Two days ago, I was in the car driving east down a road I've always traveled. I couldn't say what song had come on the radio or why my mind was suddenly found wandering to my childhood bedroom before I was a teenager and specifically to The Story About Ping; which starts an entire post dedicated to my early music. Read on! The Story About Ping was a book on tape, with the accompanying book that you could read along with. It was one of four book on tapes that I had in my small childhood tape library. The rest were tapes of lullabies or Christian music my mom had passed onto me.
The Story About Ping was not a bad story, it was actually alright. However, it represented repression. See, those books on tapes, those few lullabies and Christian songs were all that my mother allowed in the world of music. Oh, and piano books, since The Sister and I were learning piano, but they were just books. I was not allowed a radio of my own, I was not allowed a record player, I was not allowed to mess with my parents record player, the house radio (intercom/radio system that came with the house), I was not allowed to watch MTV. My mother felt that I was going to end up in hell because she was in her crazy Christian Catholic phase and music is what would take me there. Just me, mind. Dad was allowed to listen to any of his music, mom forewent her traditional music opting instead for all of this religious music (which I was allowed to listen to, but I did not like) however, if Rod Stewart came on the radio, that was OK because she just LOVED him, The Sister was allowed to have a huge record player/tape deck (with recorder)/radio console and listen to all the popular music of the day or days prior. She was allowed to watch MTV, even though our mother wished she wouldn't, she did not forebad it. I had heard music before then, but not to my mothers approval. There were road trips with dad playing his Buddy Holly tape or tuning into what he called "Oldie Goldie" stations. There was the music wafting through The Sisters room into my room that I could hear, or that music being played by her and her friends outside, or at State Park Outings, or of the parties she had in the basement of which I wasn't allowed to attend, instead sitting on the top step wishing that I could. As much as my mother wanted to keep me sheltered and isolated, she had no control while I was at school, a public school, which is probably why she put my name down on the list when I was in the first grade and begged her mother to pay the tuition to the private Catholic School I would later attend during fifth and sixth grades. But if it was to get me away from the evils of music and other things, she'd simply taken me from the frying pan and thrown me straight into the fire. Not only were they meaner by far than public school kids (and I thought public school kids were bad), they seemed to know of far worse music than New Kids on the Block and other things not musically related. But so in public school I knew of and could listen to the popular music that my friends were listening to. George Michael, Paula Abdul, Michael and Janet Jackson, New Kids on the Block, Bon Jovi. Sleepovers at their houses had us listening to the music on repeat and watching their music videos on the telly. Oh and I shouldn't forget about the roller rink. Mom would drop me off (I don't know why this was allowed, but I'm glad it was) when they opened and pick me up in the evening. They played all sorts of popular music. And if you'd been there all day like I had you would have heard all of the songs in their repertoire three times. Besides all that, when I could, I would sneak around the house. I would use The Sisters radio in her bedroom, change the coding on the telly to tune into MTV, slip down to the den or the basement and use the intercom/radio, or to play my parents' old records. Now we'll side-step just a little, because this is the time just before Ping's demise. Last night we were all sitting around playing cards and being all weird; all four of us. Dad mentioned the song Dixie and blamed it on liberals as to why nobody sings this anymore. "Dad, it's a war song. Nobody sings war songs." He quipped up with, "I do!" "Yes, but otherwise, nobody sings war songs." That's not really the war songs that dad was speaking of, because he likes and knows all the older early 20th century war songs from The Great War and WWII. However, my family broke into a rendition of Dixie while it was my turn to concentrate and play. It was weird. They sing the song because they know it and it is a pretty tune, however their hearts aren't really in it for the words. Dad probably feels that he should be honourable to the south and he might bark about rights and the south being done wrong, but he doesn't really believe it. Seriously if you've lived with the man for thirty eight years, you can just tell. My mom probably does pine away for servants and big flouncy dresses because she's a pretty, pretty princess, but her parents were yankees, so she doesn't feel as beholden to the south as one might expect or think. The Sister, because she's stated it before, just always liked the song because it sounded pretty, which it does. It almost made me laugh, but I didn't, because then dad would feel the need to defend the south and talk politically, even when it's not what he really wants to do. I wanted to laugh remembering my own childhood about that song. I used to sing it, because it was a pretty tune, however, I never understood the song at all growing up. People would say it had to do with the Civil War and I would just raise a question on my face and wonder how they were getting that. To me, the song was clearly about some mythical place like Middle Earth or Never Never Land or Narnia, they just happen to also have cotton like we still do in the south. You think I'm playing, but I'm not. I was born and raised here, in Dixie Land, yet I thought Dixie Land was some fantasy world. I'd ask, "But where is Dixie Land?" and adults would respond with "here" or "in the past" and neither answer was sufficient enough because nobody said it plainly. "We are called Dixie or Dixie Land, or were during The Civil War, and this is why..." but then they didn't know I thought it was a fantasy world. It reminds me of The Sisters' story about the Well/Whale. She'd be riding with dad and they'd pass this weird cylindrical cement thing near the lake at Paul B. Johnson