My 11th birthday was a warm autumn day in October 1976 and I had received enough money from various relatives to afford a copy of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper album. My mother took me to Montgomery Ward’s, which sported a miniscule record section right by the entrance. As I entered the store, I noticed a blue velvet rope around the record section.
SHIT.
Those records might as well have been in Soviet Russia; I forgot it was Sunday, and thanks to Texas’ nonsensical Blue Laws, I couldn’t buy records on Sundays. In Texas, until 1985, you could not buy appliances such as washers and dryers, nor could you buy entertainment like records on Sundays, because religious leaders and lawmakers had decided that your time and money would be better suited to church activities. Most stores weren’t even open on Sundays. I bought my copy of Sgt. Pepper the next day, but most of my excitement had worn off by then. Eleven year olds can be very fickle.
I added my new record to my small “beginners” collection, which consisted mainly of 45s. My Beatles record was my second LP bought with my own money. The first had been Fly Like an Eagle by the Steve Miller Band. Steve was a Texas boy and received loads of airplay on my favorite radio station, KZEW-FM in Dallas. My 45 rpm records were mainly soul, disco and pop faves, like the Monkees and KC & the Sunshine Band. I was about to enter junior high school and I knew that “the big kids” (12 years old and older) listened to LPs. I was too young to have bought the Beatles music when it first came out and I wasn’t even born when the appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, but everyone I knew of all ages loved the Beatles. My uncle Larry had moved back to our hometown from California and his wife Debbie had all of the Beatles LPs, purchased when she was a kid. They decided to move back to California, so they gave me a waterbed and most of Aunt Debbie’s Beatles LPs. I was thrilled to bits and those LPs still have pride of place in my record collection.
I’ve been a collector for most of my life. When I was a child, I collected stuffed animals (I never liked dolls) and colored or unusually shaped bottles, which seemed to be found at every store back in the 70s. As a teenager, I developed my insatiable urge to collect books and records. I had been playing music since 5th grade, when we were allowed to pick which instrument we wanted to play in the junior high band. My first choice was “glockenspiel”, but percussion instruments were not considered lady-like, so I ended up playing a rented flute, riddled with worn spots where many young fingers had tortuously shrieked out Vivaldi sonatas over many years. I also played my grandfather’s old guitar every weekend I was down on the dairy farm he owned.
My first memories of records were from my early childhood. My grandfather had several Bob Wills “record albums” (from when 78rpm records came in what resembled a photo album) which he would play for me on the hi-fi in their living room. “Take Me Back To Tulsa” and “Cherokee Maiden” were big favorites. My grandfather idolized Bob Wills. He even wrote Bob a letter when the Western Swing King had a stroke and he was so proud when Bob wrote him back. He probably felt the same way I did when Rick Nielson from Cheap Trick answered my fan letter with a couple of personalized guitar picks.
My parents divorced when I was 5 and my mother and I ended up moving to some very sketchy apartments in east Dallas. In the morning when she went to work for the bus company, I went to Catholic school first grade (even though I wasn’t Catholic; that’s a whole other book). When she left for her second job in a department store, I went to the babysitter, a nice Mexican lady with several kids my age. She would play her Mitch Ryder and Ike & Tina Turner records for us and let us jump on the bed; plus she made Kool-Aid, which my Mom couldn’t afford. Despite Mom working two jobs, we were very poor and many times we didn’t have enough food to eat. Mom could make ketchup packets and hot water into “tomato soup” and make it sound exotic. One night, Mom was sick so she didn’t go to her second job. I was running around the apartment driving her crazy when I noticed some commotion coming from the other end of our building. An ambulance crew carried a Mexican man with a butcher knife stuck to the hilt in his chest out of my babysitter’s apartment. Mom and I moved back to my hometown the next week.
