A Love Song for Tammy

Robert's poem, "The Magic of Music"

The Magic of Music

The magic of music fills the air.
It can bring about laughter
or calm our fears.

It can bring joy to our heart
or a tear to our eye.
The magic of music
cannot be denied.

It’s in the rhythm of the ocean.
It sings through the trees.
It’s the croaking of frogs
and the buzzing of bees.

It’s the song of birds.
In the spring, the elks bugle.
In fall, the quiet calm
of a winter night,
the coyote’s lone call.

Music calls us to dance,
to sway to the beat,
or sing along in the car
as we cruise down the street.

It plays with our emotions,
can set our heart aflame,
or make us think deeply
about ourselves and our world again.

An entire story in minutes,
the message conveyed
through lyrics, melody,
the chords that are played.

It’s the background in movies
that leads us through action,
to feel happy, sad,
scared or in awe,
to magnify our reaction.

It tells us of hope,
of wonder and delight.
It tells us of tragedy,
of pain and of fright.

It can say in a few words
what we feel deep inside,
or convey thoughts and emotions
we’ve been trying to clarify.

The magic of music
is universal in scope.
It helps us to heal.
It helps us to cope.

The magic of music—
it’s in, through,
and around all of our existence.
It is truly profound.

So let the music flow.
Let its magic touch your heart.
Sing, play, dance, or cry—
revel in its art.

Kelan David  0:00  

You know when you hear a song and it triggers a memory, it instantly takes you back to a particular person or place or moment. This podcast is all about that song and those memories. Welcome to that takes me back where we share stories that connect music and memories. We're your hosts, Kelan David

Maia Honeycutt  0:21  

and Maya sage and on today's episode,

Robert  0:28  

the magic of music fills the air. It can bring about laughter or calmer fears. It can bring joy to our heart or a tear to our eye. The magic of music cannot be denied. It's in the rhythm of the ocean. It sings through the trees. It's the croaking of frogs and the buzzing of bees. It's the song of birds. In the spring, the elks bugle. In fall, the quiet calm of a winter night, the coyotes lone call. Music calls us to dance, to sway to the beat, or sing along in the car as we cruise down the street. It plays with our emotions can set our heart a world or make us think deeply about ourselves and our world,

Kelan David  1:10  

as folks will hear in this episode, my mother passed away this last June. My father was married to her for 47 years. He was just the most devoted husband that there ever was. Basically I am number one, just really proud of my dad for coming on here and opening up to us and being vulnerable and allowing himself to feel what he felt, and allowing himself to cry and allowing himself to laugh and to go back and feel the all those things that you know that led up to him finding the love of his life and and that whole relationship, listening back to it, it felt like I went into more like interview mode, and I sort of stepped away from this idea that we were talking about my mom through a lot of it, you know, we Were talking about his wife, and I was asking questions, and you were asking questions, and it was about, you know, his journey falling in love with his wife. Yeah, I do actually really appreciate just sitting in this room and getting on the microphone and going into host mode gave me permission, in a sense, to have completely different perspective. Their relationship was one that not only I try to emulate but I know so many people who try to emulate their relationship. And so a couple things I just wanted to note here is that at one point, he calls this girl who is ends up being my mom out of his league. And I just want to say for the record that my mom would totally disagree with that, because she just was totally anti the idea of leagues at all. And that was something that I always heard growing up. Words I heard come out of her mouth a lot were, so what, so what go for it. She would say that for all kinds of different things that, you know, I thought that were too big for me to achieve, or that kind of thing. So what go for it? So what go for it? And so it's kind of cool that my dad, in that moment of approaching her, somebody who he saw as out of his league, you know, that he kind of had that voice in his head. So what go for it? And so it was sort of cool that, you know, maybe he was sending out that sort of energy, even totally before they even met for the first time.

Maia Honeycutt  3:16  

Basically, they had some kind of a connection right out of the gate,

Kelan David  3:19  

right, yeah. But basically, falling in love, getting married, having a family, was my dad's goal in life. That's what he wanted to do. You know, he didn't have the career aspirations like I want to be this when I grow up. He wanted to be a dad when he grew up. He wanted to be a husband when he grew up. And he did it. He nailed it. Honestly. I mean, he raised four kids, and we all just admire the shit out of him and just adore him. And my mom and I am so thankful for him all the time, so grateful. And so I just want to say congratulations to him, because he did it. He lived his dream, and thank you for sharing it with us. It was awesome. There was one more thing I wanted to say here, and that's that we had a little conversation about the universe sending songs and that kind of thing. And he said that, indeed, the universe is still sending songs, because he texted me, maybe, like, four days later with another song that he said, this was definitely another instance of the universe sending a song, and this was not even a song that's like, played anywhere at all because it was written by a person and just performed at church. Whoa. And so, yeah, he went to a church service that he wasn't even like, feeling up to going to, but his sister convinced him to go. He showed up and there was a musician there, a songwriter, and she played a song, and he said that it was exactly what he needed to hear that's beautiful. Yeah. So the universe finds ways to connect us with with the music you know that that speaks to our souls and our hearts?

Maia Honeycutt  4:53  

Was there a particular song you wanted to start with, taking us back, taking us on a trip to. On memory lane with you.

Robert  5:03  

Yes, okay, you want to know what it is I do. It's called, you sexy thing, a group called hot chocolate.

