Music Part I ....

Hey I wanted to explain the meaning of music in my life up through my teenage years. 

Music was always a part of my life as it probably was with a lot of people my age back then.  I would listen when I was alone mostly.  One of my favorite memories was when I was by myself, with a handheld transitor radio, and listening to Wings' "Let'em In."  It was a bright sunny day, I had nothing to do but listen to that radio, and when that song came on hearing Paul McCartney singing, I felt free as a leaf in the air.  That memory has a pleasing affect on my mood....if I but settle my mind to think and remember it. 

My cousin Kathy introduced to some rock music styles to me back in the early 70s.  I remember being in her bedroom and she turned on some music and I was in some sort of Heaven.  I learned that I liked all kinds of music over the years.  My Dad had some record albums I would play all the time.   One was the White Album by Johnny Cash.  I learned a lot about Cash's style of country music.  That stuff would stay with me all my life. 

Dad had some Surfer dude music too.  Maybe that was Mom's taste.   When I was 10 my Mom decided that she was going to join the Columbia House music entity.  There you would pick out 6 albums on cassette and get one free and be required to buy a few more.  Each of us got to pick out what we wanted to listen to.  Dave picked Elvis Presley's greatest hits.  I picked out Captain & Tennille's album "Love Will Keep Us Together", Mom picked one of the Beach Boy's albums, not sure what Sandy picked out but I remember Debbie Boone's "You Light Up My Life" was one, and so was one of John Denver's albums.  We all listened to these albums all the time.  I got a cassette player for Christmas soon after we got these and had a blast with that.

We went on vacations and I took the player and the cassettes and played them all the time, even under my pillow when I went to bed.  I was crazy in love with music of all kinds.  

We got Shaun Cassidy's album that had "Da Doo Ron Ron" on it.  Played that thing until it was unplayable I am sure. All the girls in the neighborhood came to our house to listen to music.  And we once created a dance choreographed to some of his songs.  All the girls raved about how cute Shaun Cassidy was.  It is a fun memory of mine.  

Until we got a stereo with cassette player, I used to record onto cassette anything I liked playing on the radio.  Had to lean the cassette player up to the radio and hope no one made any noise in the background.  I even recorded the entire movie "The Sound of Music" that way and replay all the cassettes, as it took more than one, under my pillow, memorizing lines in the movie and all the songs sung.  

Finally we got a stereo with cassette player/recorder.  I spent many nights and weekends when nothing else was going on, with headphones on and recording my favorite tunes on cassettes.  I got pretty knowledgeable about brands of cassette tapes and how many songs I typically could record on one side, and judge it so I didn't have a lot of wasted space at the end of any side.  Always listening to Casey Kasem's "American Top 40" on Saturday morning radio.   And with the stereo cassette recorder, you didn't have to worry about background noise, it only recorded what was broadcast on the station.  I used to clean the house and let it record things and then back up the tape and record over anything I didn't want.  Yes I was the geeky freak about recording music, in high school. 

Ah, and then the next favorite thing I used to do, when no one was home, was play the music I like and pretend I was on stage and sing aloud and pretend I was performing.  I mostly liked to pretend I was the lead singer, but sometimes I liked to sit and pretend I was playing the drums too.  I loved to pretend I was doing a benefit concert and money made at the event would go to support a charity....   That's just how I always thought I would like to use any talent I had like that.   And truth be told, all these years later, on occaision when my husband isn't home, I will do this sometimes.  Not much dancing anymore, the ole back is not what it used to be.  But singing and pretending to be on stage, yeah, still do that sometimes.  I believe this is the first and only time I am admitting I do this.  LOL

We teeangers would debate a lot which radio station was the best.  There were the KSHE95 followers, and the KWK followers.  Me, I have always been a radio dialer....when a comerical came on, I would dial into some other station, I just wanted tunes to play.  I still do that now, but technology is different...so that is not always an issue anymore.  I'll pick up that topic in a later post.   KSHE is still on the air....that station is as old as me, but KWK has been long gone.  We have The ARCH now in its place.  I like both still...but The ARCH plays more genres than just Rock and Roll as KSHE still does.  And the classical station is not on the main stations, you need HD radio....yeah, I have more to talk about that whole issue later.  LOL

My first car didn't have a cassette player in it, which was an ultimate bummer.  I purchased a portable player to listen in the car that way, but driving on the highway made so much noise, couldn't really hear it.  Then my Dad started borrowing my portable recorder, after he went back to work and I ended up giving it to him.  It made him happy to listen while making biscuits or whatever he was making in the morning at the restaurant.  I always thought that was funny, him liking to listen like I did.  Now I think that was really neat, I was like him that way....loving music.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Dad...

