Making Memories with the Help of YouTube

When my sister Martha and I were little, our grandfather used to sing us a song from the Spanish Zarzuela “La Vervena de la Paloma”; he used to sin “Una morena y una rubia, hijas del pueblo de Madrid…” (A blond and a brunette, daughters of the town of Madrid…) . Though my sister and I are not twins, we were the youngest ones in the family, and always did many things together. I was blond, with blue eyes; and my sister had dark hair and eyes.

After my twin granddaughters were born I began singing that song to them. Inez is blond and Sylvie has darker hair. Two problems with my singing attempts: The first is that I have a terrible voice; the second is that I did not know the lyrics to the whole song, only part of it. One day it occurred to me that in the massive amount of videos posted on YouTube there had to be at least one version of this song. Sure enough, I found several versions, and I picked the one I liked the most. I have revived that memory for myself, and my granddaughters will have that memory to take into de future.

As an added memory maker, I found the DVD of the zarzuela on the Internet, and I bought a copy for my sister Martha; now she too can remember and enjoy!