Maia Honeycutt  5:11  

Hot chocolate. I love it. I'm just gonna play a little snippet of it. I haven't heard this in a while. You

Maia Honeycutt  5:34  

Yeah, this is like a this is a golden age of music, that is for sure,

Robert  5:39  

that came out in October of 1975 Wow. I was in school. I was at Red Rocks Community College. Oh, wow, taking night classes, and there was a certain girl there that was going to school during the day, and she was working in the cafeteria in the evenings in order to pay for her schooling. And I went down to the cafeteria, and she was pointed out to me, oh, and I took a look, and I had a straight her direction. It was like a magnet and steel. So I went through the line, and I got up to her, and she looked up at me, and she smiled, and that was all like I was done. I melted. I said, Hi, oh yeah, I was I was scared to death. She was way out of my league, and so I took my stuff and went over and sat down and I wasn't going to leave. I kept an eye on her the whole time, and finally got up enough nerve to go back over there and talk to her, and I did, and she said, Well, I'm glad you came by. Stick around. I'll get off in just a few minutes. No way. So I did, and we went and we talked after she was done, we talked for a little while, and she agreed that she'd go out with me after she went home and broke up with her boyfriend,

Maia Honeycutt  7:29  

no way.

Robert  7:30  

So anyway, I said, so, so then can I call you? And she said, No, you give me your number and I'll call you when I'm ready. So I said, okay, and she did, after about three of the longest days in my life.

Maia Honeycutt  7:45  

Oh, my God, I bet they were the longest days ever.

Robert  7:48  

So she did call, and we set up a date, and we went to a pizza place not far from where the school is. I picked her up after school, and we went to the pizza place, and we sat and talked until the pizza place closed. How cute and it was magical to me. She was extremely beautiful in my eyes, but I recognized, I realized then that her real beauty was within her Wow. She was just kind and thoughtful and curious, and she talked about her her quest to know and understand God and life, and all of those types of things which fit perfectly with me, and that was that, wow. So now to the song. That song came out right about that time. I hadn't heard it, but I came to school a few days later, whatever it was, and in the parking lot before I got out of the car, that song came on the radio. Oh my gosh. And so I listened to it, and I thought, wow, that's my song to her, because it talks about, well, I would have to hear it to know all the lyrics, but it talks about, you know, where'd you come from? How'd you know I needed you? Oh, yeah, you know all of this stuff. It does talk about making love, and we never did. She was, she was very much about not until after you're married. Does that happen? Yeah, which was fine with me, yeah. But it was, it's the lyrics,

Maia Honeycutt  9:40  

yeah, I am looking at some of the lyrics, actually. And I didn't realize that it was so sweet, as well as it being like this, you sexy thing, like, I didn't realize that,

Robert  9:51  

because the you sexy thing is the small part of the small part, although she was a sexy thing, right?

Maia Honeycutt  9:57  

Says, How did you know I'd give my heart? Gladly. Yesterday I was, I was one of the lonely people. That's a sweet line. I didn't know that was in there.

Robert  10:06  

Yeah, yeah. So anyway, it's the lyrics to the song, and that song takes me right to that place, wow, of being in that parking lot listening to it, and then later on, telling her here you have to come listen to this song. This is my song to you right now,

Kelan David  10:26  

and that is maybe it is interesting too or cool that it's like saying that yesterday, how your life was different right from today, that it was like this moment in time. Yes, set your life into a completely different direction, that your life was very different the few days beforehand and so yeah, it's like, yes, the difference between yesterday and today was the trajectory for the rest of your life. Yep, yep. Very true. I will say that, yeah, recently, looking through a lot of old photos and videos of mom, even when I was little, she was very beautiful.

Robert  11:04  

She was very beautiful, except we don't know she's mom yet.

Kelan David  11:08  

All right, right, sorry, sorry, sorry, I'm messing up this timeline. You spoil the envy. Yeah. Then what happens? Okay, so nowadays, so every time that you hear that song, then it takes you back to that parking lot and

Robert  11:24  

and showing the song to her, and that, yeah, that became our song. Wow, during that time period. Now there's 100 more since then. Totally.

Maia Honeycutt  11:32  

That's beautiful. And I'm the same way if I find a song, and it really makes me think about, like, the person I'm all excited about her. I'm like, hey, I want to show you this. Like these lyrics make me think about you.

Robert  11:46  

Yeah, so and our life was, she was very much into music too, and how my life was revolved around music a lot, right things. So we, we started dating, and actually, there's other songs. I went and wrote down songs, just the lyrics to songs like so I wrote all those lyrics down for her to give to her, and I had the album, so we played the album for her too, but I wanted her to have them written down. I was

Kelan David  12:18  

gonna say that sounds a little bit like cheating, but I guess that's like greeting cards, right? Like, they just have stuff in it that you want, that you would say, and so the song has the stuff in it that you would want to say, right?

Maia Honeycutt  12:28  

That's actually, I think, exactly why I've always been the kind of person who will, like, send people a song, because it's like a way to communicate something like, so specifically that, like, maybe you didn't have the words for and then you hear the song, and you're like, you know what? That's exactly what I want to

Robert  12:45  

say, right? You know so and that one, that one fit at the time,

Maia Honeycutt  12:50  

so you, you literally, like, just wrote down a bunch of lyrics, kind of like Love Letter style, and gave it to her on paper. Yep, I love that. That is so

Robert  12:58  

then played the song too, yeah, but I wanted her to have it to take home with her. Yeah, I'm going to skip ahead a little bit. We were we went out together for six months, and then we broke up. We broke up very amicably. She was born again Christian, and I was not okay. And I think, in fact, I know, because we've talked about it, she was at a place of, kind of being a little bit scared, because she was in love with me, and she knew I was in love with her, and we had a really good relationship, but she was unwilling to marry someone that wasn't a born again Christian. And so she thought, I need to end this now before it gets any farther. And so she did, and that was the end of that. What were you feeling? I was feeling I was still madly in love with her, and I felt like, I felt like she'll come around to understand things, and she'll come around to understand that she really loves me and she wants to be with me. And we talked spiritual things constantly. That was our whole existence. Was that it was all around spiritual things, but we had this little disagreement on this idea of being saved. She grew up in a Christian home. Her her dad was a Christian minister, and so the idea of being saved, accepting Jesus as your savior, was a huge thing to her, to me, I kept think, I kept saying, If God is who we talk about here, then what is there to be saved from? And so anyway, that was a disagreement, and for sure, and we didn't argue about it, but we discussed it a lot, yeah, but it got to a place to where, yeah, she couldn't marry someone that wasn't. That born again, wow, and I wasn't willing to compromise where I was at the time. I was 20 years old. She was 18, so you know, we were pretty young. Yeah.

