Remember Me?

My mother loved Johnnie Ray, so I learned to appreciate him at a very young age.  To me Johnnie Ray was a phonomenal talent.  His voice was pure and easy to listen to and his deliver of whatever he sang was very emotional.  What made him truly amazing to me was the fact that he was almost totally deaf from birth.  He began wearing a hearing aid at 14, so in effect he could not hear what we enjoyed most about him--his voice.

Many of his songs were sad, but I still enjoyed listening to them then and now.  Though I don't hear them as often as I once did, when I do it's like visiting an old friend.  Each one produces a memory of its own.

Crying in the Rain is a sad tale of lost love that is not that easy to forget.  We've all been there a time or two so we can easily relate.  It always reminds me of the time the boy I thought was mine brought someone else to the party.  I walked home alone in the rain, ruining my new shoes and best party dress.  I remember how alone I felt, but I can't remember the guy's name.  Guess he wasn't really worth the shoes and dress after all.

As I've mentioned in other memories I wasn't among the most sought after girls nor real in with the popular set of the times, so when Johnnie told the plantive tale of the lonely little cloud, The Little White Cloud That Cried I could relate and sympathize totally.  Sometimes even now when I'm feeling alone in a crowd that song pops into my head.

Of all the songs he did the one that effects me most is Look Homeward, Angel.  I can't tell you the number of times I've wondered like the lyrics of this song, "Do the folks back home remember me?'  Usually it's at the darkest times when life seems to be crashing down all around me and what I really want to know is there anyone left that cares about me.  I know that God cares and that sustains me most of the time, but sometimes I really need to know that someone out there cares enough to cry with me or hold me while I do.  Johnnie always reminds me that we all feel that way at times