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Time in a Bottle: Dust in the Wind and the Summer of 77

We had the experience but missed the meaning,
And approach to the meaning restores the experience
In a different form, beyond any meaning
We can assign to happiness.

— Eliot, The Dry Salvages

Following a memory of my own, I “found” this video shortly after it was posted to YouTube around fourteen years ago. It struck me then as powerful in that offhand, out-of-left-field way that found objects can be. The power of this short window into 1977 is that it captures, without intent, the elements of memory. It melds the plaintive almost psalmic acoustic hit by Kansas with imagery whose sheer faded quality adds to an overall impression of other times once lived and now gone beyond recall. It is the essence of “time in a bottle.”

Ordinary when made the film aged into something beyond itself. The better memories do that. They seem if we think of them at all at the time we have the experience we will later remember, to be just barely beyond the cusp of ordinary. Often we don’t even discover them as memories until years later when they emerge, not as they were, but as they have become as our souls expand enough to value what we thought at the time was dross as the real gold of our lives.

The fact that it was viewable by me at all was one of those strange conjunctions of love and fate that the Web has made possible. The video is under the YouTube account of “uselessdirector” who has in the years since he posted this posted only two other personal bits in his account. The response to those is what it should be. Negligible. But the response to this video is now above 3,640,000 6,277,000 9,552,840 views with fresh comments still coming in almost daily.

What is the provenance of this video? Uselessdirector states only, “Filmed in 1977 by my dad, this music video nearly became “dust in the wind” until it was restored from its failing 8mm format.” His role was to see the film as it was made, 8MM or 16MM, and to save it as a video before time faded the film to invisibility. He caught it just in time and in doing so caught time itself. Then because he knew it had a value beyond itself and because he could, he placed it on YouTube where, in time, it was discovered.

From the video itself, we learn the names of the “Cast” in the credits and also see a list of “The Tribe.” Aside from that, there are other hints to the spring or summer in which this was made. We discover it was made in Findley Lake, New York, a small rural community up near the shore of Lake Erie. Was “The Tribe” a group of friends or a small commune of the kind that was still common in those years? Did the young man and young woman paired as “Adam” and “Eve” have a relationship outside the film or was it only for the purposes of the film? Somehow I doubt it was the latter.

Looking a little deeper into the Net I found a few things worth noting. For one thing, it is possible, through the odd but wonderful Google Street View to compare “Then” with “Now” and confirm, as if we did not know it with every cell of our being, that “Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky.”

An interesting exercise in contrasting the present to a memory. But “interesting” is pretty much the finish of the exercise. In mere aesthetic terms, it is obvious that the “Then” as evoked by the film image is far superior to the glimpse of “Now” gleaned by a Google Street View car sweeping by and capturing a slice of that particular road during the particular minute it passed that otherwise nondescript place on the edge of Findley Lake. The former is gold, the latter dross.

What was the memory I was following when I first found this film? It was the memory of that song heard first in the summer of 1977 somewhere in London, New York, or Burgundy. I loved the summer of 1977. It was one of my favorite years. It was one of those luminous years when everything seemed to fall right and come together into something you could assign to happiness. I’d wait 26 years for the next one.

I heard the song once again in memory. It was in a suburban mall parking lot in Connecticut on a chill winter evening during one of those years when it all went smash.

If I have to choose between memories I’ll take the one contained in this ineffable bit of short film saved from the fade and the fog of time. It’s one of those strange artifacts that evoke among those alive in the time it was made the cliched thought, “Dear God, were we ever that young?”

Made on a whim during an afternoon, the film answers, “Yes, you were. Yes, we all were. And in time, with the grace of God, we all will be again.”

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • pbird December 29, 2017, 9:29 AM

    I do love that video.

  • Sam L. December 29, 2017, 9:30 AM

    Another classic, Gerard. Do it again, same time (or maybe on the 31st), next year.

  • GoneWithTheWind December 29, 2017, 1:29 PM

    Speaking of found objects and old memories. When my parents passed away some 20+ years ago I got their albums, old pictures not in the albums and a bunch of large format black and white negatives. When I retired 10 years later I had time to copy all the pictures to the computer and catagorize and label them. Then one day trying to decipher some of those old negatives by holding them up to the light (which is damned near impossible) I had a revelation. My parents, aunts and uncles were poor people and they printed each picture only once. But some/many of them they gave away. In other words I didn’t have a print of many of those negatives. So I began printing them and copying them to the computer. I found a few that I simply didn’t know the who, what, when or where of them. So on a visit back East I looked up an old cousin (I mean old as in 87) and she unlocked the mysteries. One sweet little 3 year old girl sitting next to me (the 4 year old boy) on the couch was a long lost second cousin who I didn’t remember. As luck would have it she lived 40 miles or so from my cousins house. So my wife and I drove over and she was standing in her driveway watching us pull in. When I saw her she looked very much like in that old picture except 68 years older. When I stepped out and told her who I was the look on her face was worth all that effort to track her down.