Maia Honeycutt  15:14  

Well, and think that being raised strict religious upbringing probably made it to where she had zero wiggle room in her she did,

Robert  15:24  

yeah, and she would rather give up what we had right then to compromise that well.

Kelan David  15:30  

And for you, it's not like you can, just like, choose to start believing something that you don't right that like you know, even if you know, if somebody puts a gun to your head and says, Start believing in Santa Claus, right? You just can't,

Robert  15:43  

yeah, I'm laughing over here, because the story does change. Okay, down the road, it changes. You want to go to the next song. Take us with you. The next song that I had in mind was, it's called I'm easy, and it's by Keith Carradine. This is in 1976 now, we got together October of 75 this is like April of 76 and after we broke up, I went and loaded up with my car, with all my camping gear, and took off to the mountains. I always found peace in the mountains, and this was in May sometime, so it was just getting the snow melted off and stuff, but I went up and set up a camp up in the mountains, and I was there for May and June and July and part of August. Wow. Stayed in tent.

Maia Honeycutt  16:41  

Oh my gosh, but so you really communed with nature?

Robert  16:45  

Yes, yes. A while I had a fox, little baby fox that came and lived with me

Kelan David  16:51  

that's for a little while, full little, oh man, that's always been a story that I love it so much that I just wish that it would happen to me. And when I was little, I just thought that that would be like the ultimate thing to have happened.

Robert  17:04  

Yeah, he'd jump in my car and sit up in the in the back window of the car while I drove. If I was going someplace, he'd be around my camp all the time. Wasn't for very long, it was for maybe a week or 10 days or something like that. And then he disappeared. Wow, yeah, that was kind

Maia Honeycutt  17:22  

of fun. It's so magical, wow.

Robert  17:26  

So ate a lot of fish, did a lot of fishing, and ate a lot of fish, nice. But anyway, that song then came on the radio during that time.

Maia Honeycutt  17:39  

Okay, let me play just a little bit of it. I never heard this. It's

Speaker 1  17:48  

not my way to love you just when no one's looking. It's not my way to take your hand, if I'm not sure, it's not my way to let you see what's going on inside of me when it's love you won't be needing. You're not free. Please stop putting that my sleeve if you're just playing, if you won't take the things you make me want to give. I never cared too much for games and this one driving me insane. Young I have as free to wander as you claim. But I'm easy, yeah, I'm easy. Give the way.

Robert  18:43  

Easy. So that's pretty much how I felt about things. Give your word and play your game. Give me the word, I'll play your game because I'm easy. And then the lyrics go on from there and are even more apropos to what I was feeling. That basically says, you know, take my hand, pull me down. I won't put give up a fight. I won't put up a fight. All you got to do is say the word and I'll be back. And that's how I felt. So that song came out while I was up there in the mountains earlier that it was part of a movie, but I didn't know. I'd never seen the movie or anything. So after it won an Oscar, I think is when it started being played on the radio. And I don't know all that for sure, but I think that's probably when, and that was shortly before I was up in the mountains. But again, I was sitting in my car. I'd probably, I think I'd gone to town to get some supplies, and that song came on right as I was getting ready to park the car of where I was camp, and so I listened to the song, and it's like, yeah, that's where I'm at with things. And took me right to her yeah and and what she meant to me, yeah, that point in time, and I was willing to just

Kelan David  19:55  

wait, yeah. So did you feel hopeful?

Robert  19:59  

I did feel hope. Helpful, but I had no idea what was to come, obviously. And like I said, it was August, so three months later that I finally went back down to the city. So sometime around there, this girl that I that it had met at the school, and we broke up, I called her and asked her if she'd go have lunch with me. And she said, yeah, she would. So she came to lunch. It was terrible. Oh no. We had a lousy it was we had no connection. There was something way off with things. And it was like, Oh, wow. This is surprising to me, and I think it was surprising to her too, but we had zero connection. There was something way off.

Kelan David  20:42  

You feel like, Was it something that was very built up in your head beforehand?

Robert  20:47  

No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I you want to know the truth. The truth is, I just don't think we were ready for each other yet. Whoa. I don't think we were ready yet. What we had earlier was so intense and so passionate with our discussions. And I don't know whether she was, you know, just a little defensive with things at that, this new point in time, or if I was, or we both were, I really don't know, but it did not work. Wow, at all. So that was disappointing, yeah, and that was so I was, like, three or four months after we had, after we had broken up. Anyway, that was a strange experience.

Maia Honeycutt  21:29  

That's strange. I wonder when you initially connected. It was deep stuff you were connecting on. It was really serious stuff. It was, you know, the things that arguably matter the most, like, the most fundamental, yeah, yes, yeah. It's not like, how you like your sandwich. It's like, yes, the meaning of life to you,

Robert  21:48  

yes. And that's where we

Maia Honeycutt  21:50  

were, right? And so then to try to back up and try to go back to, like, the surface stuff. And you know, maybe she had that, that fear, you were saying this, you know, the religion in the mix of things. If she didn't feel okay, opening herself to those very real feelings, then you you you guys probably both had, like a wall in between. You right? Was, you know, making that connection impossible to kind of come through, yep, yep.

