How dare you make us cry, Boots and Willie!

We wandered through the summertime

And drifted into fall

We never thought of winter at all

How foolishly we tossed away

The buttercups, the time,

Who’d have thought

We’d have no more songs to sing

Hills to climb?

We summered in each other’s arms

And slumbered in the glow

We never heard the whisper of snow

But summer’s not forevermore

No matter how we tried 

The trouble with hello is goodbye

   — The Trouble With Hello is Goodbye

I choose to use that song as intro because today’s farewell piece (and belated tribute) is about a well-loved radio program that ended yesterday right on its sixth anniversary…what a painful irony!

I’m referring to Boots Anson-Roa and Willie Nepomuceno’s dzMM program Music & Memories which has been making not only my Sunday afternoons but those of thousands of music lovers both here and abroad, most of them senior citizens and also including junior ones, worthwhile as Boots and Willie lovingly brought us down Memory Lane.

The program kept us glued to the radio for two hours with songs from yesteryear that marked milestones in our lives (you know, as a friend said while listening misty-eyed to Didn’t We, “I lost ‘it’ to that song one moonlit night), with Boots and Willie educating us on the background of each song and insights into what inspired the composers. They were such a perfect tandem, well-rounded and well-versed about the focus of the program even if sometimes they suffered from senior moments (tell me, which Baby Boomer doesn’t?) and playfully called on their listeners to help them, well, fill in the blanks in their memory. 

They were so cool together that their soothing voices sounded like the music they were playing, making us feel as if they were just seated next to you at your sala, savoring a leisurely Sunday afternoon over a merienda of native delicacies. That’s why during the past six years, Boots and Willie have become like your family and mine, connecting us with music and memories and much, much more!

Yesterday afternoon, I, as usual and even more so, was all ears and all heart to Music & Memories as avid followers poured their hearts out in text messages that filled up the dzMM computer and Boots and Willie’s celfones. As they played goodbye songs…yes, starting with The Trouble With Hello is Goodbye, with Willie saying, “Listen carefully to the lyrics of the songs” flashed on the screen…I, like thousands of others, felt a certain ache in my heart because I wouldn’t know how to fill up those two precious hours of my Sunday afternoons that have become a cherished habit. Should I take a power nap and in my mind replay the songs, many of them rare ones, that Boots and Willie played on their lamented program and distinctly recorded on the soundtrack of my mind?

Boots and Willie choked a bit as yesterday’s edition was coming to a close; they couldn’t cry (even if, I guess, they wanted to) because it wouldn’t look good on screen but I did in the privacy of my room which will be deprived of music and memories in the forthcoming Sundays. How dare you make me cry, Boots and Willie!

Yes, I shed tears for Boots and Willie and for their Music & Memories but not a drop for whoever let the axe fall on them, thereby maybe unwittingly taking away from us such a musically wonderful Sunday afternoon company.

As Boots and Willie did on their program yesterday, I am ending this piece with this goodbye song:

I’ll be seeing you;

In all the old, familiar places;

That this heart of mine embraces;

All day through.
 

In that small cafe;

The park across the way;

The children’s carousel;

The chestnut tree;

The wishing well.
 

I’ll be seeing you;

In every lovely, summers day;

And everything that’s bright and gay;

I’ll always think of you that way;

I’ll find you in the morning sun;

And when the night is new;

I’ll be looking at the moon;

But I’ll be seeing you.

                — I’ll Be Seeing You

(See you “somewhere,” Boots and Willie. I hope it’s not really goodbye, after all. For now, thank you for the music and memories.)

(E-mail reactions at [email protected]. You may also send your questions to [email protected]. For more updates, photos and videos visit www.philstar.com/funfare or follow me on www.twitter/therealrickylo.)