Today’s “Funk and Roll Tuesday” entry is all about childhood memories. My friend Villager had me reflecting on my childhood anthem written by Stevie Wonder the other day. Check out his post and reader comments. It had me smiling a mile wide so I’m going to add the selection to this morning’s post.

There’s also a very recent hit that works well in combination with Stevie’s classic because it takes me back to one of my childhood loves that seemed to wax and wane in popularity in different parts of the country. In the last 10-20 years in has become an international sports craze. You’ll see it in a minute.

First though, if you ever have one of those days when you’re “Looking back on when I, Was a little nappy headed boy, When my only worry, Was for Christmas what would be my toy” then you’ll love this video from back in the day. With the exception of maybe one or two topics in the song this was pretty much life for me as a child. This is Stevie Wonder’s, “I Wish”.

The second selection is a recent jam that talks about skateboarding. This had on again-off again attraction in my St. Louis of the 70’s. It was most popular on the South Side where I finished grade school and I took my skateboard to school almost every day during that time. That was when they were made of narrow wedges of plastic not the wider wood models of today. We had serious fun on that asphalt playground at Waring School. Anyway, I think it was during or just after that “roll bounce” period.

Roller skating was always popular but the 70’s was it’s heyday. Whoops, I digress.

Back to the subject at hand. Although I could stand up on roller skates I actually liked skateboarding more. I originally thought there were some underlying sexual overtones to this next song - references to grinding - but it really seems to be nothing more than a cool, innocent jazzy-hip hop jam about urban skateboarding.

You heard it a lot when it came out a few months ago, but in case you never caught the name of the group, here’s D.J. Fiasco with “Kick, Push”.

I said it before and I’ll say it again. I love music - I’ll save the O’Jays for another day - and these tunes tie it all together for me. I hope you enjoy these jams as much as I do.