Kelan David  22:18  

I agree. I was just gonna ask. So after that day, did you feel like, okay, I'm I'm moving on, I'm moving in a different direction. Or did you still have like, hope?

Robert  22:27  

Well, I still had hope, and I still had feelings for her, but I felt like I have to do something different here. And so I did. I mean, I dated other girls then for a while, and I did have a girlfriend while I was up there. Oh, really, she was part of the Forest Service. Way, as part of the Forest Service, I shouldn't say she was a girlfriend. We actually went to town and danced, did a few things like that. So into Grand Lake. And at that time, Colorado Law was three, two beer was you could be 18, oh, and drink three two beers. So we'd go to the three two bars and throw darts or play pool and dance and stuff. So anyway, we hung out, yeah, and so I had some time with with somebody else, but your mind was, it didn't leave her very often. You know, I think after a month or so, it became obvious that this isn't going to be a quick thing. You know, this isn't, she's not going to drive up here and say, Good, come back home.

Maia Honeycutt  23:28  

Yeah, yeah. And it also isn't going to be a quick thing for you to get over her. You're you're starting to realize at that point, right?

Robert  23:35  

So the song I'm easy always takes me to that place of being in the mountains, yeah, camping and longing, yeah?

Maia Honeycutt  23:48  

The yearning, yes, yeah, yeah. I just want to real quick talk about the fact that this song came on the radio for you, because something I reflect on a lot in these sessions is just how much technology has changed and access to music. Yeah, I almost get sad about that every once in a while, because in my life, the music I listen to is usually by choice. It's whatever playlist I'm putting on.

Kelan David  24:14  

Yes, we didn't have that. Yeah, you're very rarely, rarely like happen upon, right?

Maia Honeycutt  24:18  

But I think that that's almost like a little bit of magic that might be missing in modern life, because I don't know the universe like aligned to put that song on the radio for you to hear it when you did when you really like connected to these words. I just kind of love that. To me, there's a little bit of magic in that, because my spirituality is very flexible and very magical, yeah. So to me, that was like a little,

Robert  24:44  

I think that was the first song to the thing. I mean, it was right then that that song came out, like hit me, and then this one's the same exact way that right when it came out, and it was always by chance. That you never heard something on the radio, and especially being in the mountains, I had that no access to anything else, and

Maia Honeycutt  25:06  

you happened to be in your truck at that moment, or whatever it wasn't, right, you know, yep, like they're playing that at the same time every day, or whatever it is, like you just happened upon it. And that's kind of, I don't know. That's just a beautiful little element to it, in my opinion.

Robert  25:21  

Yeah, I agree, yeah. I agree with that completely. So after that disastrous date, we didn't see or talk to one another for well over a year. So it was a year and a half after we originally broke up. Wow. Do you want to hear the story of how we got back together. Yes, I think that's why we're here. It's a strange story, is it? So I was now 22 years old, and I was living in this house with my cousin and the other two roommates. There was four of us in the house, and I was at a place where I was just totally depressed and I had nothing going on, and I sat down on my bed one night, and I just said, God, here I am. Take my life, do with it what you will. That was all I said. I know this is going to sound really strange, but I had a water bed that doesn't sound strange, but my waterbed moved almost immediately it moved and I heard a voice outside of my head. It was out here, voice that said, Call Tammy, no, and that's what I said. I said what, you know, we even talked to each other for almost 18 months. I mean, we had that one little And the voice said, Call Tammy. And I said, What can I call her tomorrow? Because it's really late and And the voice said, Yes, whoa. So that very same night that that I experienced this, Tammy had, she had just had surgery on her eye. She she had a dog bite when she was five years old that tore her eye out and stuff out. So now she's 19 years old, and she's had surgery to again try to repair her tear duct Whoa. And they told her after the surgery that be sure not to hit your nose. Don't hit your nose, because that can be a critical thing. And I'll back up and say one more thing. During that 18 months, she got engaged, whoa, to somebody from the church, okay? And they, they had picked out a house, they had picked out all the stuff, so they were that far into it when she recognized and realized that this wasn't going to work for her. Wow, all the engagement off. So this had just happened also, so now she had this surgery. She went and this is the same night that I went through all this stuff called Tammy. She took a shower, got out of the shower, walking back to her bedroom, her hand came up and hit her nose. And she says, I have no idea how that happened. It felt like I had no control over it. It just something happened. My hand came up and hit my nose. Well, she was devastated, you know, because they told her that's the one thing you can't do is hit your nose. So now she's going through this breakup, breaking off her engagement, and now the surgery, and now hitting her nose. So she went to bed that night in agony, yeah. So the next day, the phone rings right at her house, and she's got to decide there's no cell phones, right? She has to go down, up and get up and go find the phone to answer the phone. But she did, and it was me, and she says, we have some of this written down, but she says she knew immediately when she heard my voice, she knew immediately this was her answer, whoa. And you know, she says I knew that that Robert loved me and thought I was beautiful, and I needed to hear those things now. And so I asked her then if she'd like to go to lunch, and she said no, but she said, you can take me to dinner, because she didn't want to go out in the daytime because of her surgery. So I had no idea where this was going. I was just told to call Tammy. Wow. I had no idea what to expect, what was going on. But she said, yeah, you can take me to dinner. So we so I did. We went out to dinner that night. That was in October of 1977 and we were we had been together ever since then. Wow. So the next song that meant something to me at that point in time was, send. Then a lady by Bob Welch. Now that song was done by Fleetwood Mac, who Bob Welch was part of earlier, but Bob Welch re did it, and this came out in 1977 okay, right at this point in time, I could put us. I don't know if you know anything about Denver, but we were driving down Wadsworth Boulevard in Lakewood, and that song came on because

Speaker 2  30:29  

I come so together.

