The Middle School years are always an awkward age! Those were the years when Karen and I developed a love of music. Or was it a love of the teen idols who sang the songs?? Our favorite heartthrobs were the Monkees!!   We had major crushes on those cute boys!!  Karen’s favorite Monkee was Micky Dolenz and mine was Davy Jones. We would loudly play their record albums on the hi-fi in the living room, pretending we were each one of the members of the band, and dance and sing along as we played our air instruments. There was only one problem: NONE of us kids have the gift of a singing voice!!  My poor parents! I don’t know how they stood listening to us day after day!!  It must have been torture.  But we were sure having fun!!

Eventually we outgrew that phase and Karen moved on to a love for Glen Campbell and Barry Manilow and their music, particularly Barry, which lasted until the day she died. I’m not sure how many times she saw him in concert over the years, but it was a lot!! I believe her last visit to see Barry was in 2016 in Orlando, Florida. My sister Beth, our mom, and I attended with her and had a great time singing along to all of our favorite old songs.