Just this morning, out of a large memory for songs, and having been obsessed by them since childhood, suddenly, at the age of 84, I thought of a song I hadn't thought of in over 50 years. It came into my head unbidden.

My poor vision gives me a soft-focus morning. For the first half hour, I kind of wander through my house, and everything is a blur. I put my contacts in when I'm ready to deal with the world.

We all deal with issues of time. The first thing you do in the morning is look at the clock to see what time it is.

I got up one Christmas morning and we didn't have nothing to eat. We didn't have an apple, we didn't have an orange, we didn't have a cake, we didn't have nothing.

And now the momentous day, a day to be forever remembered in the annals of the country, arrived. Early in the morning on the 1st of July the conflict began.