Speaker 4  30:41  

Very and

Robert  30:57  

I had heard the song once before, but when it came on, I told her, this is my song to you. I changed one lyric in the song to make it fit so the actual lyric is a will to be Mary, but I just said married.

Maia Honeycutt  31:14  

So was that one of your little ways of saying, I want to marry you? Girl, had you guys talked about that a lot yet, or no?

Robert  31:22  

Well, I'll tell you, I asked her to marry me probably 10 times. And every time she said, No, I'm not ready for that. And then the 11th time I asked her, she said, No, and don't ask me again. She said. She said, if and when that time comes, I'll let you know.

Robert  31:51  

So anyway, this song was that, and it talks about sentimental, gentle wind blowing through my life. Again, sentimental, gentle one. I All I need is you, yeah, blown through my life again. Now she's back.

Kelan David  32:13  

Yeah? So I just have like, a little side note here, and that is that these songs that we're talking about so far had come out at the moment that it takes you back to Yes, meaning that, like, yeah, that yes, that, like these, it's taking you back to the first time that you heard these songs, yes. Like, what may I was saying with, like, the universe grieving it to you, yeah, kind of thing,

Robert  32:35  

yeah, yeah. And it just all fit, really fit, yeah, with each of those songs, yes, the same, right when they were released. Now, the the I'm easy, I know was, was a little bit earlier, but, but that's the first time I'd ever heard it.

Kelan David  32:53  

Okay, all right, so where are we?

Robert  32:56  

Well, so now we're back together, and she's refused to marry me multiple times, right? But now said she'll let me know when so so we were out at a our favorite pizza place one night, in deep conversation, as we always were, and right in the middle of this conversation, she says, you can ask me now. And I had no idea what she's even talking about at that moment, because we were just talking about something completely different. And, and so I said, What? What did you say? She said, you can ask me now. Well, I finally got smart enough put two, two together, and, and I right there in the Pizza Hut or pizza place, got down on my knee, and I asked her to marry me, and she said, Yes. So that was in that was, I'll tell you when it was, it was February 2, 1978 that that happened?

Maia Honeycutt  33:52  

No, I'm crying. I don't know why. Well, it's a very sweet story. It's sweet. And I just feel like sometimes it's the little random moments of talking to somebody about something that's not even related, that'll make you go, right, yep, yeah, I could do this forever, you know. So that's really sweet.

Kelan David  34:10  

I'm just going to interject, just because I had sort of a mirroring of that in my relationship with Whitney, but sort of the other way around, where she had asked me to marry her pretty darn early on. And then two years later, she asked again, and then she asked again, and then, and then I basically said the same thing. I was like, I'll let you know when, if and when you're ready, if and when I'm ready. And we went out. We went to a sushi place, and same thing. So we were eating sushi, and I was looking at her, and I said, All right, you can ask me now. And and she knew immediately what I was talking about.

Robert  34:48  

Yeah, I wasn't quite as quick, yeah, yeah,

Kelan David  34:53  

well, and also, she was familiar with the story, too. Oh, right of you a mom, and so I think that, yeah, it came. Pretty quickly to her because of that partially, yeah, but then yeah, so in the sushi restaurant, yeah, she looked at me and asked me to marry her again. And I said, Yes,

Robert  35:08  

see, I've never heard that before. Wow. Oh, really, yeah, wow, that's awesome.

Maia Honeycutt  35:12  

That's beautiful. That's actually so beautiful.

Kelan David  35:16  

I mean, like, that was not the plan, obviously, the mirror, right, right? What just kind of worked that way, yeah, just kind of worked that way. And it did just kind of work that way. At the same time I was aware of it as it was happening. Like, I was like, Oh, this is, like, exactly, yeah, how Yeah, you and mom happened,

Robert  35:33  

but yeah, so anyway, yeah, she said, Yes. So I had already bought a ring. Oh, which is a strange story. My roommate said, I'm going to go to the jewelry store and look at wedding rings. You want to go with me? And I said, Sure.

Kelan David  35:47  

So that was just like a thing he did. It's just like a thing he did.

Robert  35:50  

Yeah. So we went over, we went over to the mall, went into this jewelry store and looked at wedding rings. And I I saw one. I thought, I love that ring. I love that ring. And whoever I marry is going to love that ring. So I bought it, oh my god, right there on the spot.

Kelan David  36:07  

And how long ago, or how long beforehand was that?

Robert  36:10  

Not very long, maybe in September or October. And we got back together in October, and now it's February. Wow. February 2. She said, Yes. So anyway, then we we left the pizza place immediately and went to my house and got the ring, and I was going to put it on her finger before she could change her mind. And we went to my mom and dad's and told them what was going on.

Kelan David  36:33  

And of course, we already know that she can change her mind on an engagement. Yeah, yeah, there's history. Yes, that shows there was,

Maia Honeycutt  36:41  

let me show you the ring. You'll love it, and then you'll be convinced. And she did love the ring. See that I was actually gonna ask you that? No way.

