Conquistador

Conquistador means conqueror in Spanish. The actual Conquistadors haven't been around in centuries and they were definitely some of the more controversial figures in the history of the world, but that's not my point in this blog.

Conquistador was also a song by Procol Harum in the late 60s.
Even though it was an anti-war song and I was way too young to get into any of that, I always loved this song.
It brings back a lot of memories for me to this very day.

When I was young, I had a good friend and neighbor, Boyd Baker. Since he lived so near, we were nearly inseparable for a few years.
I think he was probably the best guy friend I ever had which is kind of sad since I haven't really seen him since about 1973.
Recently, after a bunch of internet and phone work, I ran him down and found out he is alive and well in Austin, Texas. He went to the Naval Academy after high school and joined the Marines as a fighter pilot. Now, he flies for Southwest Airlines.
How cool is that?
Glad my old friend is alive and well.


Boyd, besides being a buddy, had a very nice looking older sister named Frances Baker.
She was the talk of the town and really the first extremely good looking woman I had ever seen.
I have no idea what she looks like now, some 40 years later, but I would guess she still looks nice.
She was not the reason why I went to my friend's house, and she was even rude to me at times. Once, she looked into a room when I was in there and said 'I thought I smelled something'. I was crushed and I'll never forget that. It's not like I ever even dreamed I had a shot with her, but it's nice to be liked.

Another thing I will never forget about her is the time she brought her newly purchased Procol Harum Album home. I just happened to be at their house and she came in all excited.
She played Conquistador on her record player and I have been in love with that song ever since.

Lots of great memories.

However, for me, there are a lot of other memories involved with this song and they weren't so great.

I was going to blog about them here but decided not to.