My hometown didn’t have a record store and we were too poor to afford records anyway, so whenever I liked a song I’d heard on the radio or see a band I liked on The Midnight Special, I did chores on my grandparents’ dairy farm in order to earn money to buy the 45rpm single. My grandmother would pick me up from school on Fridays and we would go to the grocery store. I would stand at the magazine rack with my nose buried in an issue of Creem or Rolling Stone while she shopped. Mimaw would buy me a magazine and some Little Debby Banana Twins and I would do chores like help out Papaw at the dairy barn milking cows or baling hay, or clean up the kitchen after supper and give Mimaw a manicure. Greenville did have an 8-track tape dealer, a happening place with a mansard roof, wrought iron railings and lots of zebra print wall paper. As far as I knew, 8-track players were in cars and it would be a few years before I had one of those. What I did have was a cheap plastic kids record player that my Mom had given me for Christmas. I could find the current Top 40 45s at the local department store and whenever I could dredge up 79 cents I would buy one I liked.
I liked most songs on Top 40 radio back then, so it was easy to pick. I would gaze longingly at the LPs and 8-track tapes. My uncle was fond of visiting garage sales every Saturday morning and he bought a huge box of 45s (some even in picture sleeves - drool!). He let me pick out the ones I wanted, so I chose “Strawberry Letter 23” by the Brothers Johnson, “Popcorn” by James Brown, “Potential” by the Jimmy Castor Bunch and some other fab old funk and soul favorites. I had a soul fetish anyway because I watched “Soul Train” every Saturday afternoon. American Bandstand wasn’t broadcast on the Dallas ABC-TV affiliate after 1970. We also had “Fiesta Mexicana”, plus “Cowboy Weaver and His Radio Ranch Hands”, not to mention the “Porter Wagoner Show” and “Hee Haw”. My musical tastes were and still are all over the map.
From my reading of the current rock periodicals, I knew all about Iggy Pop, the Velvet Underground and Patti Smith, but had no idea about where to find those records. They didn’t have them at the Greenville Library, but the librarian did tell me of these wonderful places called “record stores” where you could find LPs and 45s or 8-track tapes of all different types of music, most of which you couldn’t find at Montgomery Ward’s or Sears. Some you could even listen to before you paid for them, just to see if you liked them enough to buy them. Whenever I would see my father who lived in Garland (a suburb of Dallas), I would beg and plead for him to take me to “Peaches”, a store the librarian had told me about, but he wouldn’t do it: “Hell no, it’s full of hippies” was his reasoning. Mom wouldn’t take me to Peaches either because she knew she couldn’t afford to buy me anything, so my consolation prize was a visit to the then new Town East Mall.
I wandered around the food court and the mall stores dejected, but then I saw it in neon, on the lower row of shops: Disc Records: A REAL LIVE RECORD STORE. I told Mom I would be in there, so she could leave me while she shopped. I was in heaven: records everywhere, plus posters and more music magazines that I had ever seen. I couldn’t afford to buy anything that time, but I pestered Mom whenever we were within a 10-mile radius of Town East Mall. One December, Mom had told me I could pick out one LP for my gift. I was in a Doors phase then, so I held up the only copy of “Morrison Hotel” under the Doors placard so Mom could see it as she stood up by the registers. Before I realized what was happening, a woman quickly snatched it out of my hand. Horrified by the turn of events, I quickly spun around to see where the “thief” went, but she had it paid for and out the door before I saw her again. I had to console myself with “Waiting For The Sun” instead.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Monday, February 24, 2014
Sugar and Vinegar
"You can catch more flies with sugar than with vinegar".
As I get older, I find the truth in this old adage. I grew up with a very hostile attitude toward many things: men, authority figures, vegetables and snowshoe crabs among them. The older I got, the more I realized that being rude and snappish wasn't me being sophisticated and intelligent; on the contrary, it just made my life harder than it already was. That period of my life came to a head when I worked at the record store. Daily I dealt with men who could not imagine that a female (especially a blonde female) could possibly know anything about records or music, let alone anything other than manicures or deceiving unsuspecting men out of their hard-earned dollars. The near constant sarcasm and arrogance directed at me made me sarcastic and arrogant. Not that I'm against sarcasm, but arrogance is more problematic. I went into my thirties wondering if I was always going to be this angry......then Mom died.