Robert  36:50  

Yeah, it fit perfect. Never had to have it resized or anything. Oh, my God, perfect. And she loved she I knew she loved dainty stuff, and this was dainty, but yeah, she loved the ring, and then we had to decide how when we're going to get married. So this was February of 78 of 78 and we waited clear until April. So, so two months and five days, wow, we waited to get married. She didn't care anything at all about a wedding, really? She had no interest in a big wedding. She didn't care anything about any of it. Did that make you happy? Yeah, yeah. I just wanted to get married, right? Yeah. Her mother. Her mother took care of everything. Wow. We went to their church. Her dad did the service. He did the ceremony. All I had to do was show up and, oh, I had to buy a tux, rent a tux and get some guys together to be a part of it. Wow. But in two months, we were married, wow. From that point,

Maia Honeycutt  37:50  

and How did life change for you guys, upon getting married,

Robert  37:54  

we got to have sex for the first time. I don't know that things changed a lot, because we saw each other every single day, there wasn't a day that we got back together that we weren't together until the day of our wedding. We weren't together that whole day we got married, like at 730 at night or something. That was the first time

Maia Honeycutt  38:13  

I saw her all day long. So you were like, ready to see her,

Robert  38:17  

not only ready to see her, but I'm standing up on the stage, I see her, and I just start crying. And so now it's all this. I can't talk because I got all this stuff going on. But yeah, I was ready to see her, yeah, and we got married, we went downstairs of church, had some cake, and left, and we honey, moved clear up in Breckenridge, Friday night and Saturday night, and had to come home Sunday because I had to go to work Monday morning. Wow, so that was our honeymoon,

Maia Honeycutt  38:45  

yeah, but I'm sure it was everything you needed. It to be you. You guys were together, you just got to be together.

Robert  38:51  

And she kept the receipts and everything from that time. So she said she's not nostalgic, but she kept all those things, stuff like

Maia Honeycutt  38:59  

that. Anyway,

Robert  39:00  

15 months later, we had a kid, wow, oh, so it did not take long, and 15 months after that, we had another one, wow. So in 10 years, we had four kids, wow, So life went by quick, yeah, you know, it all went by quick.

Kelan David  39:16  

And that's partially why you say that 80s music is less a part of your repertoire because you had the 60s and 70s to yourself, and then the 80s were all full of having kids. You were busy.

Robert  39:29  

That's very true. We still listen to music all the time, but it just didn't have the same effects and stuff. There is one song that I actually want to talk about that I believe, came out in 1983 said we'd been married like four years. And the reason this song meant something to me is because it described my feelings toward her so well, of how I felt about us and what she'd done for me so. So the song is, I Love You by the climax blues band,

Speaker 3  40:05  

when I was younger man, I hadn't a kid, fooling around, hitting the towel, growing my head, that was me came along and stole my heart went into my life. Ooh, babe, got what it takes so major my wife,since then, I never looked back. It's almost like giving a dream. And whoyou came along from far away and found me here. I was playing around, feeling down, hitting the bill,

Maia Honeycutt  41:09  

in sounds pretty perfect, yeah.

Robert  41:12  

Just really described so much of of what our relationship was, at least from my perspective, yeah, and so that became my song for her for years. That was my song to her for years.

Kelan David  41:28  

That's that's one that reminds me of mom, yeah,

Robert  41:31  

so, and it goes on at the end. It says, If ever a man had it all, it would have to be me. And that's definitely how I felt,

Maia Honeycutt  41:40  

and what a beautiful thing, because, you know, not everybody feels that blessed by their marriage. Yeah, marriage can be hard. I'm sure there are hard times, and having kids is stressful and all of that, but what a beautiful thing for your true feelings underneath to be just absolute gratitude towards the person that you married.

Robert  42:01  

I mean, we had our issues to begin with in the first few years, which is obviously not unusual. I mean, you're bringing two lives together and trying to fit together and figure it out, and then when you have kids on top of that, it just adds so much more to it. Yeah, and it took us a few years, but what we had, I think, was a commitment to one another to make this work. We were both committed to making it work and making it be special for us. Neither one of us wanted the relationship our parents had. Our parents were both married for 60 years. Oh, wow. Hers were and mine were so obviously there was something there. But they bickered constantly. Both of them were like that, just this little bickering and little stuff going on. Well, I really figured out later that was really how they identified with one another. That was their identity. But neither one of us, Tammy, nor I, neither one of us, were willing to put up with that. And we told each other, if we're going to do that, then this isn't going to work. And so we committed to not being that way. We actually wrote out a whole list of how I what I commit to this relationship, wow, and and how I want this relationship to work. And we both did it together, and we agreed upon it all and set forth from there. And so, like I say, it took us few years, yeah, really get our footing right. And then even after that, there was the occasional little breakdown once in a while, but it was rare. We were married for 47 years, and I would say for the last 20 of those, at least, or 25 of those, at least, it was incredibly good. Wow. It was incredibly good.

Kelan David  43:35  

It's a relationship that not only your kids, but like extended family, all the cousins and whatnot.

Robert  43:41  

Admire, yeah, yeah. And we wanted to be an example others. That's beautiful. So actually, now you reminded me of another song, but I've got one more song that I had in mind. So for our 25th anniversary, I put together a CD, an hour long CD, of all my love songs to her, yeah, so all of my love songs an hour long, and we went to Hawaii. And so I took the CD and a CD player and speakers and everything to Hawaii. We ended up in Kauai. We went to the Princeville resort in Kauai. And I talked to the people at the Princeville resort. They have a great big, huge lobby. And I asked them if I could set up my music out in their lobby. And they said, Yes. She had no idea any of this was happening. So we ate fabulous dinner there, and I said, I've got something for you that I want to share with you. And so I went out and set up my little speakers and all my stuff and push play, and we danced to every single song, oh, my God, an hour in the Princeville resort with people walking by and everything.

Maia Honeycutt  44:46  

But that's so beautiful.

Robert  44:49  

The very last song that I put on there that became my song to her at that time. Now that was in 2003 was our anniversary, but I knew the song before that. But I just absolutely loved the song, yeah, so that's so

Kelan David  45:03  

was this one. The first time you heard it was like, This is a song for mom.