  • Guaman December 29, 2017, 1:39 PM

    I do think this needs an annual re-running. Some things like the movie Casablanca are good and just don’t age. Literature has its diamonds too. Not enough time for that, but keep this one in front of us now and again for as long as you can. Thank you for reposting it.

  • ghostsniper December 29, 2017, 2:47 PM

    So we try to be something in the brief time we’re here.

  • Tom Hyland December 29, 2017, 9:11 PM

    I like very much that it was black & white and crunchy on the edges. Did someone attempt to colorize the flowers or did the film simply fade to this level? The editing was bit abrupt… if those ghosts of days past could have faded slowly to nothing this film would be world renown. But whoever was throwing the dust did a great job. Summer of ’77 I was 21 years old and that guy sitting in the circle with the black hair… without a shirt… scared me a second. Looked just like me.

  • Ok December 30, 2017, 9:01 AM

    Perfect nostalgia. I was this age in ’77. We listened to this song (album actually) on heavy rotation with Boston and Rush. But the words never meant what they mean now, after 40 years of growing older, loss of friends and family, pain, and the relentless decay and spinning of the earth. Even back then we thought we understood the meaning, but now we feel it in every cell of our aching bones. We truly are dust in the wind, and there is a lump in my dusty throat.

  • Joyful December 30, 2017, 2:29 PM

    Still haunts me. I was 11 and in my suburban detroit kitchen, im the youngest of a yugh family and was not alone at the time for sure, and the melody that i recognized from hearing it on the radio was replaying on the kitchen tv and was accompanied by video showing tumbleweeds. It held me, a Catholic girl growing up across from the church where each ash wednesday we would stop in the church and receive ashes and a reminder that we came from dust. I remember my dad catching my eye, he had been watching me watch the song. He was gentle, not much older then than i am now, and i would guess he was determining if he should assure me or not. He didnt so i guessed there was some truth in that song.

    Now that im closer to returning to the dust i practice much more… and i pray for mercy.

  • Jim January 4, 2018, 6:13 AM

    Thanks for sharing that. Ah, summer of 77, I was 17 and just graduated from HS. The best of times, cool cars, cool hair, cool clothes…..40 amazing years later those cars are still cool, even more so. The hair and clothes, not so much. Charlie’s Angels, Kojak, and Wonder Woman, Star Wars and Smokey and the Bandit, Dust in the Wind, Carry on my Wayward Son, and Night Moves. Gosh those were good times. No I take that back, women had burned their bras a few years earlier, so it was the best of times for a young red blooded American male!

  • JiminAlaska December 30, 2018, 11:13 AM

    I watched this back in ’17 with much the same thoughts/feelings expressed by Gerard.

    This time around the phrase, youth is wasted on the young popped into my head, followed by, what I then considered to be a, corollary, age is wasted on the old.

    Videos, literature, shucky darn, simple conversations do allow the aged to tap back in to the vitality of youth and the young to assimilate some of the hard earned wisdom gained by the old.

    As we used to say, it seems eons ago; Hey man, it’s all good!

  • Joe December 30, 2018, 12:01 PM

    I’ve always loved this music..I find it haunting..and nothing does last forever… except…

  • Joe December 30, 2018, 12:05 PM

    I’ve always loved this music..I find it haunting..and nothing does last forever… except…
    Gerard,you did well.A happier New Year to you.

  • Sam L. December 30, 2018, 12:37 PM

    The 30th is close enough, Gerard. Thanks for the memories encased in the film.

  • BillH December 30, 2018, 2:13 PM

    Summer ’77 was pretty good. Built our third, and last house. Forty years later ’bout decided we did it right for once. Two kids flew the nest in ’77 and soon moved out of town, but the other four finished growing up in this place, and three of them still live within two miles. At his age, having three out of six close by is good. Yep, things were pretty good in ’77 and keep getting better.

  • Howard Nelson December 30, 2018, 2:37 PM

    And when the wind
    dies down
    the dust settles down
    hugs the ground
    of Mother Earth
    ready again to serve
    in blossoming future birth.
    —–
    In one form or another we are forever

  • Kristin December 30, 2018, 2:58 PM

    It evoked that time in our lives. How I wish now, today, I had a camera ( GoPro on my riding helmet) then, when my sister and I set out on our horses for the day in warm July.
    Stopping, ringing the front door bells and begging for water for our huge sweet animals who carried us all day till sundown and mother was waiting at the kitchen window.
    This song would make our ride great.
    We each had a horse, but no camera.
    It’s in our hearts.
    Thank you Gerard.