I know that all Mom wanted for me was to be happy. She had never seen me that way except as a very small child. My parents' divorce, my father's neglect and my sexual abuse by a family member changed all that. When Mom died, I made a promise to her and myself that I would be happy and have the good life that she wanted me to have. My attitude changed almost overnight and my life has been all the better for it. I became conscious that much of my unhappiness was due to negative people in my life; people around who I felt that I could not be myself or who required me to act a certain way. Not that I'm a screaming lunatic in public, but I do not place much stock in "putting on appearances". Why lie when you'll just have to remember what lies you told to whom? This meant that I would be cutting out negative influences from my life. Some people thrive on the unhappiness of others; they are energy "vampires" of a sort. This gives them entirely too much power over those who try to love them. I firmly believe that no one can make you a doormat unless you allow them to do that. I lost a job because the boss wanted me to be a doormat and I refused.
I've also found that being positive and cheerful has rewarded me, both spiritually and emotionally. It really is true that if you smile at someone, they'll usually smile back. If you don't send out attitude, you tend to get less attitude in return. It's so nice to go through a day not incensed over some offense done to me. It's easier to be nice than to try and appear "tough". I know I'm a tough old broad, I don't need to convince anyone else of that fact. They'll find out soon enough if they cross me.....Like I said, I'm a nice person, but that doesn't make me suitable for scraping your shoes on. As long as you don't try to do that, we'll get along fine.
I'm glad to be at a point in my life where I know who I am and who I am supposed to be. I demand a real reason to be upset now, instead of grinding my teeth about everything in my life.
As I get older, I find the truth in this old adage. I grew up with a very hostile attitude toward many things: men, authority figures, vegetables and snowshoe crabs among them. The older I got, the more I realized that being rude and snappish wasn't me being sophisticated and intelligent; on the contrary, it just made my life harder than it already was. That period of my life came to a head when I worked at the record store. Daily I dealt with men who could not imagine that a female (especially a blonde female) could possibly know anything about records or music, let alone anything other than manicures or deceiving unsuspecting men out of their hard-earned dollars. The near constant sarcasm and arrogance directed at me made me sarcastic and arrogant. Not that I'm against sarcasm, but arrogance is more problematic. I went into my thirties wondering if I was always going to be this angry......then Mom died.
I know that all Mom wanted for me was to be happy. She had never seen me that way except as a very small child. My parents' divorce, my father's neglect and my sexual abuse by a family member changed all that. When Mom died, I made a promise to her and myself that I would be happy and have the good life that she wanted me to have. My attitude changed almost overnight and my life has been all the better for it. I became conscious that much of my unhappiness was due to negative people in my life; people around who I felt that I could not be myself or who required me to act a certain way. Not that I'm a screaming lunatic in public, but I do not place much stock in "putting on appearances". Why lie when you'll just have to remember what lies you told to whom? This meant that I would be cutting out negative influences from my life. Some people thrive on the unhappiness of others; they are energy "vampires" of a sort. This gives them entirely too much power over those who try to love them. I firmly believe that no one can make you a doormat unless you allow them to do that. I lost a job because the boss wanted me to be a doormat and I refused.
I've also found that being positive and cheerful has rewarded me, both spiritually and emotionally. It really is true that if you smile at someone, they'll usually smile back. If you don't send out attitude, you tend to get less attitude in return. It's so nice to go through a day not incensed over some offense done to me. It's easier to be nice than to try and appear "tough". I know I'm a tough old broad, I don't need to convince anyone else of that fact. They'll find out soon enough if they cross me.....Like I said, I'm a nice person, but that doesn't make me suitable for scraping your shoes on. As long as you don't try to do that, we'll get along fine.