Robert  45:07  

The first time I heard it, I knew it was a song for mom, but I don't remember when that was, yeah, we had four kids and everything else going on, and it's like, but I knew this was my song to her, still in love, by Lionel Richie. And I love the music in the song, and I love the lyrics

Speaker 2  45:25  

in the song. Every word I say is true. Every word is meant for you. As I look across the table, in your eyes, I see forever, girl, there's no one else but you. Else will ever

Maia Honeycutt  46:12  

do so I just have to ask at this point, you said you guys been together for 25 years. Correct, you have four kids together. Correct around, what ages I mean

Robert  46:26  

at this point in time, yeah, so

Kelan David  46:28  

I would have been like, 18,

Maia Honeycutt  46:30  

so kind of Yeah, you were just graduated from high school,

Kelan David  46:33  

graduated high school, or, like, about to graduate

Maia Honeycutt  46:35  

 high school. So at this point, you guys had raised four kids together.

Robert  46:39  

Yeah, our daughter was 15, yeah. The youngest, she was 15. And then the two, well, the older boys were in college at this point in time.

Maia Honeycutt  46:48  

It's just so beautiful, because you're in such a different place the two of you than you were when you when you first found each other. I don't know just just to be so in love still and

Kelan David  46:59  

like, what the song is saying? Like, yeah, still in love with you, yeah,

Robert  47:03  

yeah, yeah, and it. And then this last part is

Speaker 2  47:22  

as the years, keep getting long, it only makes my love go strong. I just can't go another day until I can hear you say, how can you say

Maia Honeycutt  48:11  

I just have to say, Robert, that if somebody had played music for me like that, To dance for an hour on my 25th anniversary, man, my heart would be theirs forever. That is the most romantic, sweetest thing I've ever heard. Yeah, it was, it was fun.

Robert  48:30  

I I'm a romantic, and she loved to be romanced.

Maia Honeycutt  48:35  

One woman doesn't, yeah,

Robert  48:38  

so she it. It it worked for us, because she really loved to be romanced. And I am a romantic, like I said, that song was played at her memorial service also, yeah, so I've got, I've got one more thing, okay, that I thought of as we were doing this. You were talking about the universe bringing you songs, yeah, after all of this, and after her ceremony, my big question has been, who am I now? You know you you've been my life for 47 years, two months and 16 days, and now you're gone. Who am I and what am I supposed to do? You know, what's life about at this point? And so I was just scrolling through YouTube, just haphazardly, just for something to do to keep me busy for a few minutes, and this song came up. It's an album called seeker. Rob Ricardo, well, seeking is something that we talked about a lot, seeking God, seeking peace, seeking these things. How do we find those things within us? So anyway, the album title kind of caught my attention, and then the song was the quest, which again piqued my interest, so I hid it and listened to it. That song was like her. Are talking to me,

Maia Honeycutt  50:01  

Oh, wow,

Speaker 4  50:02  

open up your eyes. It's safe to come outside. There's a whole new world waiting. Despite what you might hear, it ain't so dark out here. There's so much light around waiting. This is your quest, your journey, beautiful years of learning who you are, what your be.

Robert  50:39  

It's It's like her talking to me right there, and it's like, that's what she would tell me, big, wide world out here, and be open to it. And she would tell me live in peace. She would tell me live with love in your life and have joy. And that's that was how she lived her life, and I think that's what she would share with me. Anyway, that song came up, and it's like, it just hit me, like, boom, yeah, her talking to me, telling me it's okay, yep, it's okay.

Maia Honeycutt  51:12  

Yeah, that's beautiful.

Robert  51:13  

Talk about, you know, the universe sending you songs. Well, that's what it felt like, no,

Maia Honeycutt  51:17  

that's Oh, that's beautiful. I and for you guys to have always communicated your love for each other through music like that, it makes perfect sense for her to have sent you something, right? Yeah, at this moment, yeah.

Robert  51:32  

So anyway, that's meant a lot to me. Yeah.

Maia Honeycutt  51:35  

Wow. Thank you so much for everything that you brought here today. I just feel like this has been such a beautiful reminiscing. I know it's hard, especially so early to

Robert  51:46  

it's it's helpful, though it really is helpful. And for anyone that's grieving a loss like that, it's important for me to be able to talk and to be able to convey those things. I think a lot of times, people don't want to bring it up or whatever, and they're afraid to reopen the wound. Well, what they don't understand is the wounds wide open and it will be and you can't reopen it. It's already wide open and it's healing. It's to just talk, just talk about these things. So this has been really, really valuable for me, just to be able to go through all of this and remember these songs and how they fit with our life and and how they led us to where we are

Maia Honeycutt  52:35  

today, right? Yeah, I just want to chime in because something that helped me through grieving my grandma, and it's something that I keep hearing in what you're saying, and it's that grief is gratitude, this whole story that you've been telling us. I just think it's beautiful that so much of what I'm hearing is gratitude, gratitude, gratitude. And I think it's beautiful that, yes, you're opening your wound, or you're you're talking about things that are making you cry, because it's painful sometimes to remember these things, but at the same time, everything that is coming from you is gratitude towards the person that she was and in the love that she gave for you. And so I think that's beautiful. And I think you're right. If you're not willing to talk about any of this at all and remember these things, then you will lose some of that gratitude. I don't know. I just, I think that now that my grandma's gone, I also I take every opportunity I can to bring her up and share the person that she was for me to other people. Yeah, that helps her stay around too. It helps it helps her feel closer to me, and that's the thing that you really miss when someone's gone, right? Is you miss that energy that they had, that that love that they gave to you. You miss the person that they were. When I do get to talk about my grandma, I feel a bit of that, and I get to bring a little bit of that back, and I get to extend all the gratitude to wherever. I don't know where she is, if she's somewhere, if she's just one with everything again, maybe she doesn't exist in as herself anymore. I don't know, but I like to kind of feel that she gets that gratitude when I do get to talk about her. I hope that it goes somewhere and I get to share that love, and instead of it just,

Robert  54:23  

well, it goes, it goes into the universe.