  • Mark Nicolas December 30, 2018, 2:59 PM

    T. S. Eliot is also a favorite of this A. D. supporter. Payoff is in the 3rd verse.

    Choruses from The Rock – T.S. Eliot

    The Eagle soars in the summit of Heaven,
    The Hunter with his dogs pursues his circuit.
    O perpetual revolution of configured stars,
    O perpetual recurrence of determined seasons,
    O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying!

    The endless cycle of idea and action,
    Endless invention, endless experiment,
    Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
    Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
    Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.

    All our knowledge brings us nearer to death,
    But nearness to death no nearer to God.
    Where is the Life we have lost in living?
    Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
    Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

  • ghostsniper December 30, 2018, 3:01 PM

    “Summer ’77 was pretty good.”
    ====================

    Yep.
    And getting better by the boatload.
    I was an ambulance driver-medic that year. In Germany. Autobahns. 135 mph. whoosh

    I PCS’d stateside to Fort Campbell in Nov. after 37 months non-stop over seas, just 7 more months to go. To freedom. hail yeah!

    Received an award that year. For driving +20,000 miles, more than 3 times the amount of 2nd place, in large military vehicles carrying demolitions and/or personnel in simulated combat settings at night, below freezing, in the deep snow (yes, chains on all 10 tires and ether in the throat). I was 22 in 77. I hated it then but glad I have it behind me. My first mutt, purchased in 1984, was AKC registered and his registered name was Dustyn DaWyn.

  • steve walsh December 31, 2018, 3:57 AM

    Always loved this song and, for some odd reason, got the meaning of the lyrics from the first listen; that’s a big part of why I enjoyed it so. I saw my friends and family in a different way from that point forward. I was 20 years old in 1977. The following ten years saw many in my family pass, from grandparents to a sibling, cousins, an aunt, my father-in-law. I still think of them from time to time, and remember who they were and the times we had together. They didn’t last forever but they live in my memory.

  • arcs December 31, 2018, 7:02 AM

    1977. I was so young and stupid then but in spite of myself, I’m much older now.

    “Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky.” Not even those last forever. I just found the other day that the North Star changes every few millenia. If I ever knew that, I had forgotten it.

    “Be ahead of all parting,” Rilke wrote. The older I get, the more wise that seems.

  • Will December 31, 2018, 9:05 AM

    That video nailed it. The Schwinn 10-speed, the Chevy van, the jeans and tank tops, the long hair. I was 13 that summer and like a commenter above had that album along with Boston and Rush and Steve Miller and Styx and many others. It was only a year after America’s Bicentennial celebration and a couple of years after Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s home run record. There was a sense of America then as opposed to the division and conflict we have now in this country. What a different time in the world.

  • AesopFan January 1, 2019, 12:39 PM

    “This time around the phrase, youth is wasted on the young popped into my head, followed by, what I then considered to be a, corollary, age is wasted on the old.” — JiminAlaska

    Indeed.
    As I have been contemplating the pros and cons of growing older, Jim captures my musings well.
    If only we had known then what we know now; or had the body to do now what we did then!
    In 1977, I was finally finished with 6 years of college, working as a computer programmer — when it was still a new profession, and enjoying the first of our five children.
    I have since watched many of my elders and those of friends, and even my own generation, slip into the fog of Alzheimer’s and other mental frailites. The most wrenchingly heart-breaking consequence is their inability to recognize their families.
    It occurred to me one day, looking through old photographs of my children, that THIS is how I remember them: the gap-toothed smiling whooping band of urchins, or the solemn ersatz-sheepskin-clenching graduates, or the stars-in-the-eyes tender hand-holding newlyweds.
    Then they come to visit, and I wonder: Who are all these bearded, slightly pot-bellied and balding men? Where are my children??
    Some day, I will forget that they are the same people.

  • JC January 3, 2019, 5:11 PM

    I’m late to this, but. I took me to 2 places. Junior year in high school and the other was shortly after my stepfather died.

    My high school memories are probably the same as many others. But after my stepfather died I was responsible for him at the end of his life. He didn’t care much for me, but he trusted me to do the right thing.

    He had boxes of pictures. Written on the back of many of them was a description of who, where and a date. Most of them were from his life 1930-2016. Some of them were from his father’s time in World War 1. I came to my attention that in our digital age finding 100 year old pictures of a person that you had known fighting in “The War to End All Was” is very unlikely and a bit sad.

