All my life I have been wooed by a song. Okay—not quite ALL my life considering that it came out two years after my birth, but you get the idea.

It entered my young ears via a stereo masquerading as a piece of furniture roughly the size and shape of a credenza. My father built it and began amassing his record collection (which, as I recall, consisted mainly of pipe organ music and big band favorites) long before I came along. Somehow, tucked among these more noble selections, stood a lone wolf. Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass were apparently all the rage in 1968 and they recorded a song that will forever stand in my heart as a favorite, even though I am embarrassed by this confession.

I heard it not just on Daddy’s behemoth stereo, but over the radio, on television, in grocery stores over the loudspeakers as we meandered the aisles, sneaking things into mom's cart that she would later remove with frazzled disgust. This song was everywhere and became part of the soundtrack of my child...