with the neighbor’s horse. Source: The Oregonian, Wed, Oct 13, 1971 Page 28
Location: Family Residence, Rt. 2, Box 628, Boring, OR 97009, at the end of the field, around 45.441102, -122.488238. Source: my memory combined with Google Maps, street view.
What amazing storytelling and memory keeping. Wow. Just blown away. Thank you for doing this for history and thank you for sharing with us here, in this form and in this geneafriends community. ❤️