I'm glad to be at a point in my life where I know who I am and who I am supposed to be. I demand a real reason to be upset now, instead of grinding my teeth about everything in my life.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Strange Interlude
About 6 months after I turned 21, I had a nervous breakdown. I had started a terrible production line job at a snack cracker factory on my 21st birthday and the following half year had seen my admittedly never sunny demeanor tank in a black fog, culminating in a month long stay in the psychiatric ward in a Dallas hospital. I don't remember much about my first week there in the locked ward because for the preceding two weeks, I had slept a grand total of 4 hours, so the shrink loaded me up on benzodiazepines. My friend and her boyfriend had come to visit me during that week and her boyfriend was alarmed enough at my soporific condition to suggest kidnapping me and taking me home. I don't even remember them visiting. I do remember checking in and being introduced to my new room mate, a small woman who was so loaded on Haloperidol she fell asleep standing up, like a horse. I had to pick her up and put her in her bed.
After that first week, I was transferred into the unlocked ward, meaning that I wasn't considered a danger to myself or others and I could leave the ward and walk about if I wanted. My new room mate was a sweet elderly lady who was there because her husband had just passed away and she was depressed. The lady turned out to be both Miss Dallas 1928 and a lady lion tamer with Clyde Beatty's Circus, which I honestly could not have made up if I wanted to; I didn't believe her when she told me so she brought her photo albums up one day to show me. Unfortunately, Miss Dallas 1928 also snored ferociously. Once again, I couldn't sleep, so I usually spent nights in the TV room, curled up in a chair. One day in occupational therapy, I was talking to a woman who had checked in because she was afraid that her husband was cheating on her. She asked if I was married; I responded that I really had not even had a proper boyfriend yet.
"I guess I'm just unattractive to men," I sighed.
Therapy was over, so we all started the walk back to our ward. Two younger guys sidled up on either side of me: one was tall and very large with an almost bull-like expression on his face. He was 16 and in for attacking a Dallas police officer. He was at least twice the size of the other guy, a slender long haired angelic looking young man with dimples and a shy smile. He linked arms with me.
"I heard you saying that you're unattractive, and I think that you should have a better opinion of yourself. I think you're beautiful."
No one besides my mother had ever told me they thought I was pretty, let alone beautiful. Not even my father had ever said anything about my appearance, so I naturally thought that I was unattractive. Pretty girls got boys and I didn't get boys, so I could do the math, right? I consoled myself with the knowledge that I was intelligent and had good taste in music.
I blushed furiously and muttered, "oh please!" but the hippie boy pulled me to a stop in the hallway, put his hands on my face and said, "I mean it. You are a beautiful woman."
I stuttered that I would take his word for it. The big guy nodded at the hippie boy and said, "You'll have to prove it to her."
We three started talking, telling each other the reasons for being there: mine was a long history of family dysfunction, depression and an ill suited job; the big guy for literally picking up and throwing a cop over a railing, and the hippie boy had tried to overdose and end it all. I learned that the hippie boy's father was a famous playwright; indeed one of his plays had been on Broadway. Other than that, our frames of reference were similar on many things. We laughed about the same things. We read similar things and we listened to the same music. We made up little catchphrases to amuse ourselves. We talked about everything and went everywhere together: to group therapy, the gym, the cafeteria. The big kid soon went home and it was just me and the hippie boy. We were walking through one of the underground tunnels beneath the hospitals primarily used for transporting patients when he pushed me against the wall and kissed me passionately. Our battered souls came together, if only for a few short weeks. He was a great kisser.
His friendship and attention made an otherwise horrible month much easier to bear. We stole every moment we could for the rest of the month, then I was discharged and had to go home and back to a job that I despised. I needed something to look forward to, so he promised that he would drive all the way out (an hour's drive) to see me when he got out of the hospital. About 3 weeks later, he came out to the trailer I lived in with my friend, who was spending the weekend with her boyfriend.