State Park. "Dad, what is that?" "It's a well." "Nu-uh! That is not a whale!" and they'd have small arguments over it because the words sound the same and there were no explanations. Every time they'd have this questioning go-around until on the last time, The Sister exclaimed, "I know what a whale looks like and that is not a whale!" to which dad said, "What whale are you referring to? The one in the ocean?" "YES!!" "Oh yeah, this is a well, W-E-L-L, it holds water." and that was that. She'd finally had the answer. It's not like she'd not heard about wells before, but they were always what one normally thinks of; small bit of stones in a circular shape out of the earth with probably a little roof over it with a bucket on a rope. This was not that type of well (this probably contained hydraulics or something and it was 8 - 10 feet up out of the earth, solid cement, covered, no little roof or rope bucket), so since it couldn't be a well that she knew of, then dad was crazy talking about whales; trying to fool her or make a joke. So, adults could tell me all day long that the song was about The Civil War or that Dixie Land was here, but none of that made any sense to me, because the word Dixie was like a made up word like flibberdajoo or orc or Narnia. There was no real world correlation to me because we didn't learn in school that the south was once referred to as Dixie. Then when I was older and learned more about the Civil War, I could finally understand that song and ceased singing or humming it. So, to side-step from that back to the card game conversation. After they'd sang, somehow it was mentioned that I, too, knew old war songs. Dad didn't believe me, so I started singing what is called The Army Goes Rolling Along, though I think when I learned it Caissons was where Army was (perhaps that was always the title, but I am unsure.) I started singing it and then came to a point where I sang "the fields of Are-dyur-lee" and dad rolled his eyes and muttered "field artillery" and everyone laughed. And it was an odd moment for me. I like learning new things and gladly learn them, but am a little miffed if something I felt that I knew for certain is called out like that. Mainly because it happened a lot as a child and a lot of the time I was correct and adults were just shutting me up. Though there were times I was wrong. But they'd always correct me in public (sometimes overly harsh) to the amusement of all. Which is what I really hate about that. The being made fun of bit. But then it made me think that I've probably sang that song five or six times to dad since I first learned it and he never once corrected me, though he's not one for not correcting when it's something important to me like war songs (also it made me think 'why doesn't dad remember anything?'). Sometimes while reading in books, if I come to a word I do not know, the first inclination of what it says when I glance at it, is what it is for me while reading the book. An example would be when I first read the world Reykjavik in a book when I was about seven or eight. To me, immediately it just looked like Ray-kava-jik (because j's are not y's in English), so that's just what I said in my mind any time I saw that word. I've since learned the pronunciation, Rey-kyuh-vick, so I say that now. I still do that sort of thing now while reading, but then I task myself with sounding it out or looking it up to see how it's really said, instead of just always make a skim of it. However, at age ten I knew the word artillery. I wouldn't have just skipped over it and said whatever first came to mind. So, I had to look it up today because though I knew dad was right I had to just see. More than likely, it wasn't typed out incorrectly, so I can't fathom how I turned artillery in to this mythical place of Ardurelie, which is how I've been envisioning the spelling of that word for the past twenty eight years. So where was it typed up? In a little booklet that we were to keep in our school desks and only use to start class. The private Catholic school that I attended wasn't run by nuns as one might think. There was a nun who was the principle and one who taught the fifth grade. They shared a house together near the school. One was extremely short, with curly brown hair and a glass eye; she was the principle. My fifth grade teacher was exceedingly tall and lanky, white haired, wearing glasses. They didn't wear habits. The principle would wear a straight, to the knee, skirt suit in navy, with hosiery and sensible shoes. The kind that are just black with a thick sole, and a short veil in navy with a white band. My fifth grade teacher wore a long, a-line skirt in navy, with hosiery and the same sensible shoes in black. She'd wear a button up, short sleeved shirt in light blue, sometimes in white, with a long veil that was one of the two shades of blue, but I forget now. She'd talk about being scrappy and tough when she was a kid (which was probably before or during The Great War) and paling around with her gang and getting into mischief. She'd prepared those books and in them contained the Pledge of Allegiance which we'd say every morning, followed by one or two of the several songs she'd had typed up in the book; all of them were old military songs. Only two of which I can remember, the song that was either titled (or I retitled it out of forgetfulness over these years) The Caissons Go Rolling Along and then The Marine's Hymn. It's because we sang both of those on our first morning in her class. I came home humming the first one and dad stopped me, "What are you humming? How do you know that?" He didn't believed me when I saw I learned it in class and challenged me to sing it for him. So I did. I even said "The Fields of Ardurelei" and he didn't correct me then. Probably because he was too elated, especially since I told him we learned another one, The Marine's Hymn, and he himself had been a Marine. He'd also made me sing that one, to I suppose, make sure I was correct. "Who taught you those songs?" "Sister Mary Beth." "Really? We-ell! She's alright then!" He hadn't wanted me to go to private Catholic School. I don't know his reasoning exactly because it was never spoken around me, I just know he didn't want me to go. He did change his religion in college, from non practicing Baptist to Mormon, and my parents always fought over religion, which is probably why I myself don't mess with it. Though my mom