  • Auntie Analogue December 30, 2020, 4:15 PM

    Si jeunesse savait; si vieillesse pouvait. – If youth knew; if age could.

  • Terry December 30, 2020, 5:35 PM

    Yep 1977 was fun for me. In 1976 I took the job of a lifetime, at least for me. I got hired by the most prestigious Porsche race team in the US and winningest in the world. Worked long hours sometimes 7 days a week. During the 1978 season a new sponsor came on board. A company I had never heard of, Hawaiian Tropic.

    This added some new team members, the “Hawaiian Tropic Girls”. Six to eight gorgeous girls in bikini’s at every race. Oh, and they were single. These team members made our pits overflow with “visitors”.

    Yep, the seventies were memorable.

  • Billy Pilgrim December 30, 2020, 8:06 PM

    Teevee was actually pretty good back then. In Search Of was awesome, it blew my doors off as a lil’ guy. Shows like Benny Hill, Archie Bunker/All In the Family, Sanford and Son, Barney Miller, Three’s Company, no way that some of those could be made today.
    AM radio actually rocked back then and the movies were solid gold free of any SJW agenda.
    The second Dirty Harry film has a prophetic scene about the SJW rot with the female parking ticket cop promoted to homicide with zero street experience.
    A golden time of movies and music that won’t be seen again. It probably started to decline with cable and MTV.
    Locally it was rural route farmland with crops everywhere, three stoplights, drugstore, grocery, pizza joint, motel, and now it is a bland sterile stripmallville eyesore with stoplights for every shopping temple entrance along the ten mile strip of electronic gadget stores, corporate food outlets and big box marts.
    This whole global utopia shopping mall for the world thing is highly overrated.
    When all of the farmland is a strip mall will our good buddy ally China send us some food?

  • double XX December 31, 2020, 7:31 AM

    JiminAlaska; I haven’t heard Shucky Darn in over forty years, thanks for the memory. Gerard, HAPPY NEW YEAR to you and all of your readers.

  • Dave December 31, 2020, 8:08 AM

    Yup, graduated high school in ’77, then off to college. 1977 was a great year, with fond memories of the times. Happy New Year everyone.

  • EX-Californian Pete December 31, 2020, 8:27 AM

    Always one of my favorite songs, and one of the first tunes I learned to play on harmonica.

    I remember the song playing on my car radio the second night I was “living” in my car after the Camp Fire destroyed Paradise, and how sadly true and fitting it was at the moment.
    “All things must pass” and “This too shall pass” came to mind, as both sayings described the situation perfectly.

    Great line from the song- “It slips away. And all your money won’t another minute buy.”

  • Anne December 31, 2020, 8:55 AM

    1977. Aged 33. For the first time so free, so hard working–so vulnerable and naive.

  • Dirk December 31, 2020, 9:25 AM

    As I sit here, in my stereo room, listening to Ray Charles, ” Genius Loves Company”, I remember early Navy for me, an Airdale, in a A7E squadron, ” Fighting RedCocks” and deployed on the USS Coral Sea. WesPac, off the coast of Australia when this song popped.

    I LOVE music, I have the honor of listening daily, my collection is large by any standard.

    I’ve said this, here before, I come here for GV’s insight, its refreshing, in these crazy times. Equally important is my attachment to you all. I find this site to be filled with smarter folks, I’m often challenged in finding the meaning in posts. I love that challenge.

    What appeals to me is the stark Frank honesty here. Example is the above, you have all shared your heart, with your cherished remembrances of your past, triggered by music. Pretty much all of my long term memories, good and bad, are triggered by music. I smile, and sometimes, I cry, for the loss of family and friends I share the love of live, of music with.

    Happy New Year to you all.

    Dirk

  • Jeff Allen December 31, 2020, 1:40 PM

    “Made on a whim during an afternoon…” y’know, I don’t think it was all that whimsical; what with the 8-mm production techniques, it’s pretty crafted.
    The locale (per the credits) was probably Camp Findley. Some of the Players are findable, many apples don’t fall far from the tree.
    IIRC 10,000 Maniacs came from the same upstate area, about that time. Must have been in the water.
    Observing the 50-year limit, we’ll still need a little time to declare it a (minor) classic, but it will come up soon.

  • Nori December 31, 2020, 9:28 PM

    “Time keeps on slippin,slippin,slippin…into the future…”.

    Happy New Year,good people.

  • ErisGuy January 1, 2021, 5:45 AM

    “ Now that im closer to returning to the dust i practice much more… and i pray for mercy.”

    After everything that has happened between now (2021) and then (2017), I hope you have found it.

  • pkerit January 1, 2021, 10:25 AM

    I remember this every time you post it