He seemed very happy to see me, but preoccupied, as I was. Seeing each other "out of context" felt strange for both of us, I think. We spent a couple of hours together then he said he needed to get back home. I didn't hear from him or see him after that, not for many years, after we were both grown and settled in our respective careers and relationships. I did email him and tell him how important he was to me during that time and how he helped me find the self confidence that sustained me until I found the love of my life, to whom I am now married. I was surprised that he even remembered me; he had more experience with relationships than I had had at the time, and certainly no shortage of female attention. Even though we had but a short time together, I hope that knowing me had helped him in some way as well.
After that first week, I was transferred into the unlocked ward, meaning that I wasn't considered a danger to myself or others and I could leave the ward and walk about if I wanted. My new room mate was a sweet elderly lady who was there because her husband had just passed away and she was depressed. The lady turned out to be both Miss Dallas 1928 and a lady lion tamer with Clyde Beatty's Circus, which I honestly could not have made up if I wanted to; I didn't believe her when she told me so she brought her photo albums up one day to show me. Unfortunately, Miss Dallas 1928 also snored ferociously. Once again, I couldn't sleep, so I usually spent nights in the TV room, curled up in a chair. One day in occupational therapy, I was talking to a woman who had checked in because she was afraid that her husband was cheating on her. She asked if I was married; I responded that I really had not even had a proper boyfriend yet.
"I guess I'm just unattractive to men," I sighed.
Therapy was over, so we all started the walk back to our ward. Two younger guys sidled up on either side of me: one was tall and very large with an almost bull-like expression on his face. He was 16 and in for attacking a Dallas police officer. He was at least twice the size of the other guy, a slender long haired angelic looking young man with dimples and a shy smile. He linked arms with me.
"I heard you saying that you're unattractive, and I think that you should have a better opinion of yourself. I think you're beautiful."
No one besides my mother had ever told me they thought I was pretty, let alone beautiful. Not even my father had ever said anything about my appearance, so I naturally thought that I was unattractive. Pretty girls got boys and I didn't get boys, so I could do the math, right? I consoled myself with the knowledge that I was intelligent and had good taste in music.
I blushed furiously and muttered, "oh please!" but the hippie boy pulled me to a stop in the hallway, put his hands on my face and said, "I mean it. You are a beautiful woman."
I stuttered that I would take his word for it. The big guy nodded at the hippie boy and said, "You'll have to prove it to her."
We three started talking, telling each other the reasons for being there: mine was a long history of family dysfunction, depression and an ill suited job; the big guy for literally picking up and throwing a cop over a railing, and the hippie boy had tried to overdose and end it all. I learned that the hippie boy's father was a famous playwright; indeed one of his plays had been on Broadway. Other than that, our frames of reference were similar on many things. We laughed about the same things. We read similar things and we listened to the same music. We made up little catchphrases to amuse ourselves. We talked about everything and went everywhere together: to group therapy, the gym, the cafeteria. The big kid soon went home and it was just me and the hippie boy. We were walking through one of the underground tunnels beneath the hospitals primarily used for transporting patients when he pushed me against the wall and kissed me passionately. Our battered souls came together, if only for a few short weeks. He was a great kisser.
His friendship and attention made an otherwise horrible month much easier to bear. We stole every moment we could for the rest of the month, then I was discharged and had to go home and back to a job that I despised. I needed something to look forward to, so he promised that he would drive all the way out (an hour's drive) to see me when he got out of the hospital. About 3 weeks later, he came out to the trailer I lived in with my friend, who was spending the weekend with her boyfriend.
He seemed very happy to see me, but preoccupied, as I was. Seeing each other "out of context" felt strange for both of us, I think. We spent a couple of hours together then he said he needed to get back home. I didn't hear from him or see him after that, not for many years, after we were both grown and settled in our respective careers and relationships. I did email him and tell him how important he was to me during that time and how he helped me find the self confidence that sustained me until I found the love of my life, to whom I am now married. I was surprised that he even remembered me; he had more experience with relationships than I had had at the time, and certainly no shortage of female attention. Even though we had but a short time together, I hope that knowing me had helped him in some way as well.