was a practicing Presbyterian who changed to Catholicism right before I was born. All I could ever see of that when I was a kid is that all four religions were Christian, yet they had to change from a "lesser" one to a "better" one and to each their new decision was the end all be all. You can have it! Perhaps he believed the rumor (which sometimes is true, because when you restrict, people under that yoke break free of it in a big way) that Catholic school girls were slutty, but then that begs the question of why he was dating my mom. Mom was sent, during her high school years, to an all girls private Catholic boarding school. It wasn't because of the religion, it was suggested that her and my grandmother spend a lot of time a part for sanity reasons, so that is where her father sent her. Mom felt that I should do the same thing she had. But I know part of her reasoning, while it was nostalgia on her part, saying how I'd love it, it was also to keep me out of the reach of the evil world for a bit longer. The school only went to sixth grade and she hated that I went back to my old school for seventh grade. She was constantly making plans that her and I would leave dad and The Sister and get a little apartment on the coast, so that I could finish my middle school and high school years at a different private Catholic school. This idea was pure insanity. My grandmother refused to pay for that, mainly because she wasn't stupid and saw how miserable the idea made me when it was discussed. Of course the rest of the family was against it, us living two hours away in an apartment for five years. However, the only good thing about my time at that Catholic school were the military songs in the morning. It was a terrible experience. Public school kids are mean, but private school kids are just downright cruel. But besides anything else that they exposed me to, it was the music, which my mom was desperate for me to not be exposed to. Because of them, I learned about the bands (not heard them, just heard them being talked about) Guns 'N Roses, Mötley Crüe, Poison, and Nirvana. I probably would have learned about Nirvana at my old school before seventh grade, but I highly doubt I would have learned about the others, since I was the only one at my old school who listened to them. Well not Poison, I didn't like them. Which brings me back to seventh grade. I was starting back at public school and I'd hated everything about Sacred Heart and I was so angry and unhappy and I hated the last two years of my life and mom's controlling during and before it, as well as the fact that she still wanted to control it in ludicrous insanity. So I took all of my cassette tapes; all those lullabies and Christian songs and books on tape and smashed them in anger. Then I ripped up the books that accompanied them. It felt great. I felt like I was free of something. I stealthily took it all out and hid it in the outside trash bins. Then when I had saved enough money from chores, I went to the mall and bought Guns 'N Roses' Appetite for Destruction on cassette tape and never looked back. In oppressing me to music in order to save me from "Devil Music", all my mom had done was turn me running towards it. I got people to make me tapes of music. Someone borrowed my headphones on a school field trip and it was passed around and by the end of the day Metallica's black album had been left in there. Score! I'd skip lunch and save up all my money to go and buy music. I would get up at 6 am and fanangle the telly to watch Headbangers Ball on MTV before school. I found the VHS tape of the 700 Clubs program on the evils of rock music. It was a tape my mom recorded off the telly and had forced my brother to watch, because he was into that "Devil Music". It was her punishment for him, to get him back onto the right track. No, I found it and would constantly watch it and take notes on the music I should be listening to. I would break that tape out and have my friends watch it and we'd laugh at how ridiculous it was. My mom thew it away. I was sad, because it was high entertainment for me at ages 13 and 14. I still had to sneak around and hide all of my music, much like Lane Kim on The Gilmore Girls, only she wasn't listening to the hard stuff I was and I also didn't have wooden floorboards. But, pretty much I was the non Asian version of Lane growing up and with some weird off-shoot of Catholicism instead of Seventh Day Adventist. My music now is not strictly focused on heavy metal, but encompasses a wide range of music; from old country, Motown, rock classics, rap, r&b, swing and jazz, crooners and tunes before WWII (and after), eighties music, traditional music from other countries, punk, emo, alternative, "hipster music", and of course the music; songs and bands that I discovered or was exposed to during the nineties. It all petered out and became a nice and varied collection, I think. Perhaps this wouldn't have happened if my mom hadn't of had me in a strong hold where music was concerned. I might have shunned dad's "Oldie Goldies", listening only to the pop music of the late '80s and then continued to only listen to what is termed "popular music" in those top 40 count downs even to this day. I can't think of that because it is sad. Not because that music is necessarily crap as most people will say. No, because of all of the other wide and varied music that I would have missed out on. I wouldn't have sought music out in every crack and hole of the world to have it fall on my ears and would now, more than likely, be stuck in some small and confined box with only one type of music. So, I can't be too mad at what befell concerning myself and my mother. But, I am sad about one thing. In all of this ruin and growth, the little duck Ping was a terrible and probably needless casualty in that war. I feel bad for ripping up the book about Ping. Perhaps that's the way it had to be to break me from my confines, but sometimes I think that he alone could probably have been spared and things still would have turned out alright. My remedy? On my next jaunt to the library, I'm going down into the young children's section. I'll find that book and read it in the isle, and then Ping and I can finally have peace.
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AuthorA girl from South Mississippi who finds herself in exploration. Archives
November 2019
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