“Tie a Yellow Ribbon…”©

Sunday afternoon I ran across a post on YouTube of Tony Orlando and Dawn singing their hit tune, “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree.” To say it was a hit is the understatement of pop music. After being released in February 1973, it reached the Top 10 in 10 countries, and topped the charts in eight. It reached number one on both the U.S. and U.K. charts for four weeks in April 1973. It was the top-selling single in 1973 in both the U.S. and U.K.!

While watching and listening, I was transported back to 1973 when it seemed like you couldn’t get in your car and go to the grocery without hearing it. I’ll bet some of you still have an eight-track tape of this song up in your attic somewhere! Where were you in 1973? We were just two years into a 30-year career at Blue Bird and just two years after having moved to Perry from Detroit; to most locals, we were still that “Yankee Couple.”

We were still five years away from the joy of holding our first child. In the meantime, we would suffer through three heartbreaking and faith-testing miscarriages. But when we finally got things figured out, God blessed us with four sons and a daughter! Worth waiting for in the end!

The origin of the idea of a yellow ribbon as remembrance is fascinating and may relate to the 19th-century practice that some women allegedly had of wearing a yellow ribbon in their hair to signify their devotion to a husband or sweetheart serving in the U.S. Cavalry.

However, as it relates to the song, it is more likely tied to the fact that in October 1971, newspaper columnist, Pete Hamill, wrote a piece for the New York Post called “Going Home.” In it, he told a variant of the story, in which college students on a bus trip to the beaches of Fort Lauderdale make friends with an ex-convict who is watching for a yellow handkerchief on a roadside oak in Brunswick, Georgia. Hamill claimed to have heard this story in oral tradition. In June 1972, nine months later, “Reader’s Digest” reprinted, “Going Home.”

Who among us didn’t tear up at least once when listening to that song with our long hair and bell bottom pants as we realized what the lyrics were all about: the possible redemption of a romantic relationship after the singer had spent “three long years” in prison wondering if the love of his life would have him back when he got out. And as the bus approached the Old Oak Tree in Brunswick, Georgia, “The whole [*explicit] bus broke out in cheers” as they saw a hundred yellow ribbons on that old oak tree!

And who among us hasn’t experienced the joy of a broken relationship being redeemed … even if it was a after a bad argument with your spouse. That first embrace of redemption afterward is priceless.

As good as it is, I believe that redemption pales in comparison to what the Bible says in Luke 15:7 “…there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!”

I hope there are hundreds of yellow ribbons waiting for you, too, at the gates when you are reunited with your sweetheart and with your maker in heaven!

Thanks for reading All About Seniors … see you next week.

P.S.: Factual content about the song is from Wikipedia. Here’s a link to the song on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vie94KQcRXY). But be warned—it will take you back to 1973 and you may not get the tune out of your head for days!

Bill Milby is a Director of Visiting Angels® of Central Georgia, a non-medical, living assistance service for seniors. If you have questions or comments about this column you can reach him at william.mercylink@gmail.com or search for us at https://www.facebook.com/VisitingAngelsofCentralGA/.

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