To celebrate 30 years of Echo Beach being an international hit, Martha and the Muffins held a contest where fans submitted stories of a big day in their life. MatM selected four of the entries as finalists - the winner's story will be turned into a song, written and performed by Martha and the Muffins.
The four following stories have been chosen as finalists. Please click on the link "VOTE FOR THIS STORY" of your favourite entry. An email will open - all you have to do is click "Send".
STORY 1
The only thing that helps pass the time away is remembering our trip…30 years?!? No way !
Ah, the summer of 1980. I was 12 and my older sister was….30 years younger than she is now.
We know first-hand what a hit Echo Beach was that summer and we know for certain that it was on the top of the playlist of every AM radio station across Canada.
Starting out in Sudbury, Ontario, we drove west for three hot July days on our way to Calgary. We heard Echo Beach at least once an hour for three days as we passed through new towns with new radio stations. What was at first amusing slowly became habit forming and eventually legendary for us. We would laugh out loud as we gladly sang along through the countryside.
Echo Beach ingrained itself in our ears and minds. It was more than a song that summer. As we drove through the vast expanses of Canada’s west, Echo Beach was our destination.
No road trip since has ever been as fun, or memorable as the trip that we took in 1980. And try as we have, we have never found a road trip song such as Echo Beach.
STORY 2
Echo Beach – an enduring love story…..
“Far away in time, …..” she’s singing it again, singing since before I was born, and before…..and before…The salty air rushes past, she lifts me, I gurgle, close my eyes. The squawk of the gulls, muffled rumble of the breakers, the smell of ozone and my young Mum’s familiarity - rich, sensual, fulfilment, motherhood.
“Far away in time” – deeper tones this time and I feel the thrill of anticipation as strong male hands grip, begin swirling me securely through the air. I open my eyes and meet his, twinkling, as his face breaks into a broad grin ….. “My job is very boring I’m an office clerk…..” - for a second the responsibilities of career, parenthood slip away and we enjoy freedom together.
Far away in time”………..they’re all here, crunching across the sand-blown car park towards the beach. Laughing, jostling, joining in the familiar refrain…..The student with her sparking laugh and mane of golden hair, the boy, teetering between rejection of his youth, the family as he steps forward on his own path………All caught in the moment of shared memories. The grandparents, happily bewildered at their new position in this family they have created, held together – it all springing from their moment “far away in time” – a distant beach, a distant place, a distant time…
Over the breakwater together still singing.
“Come on muffin, look it’s the beach little Martha, your beach, your own “Echo Beach”, our special place…”
STORY 3
The vagaries of life have forced me to move. So I left one of the most beautiful European capitals, Paris.
The day I arrived in my "new town" to the south, with an exceptional climate, the light that embraced the city was literally filled.
I discovered a different quality of life where we take the time to do things without stress.
I knew it was time to change my way of life, to redirect some of my priorities. Now I needed a life less stressful, more oriented to the contemplation of nature that surrounds us.
Since then, each passing day I am constantly amazed when I see the sea, blue or green, calm or angry as a result of the mistral, the creeks of changing colors in the morning rather blue in the rise the spring moisture pines, shimmering orange evening under the rays of the sun sometimes violent.
Every morning I'm just happy to be alive.
--
Texte original en français
Les aléas de la vie m'ont obligé à déménager. J'ai donc quitté l'une des plus belles capitales européennes, Paris.
Le jour de mon arrivée dans ma "nouvelle ville" plus au sud, au climat exceptionnel, la lumière qui embrassait la ville m'a littéralement comblée.
J'y ai découvert une qualité de vie différente où l'on prend le temps de faire les choses sans stress. J'ai compris qu'il était temps de changé ma façon de vivre, de réorienter certaines de mes priorités. Désormais il me fallait une vie professionnelle moins stréssante, plus oreintée vers la contemplation de la nature qui nous entoure.
Depuis, à chaque jour qui passe je ne cesse de m'émerveiller lorsque que je vois la mer, bleue ou verte, calme ou en furie sous l'effet du mistral ; les calanques aux couleurs changeantes, le matin, plutôt bleuté sous la montée de l'humidité printanière des pins, le soir orangé chatoyant sous les rayons parfois violent du soleil.
Chaque matin je suis simplement heureux d'être vivant.
STORY 4
Remembering Camilla
When I think about it, my sister was actually an interesting young woman. At least during the short time she had on this planet. She was, for the most part, a quiet individual, but she was also quick to establish her personal boundaries whenever you crossed them too aggressively. That’s probably why I never felt that I ever owed her an amend for anything after I sobered up. In fact, I remember many times when she would literally try to scratch my eyes out, like a cat, whenever I stole into her space. And at other times, when I was being especially annoying, she would just quietly display a lazy form of the “bird” to me. She had her own way of letting you know when your actions were unimportant to her.
She was always a pretty girl. She had long, straight brown hair, brown eyes like mine, and noble cheek bones. She also had a very nice complexion all of her life. She was intelligent and very stoic most of the time and we both had similar faces when we were younger. We looked a lot like our father did when he was a young man.
Camilla loved horses and knew how to control them. I think she was so apparently calm most of the time because she’d let off so much of her own personal “steam” barrel racing her horse. She seemed very disciplined in her youth. She would work hard on any given day, come home and eat something, sit in the living room and watch some TV (slouching on the couch in that way that she always did, with bad posture and her arms up over her head), then she’d have a smoke or two and go straight to bed. There was never any fuss about it.
I never really knew what her life was all about during those final days, but then I was too selfishly busy within a little world I called my own. I never had the impression that she ever felt that she was missing out on anything that was going on around her either.
And then one day she died.
Either by accident or by being over worked and tired, no one really knows for sure, but she somehow rolled her
white pickup truck on a very lonely piece of highway in southern Colorado and died. I remember her visiting me at my apartment the day before her accident. We kind of sat in my living room and talked somewhat superficially about what was going on in each other’s lives. Both of us taking in that moment as if life was never going to end.
As we were leaving my apartment I proceeded down the hall one direction as she headed down the other. I turned around, casually, and said to her, “See you later Camilla,” at which point she turned, looked at me with the nicest smile I had ever gotten from her, and she said, “Bye.”
It would be the last thing I’d ever see her do. And the last thing I’d ever hear from her voice. I remember hating myself for not telling her to wear a seat belt, or to be careful or something. For not giving her at least a hug.
For not telling her more.
These days it is I who drives a white truck. I am still very fond of my sister, though I often realize that I never really got to know her very well. As I drive down the many roads that I do each day I am glad though. I’m glad that a physical part of her is within me. I’m glad that her departure changed me and my spiritual direction. But I sometimes wonder what God has done with her. You see, I don’t know if she ever got to know Jesus or not. But I usually turn this kind of thinking over to Him because He knows what is best.
The wind is now blowing into the cab of my truck as I drive along yet another lonely piece of highway. The sun is setting over the mountains. And as I look out at the world ahead of me, I sometimes wonder where it is that I am going too. And I wonder when and if I’ll get there.
I feel her face within my own, and I ponder what she may have been thinking about during those final moments of her life, as she was driving down her lonely piece of highway.
I guess that I will always miss her while I am here, and I hope that God will let me see her again, one day maybe.