My Dad by all accounts was a very eccentric fellow.  Very very intelligent...like Mensa smart!!!  I really liked this about him.  Unless we played Trivial Pursuit with him.  Then you were hosed.  Partly cause he was read more, but also cause he was off the charts smart.

My parents bought the family home from a doctor surgeon who had the home customized for his needs.  The living room was originally designed as a formal living room and a dining room on the other end, but I don't believe there was a wall separating the two.  We had kept the chandelier hanging where the dining space was for many of the early years, but instead of dining room furniture, we had our family TV and chairs at that end.  

My favorite memory of the early years was when Dad would play with us kids.  He'd prop us on his shoulders, hold our hands and walk quickly through out the living run, end to end.  It was was fun and garnered a lot of laughs, except the one day that he forgot where the chandelier was and I was pulled head first right into that thing.  I don't remember being angry at Dad for that, just upset it hurt so bad. 

Dad played board games with us when we got a little older.  Sometimes we'd play as a family, all five of us together, sometimes it was just Dad and us kids.  We'd play Parcheesi, Sorry, and Monopoly.  I don't remember if he played card games with us, that was more Mom's type of games to play.  

Dad suffered a nervous breakdown in 1979 after I graduated from the 6th grade.  He had to stop working for a long time.  Those were some of the roughest years I ever remember our entire family going through.  Mom had to deal with the brunt of things, as she had to deal with the doctors, the ambulance workers, the psychiatrists, and all the bills that were piling up from his care.  Since we kids were 12 and under, we weren't burdened with all the medical bill details.  We just knew our Dad wasn't right and he was getting help, away from the home.   

He was never the same personality when he finally got home.  He was more guarded, avoided hanging with us kids, and stayed more to himself in his own room.  Mom and him had moved to separate rooms before his breakdown, but now he was not able to function as he once did.  It would be several years, throughout all my junior and senior high school years, that he'd be walled away in the house before getting more relational with others.  

When he first got sick I used to worry about him a lot and sat with him when he came out of his room to put a record on the player.  Normally he play some classical music.  I learned to appreciate many of the great pieces of classical music because of this time with him.  I didn't know how to knit or crochet, but I did know a simple knotting sequence with yarn, and I made him colorful bookmarks with this technique out of yarn.  He seemed to like them and use them.   This is when I know he became an avid bookworm.   

I don't know what my siblings thought about my Dad and is Bipolar disease.  He frightened all of us a few times when I was in high school.  Hallucinating and seeing animals talking to him, and seeing me in a room when I wasn't really there.   I didn't want friends over at the house when all this started happening.  I became afraid of him and avoided interacting with him at this time.  He would get angry at the slightest noise, didn't want any talking going on when he was watching Jeopardy on TV and just became a person I didn't know how to be around.   I am ashamed that I didn't get to know him better then, and fight through my fear and see if I could find the man I knew and loved as a small child.  

Somewhere during the first couple years after he got sick, he lost over 100 lbs, and quit smoking his pipe AND joined the Catholic Church.  All the reading he did to prepare added to the scary moments when you could tell he was about to have an episode and need his meds fixed.  He'd sit us kids down and wouldn't allow us to do anything unless we answered his faith questions.  One time he scared me because none of us kids really knew what the 7 virtues and vices were and we had to sit at the kitchen table until Mom got home from work.  She had to deal with Dad's mental problem on her own and really didn't explain to us that I recall what was truly going on. 

Finally when I was out of high school, he started working.   He worked at McDonald's as a biscuit maker.  Far removed from his bookkeeping talents.  He just wasn't comfortable getting into the numbers and messing up the books.  But his boss loved him.  He was a good and dependable worker.   After some time though some things started bothering him with that job and he quit, He went to go work for their competition, and again everyone there loved him.   But one day I think the story goes he came in and saw someone doing his station work and he got pissed and quit.   He then went on to work at the grocery store next to the McDonald's he used to work at.  I work for this grocery chain and was actually proud he belonged to the same company.  He was in the union, I was not.  EVERYONE loved my dad there.   

                        ..... when life takes a sudden turn to the unknown and the frightful side of    
                              things, we can become confused and disorented and lose our way.  
                             Stay tuned for more on this saga. 

  

Our Family Photo circa 1972

 

 

Mom and Dad