Kelan David  54:25  

Yeah, it does and and it also is something that you feel and experience. So gratitude is, you know, sort of a gift that you give to yourself. Also, yes, that's so true.

Robert  54:36  

Yeah, if you didn't love so deeply, you wouldn't have the grief the same way I look at it, that I am so grateful for what we had, and I thank her every day for for what we shared together here. I mean, we had a ton of fun through 47 years, you know, and all kinds of things. And I. So anyway, yes, I am very grateful for that.

Maia Honeycutt  55:04  

Thank you for sharing all of the of the gratitude I can get a sense of who Tammy was, and I'm enjoying that feeling.

Robert  55:20  

86 days ago, I lost my wife. No, I didn't misplace her. She left. No, she didn't lock out the door and leave. She died. She moved on. She passed away. She transitioned however you want to say it, she's not a physical part of my life anymore. She's still very much a part of my life in so many different ways. But anyway, I just, I wanted to bring that in, because I've been talking like, you know,

Maia Honeycutt  55:45  

well, and obviously it sounds like she was a beautiful and joyful person that would have absolutely been on the podcast.

Robert  55:53  

Oh, she would love this, yeah, yeah, and yeah, she loved music too. And a lot of our life was built around that, and she was someone that lived from a place of love and peace and joy, and would tell you, live in the moment. Live in the moment. Don't be out in the future, in the past. Live in the moment and live in moment, in peace and in joy, in and love. She was an incredible, incredible incredible woman. She really was

Robert  56:32  

an entire story in minutes, the message conveyed through the lyrics, the melody, the chords that are played. It's the background in the movies that leads us through the action to feel happy, sad, scared or in awe, and magnify our reaction. It tells us of hope, of wonder and delight. It tells us of tragedy, of pain and of fright. It can say in a few words what we feel deep inside, or convey thoughts and emotions we've been trying to clarify, the magic of music is universal in scope. It helps us to heal. It helps us to cope. The magic of music, it's in through and around all of our existence. It is truly profound. So let the music flow. Let its magic. Touch your heart, sing, play, dance or cry, revel in its art.

Kelan David  57:30  

So that was a poem that my dad had written. Okay, the whole story is that we drew names for Christmas, and there was a theme we were supposed to follow, a theme that was magic, a magic theme. And my dad drew my sister's name. He decided to give her the magic of music. Gave her a collection, you know, influential to him, or just stuff that he liked. He wrote a poem to go along with it.

Maia Honeycutt  57:53  

So that was a poem that your dad wrote about the magic of music. Yeah.

Kelan David  57:57  

So he has been really interested in songwriting for a long time, and he has approached me more than once to try and get me to, like, sort of write songs with him in a way, or for him, using lyrics that he has. And now he has this AI tool that he uses to make these songs for my mom now, and they are all just very heartfelt. It's been an outlet for him that I feel has given like a life to the way he's feeling, and something that we can all sort of listen to and pay attention to, and it's also just entertaining at the same time, and in a way, because they're just sort of good songs. Awesome. Yeah, so if anybody is interested in having listened to any of the songs that he has written, I think he has 17 up right now on YouTube. Wow, yeah, so he has written. It's all his lyrics, and the videos are almost all pictures that he's taken. And like pictures of him and my mom and family and just different things, landscapes. It's cool that.

Maia Honeycutt  58:59  

I think that sounds awesome. I think it sounds like a really positive thing. That's what AI is supposed to be. Truly is a tool to allow you to do things that you can't do yourself right in like you said, bringing life to these words that he's written right now he gets to hear the songs that he has written about your mom. That sounds like a beautiful thing to me. That makes me happy. Yeah, Word and wait to hear some of them. I'm gonna check him out.

Kelan David  59:27  

Okay? And he says that he, you know, he listens to them a lot, so, you know, he's getting the creative outlet. But then I think he's also like, oh, man, I totally feel this.

Maia Honeycutt  59:37  

How cool is that? That's, that's what music is supposed to be is you're you're able to experience, you know, even just physically, the vibrations Yeah, through your body, right? Of like, the words and emotions and yeah.

Kelan David  59:50  

And so he has been able to use this AI tool to, yeah, make songs that he can relate to because he wrote them. Yeah, that's awesome. And. He can sing along, and I'm thankful for it, no,

Maia Honeycutt  1:00:03  

but that's beautiful, because he's truly creating love songs for Tammy.

Kelan David  1:00:09  

Word, yeah, exactly, exactly. Wow. Nice tie in, yeah. So we're gonna put the full poem that my dad wrote, The magic of music, on the website. So check it out there. You can find my dad's music on YouTube at tam Rob, 78 so it's T, A, M as in Tammy, and then R, O, B, as in Robert, and then 78 the year that they were married. Thanks for coming. We'll have a link to all of my dad's music from nine seven West studio in beautiful Grand Junction, Colorado,

Maia Honeycutt  1:00:42  

today's episode was recorded, produced and edited by your hosts, Kelan David and Maya sage. Did you know that there's a lot of our conversation that doesn't make the final episode? If you want to hear full uncut interviews, you can join our community on Patreon. Our website is that takes me back.org where you can find all of our episodes as well as a playlist of the songs we've had on the show. Feel free to email connect at that takes me back.org we'd love to hear from you. If you enjoyed listening, please share it with a friend. You.