Earth Wind & Fire and Slugs in the Bathtub

I really shouldn't listen to music late at night. I start taking long, winding trips down memory lane and write about it. Verbosity gets the better of me.

Oh well, here goes.

Earth, Wind & Fire was on the radio tonight and it took me back in time to my freshman and sophomore years in college. I was dating Band Boy. Band geeks are weird enough in high school but at the college level they are semi-professional band geeks. Really strange bunch. They all lived in the rattiest, nastiest old houses.

Band Boy lived a block off campus in a ratty old house with 12 foot ceilings. Generations of music majors had lived there and as long as the monthly rent checks didn't bounce the landlord let them wreck the place. The floors were so bouncy the stereo turntable was suspended by chains from the ceiling. I thought this was a pretty inventive solution actually. Music majors didn't have much but they all had killer stereo systems with suspended turntables.

Unfortunately, BB didn't have a very good album collection. Lots of Holst, Rachmaninoff, Dvorak, and Sousa marches. The only popular music album he owned was Earth, Wind & Fire. Parties at his house had this lone album played over and over and over and over. I grew to hate it then but it brings back memories now.

BB lived in one bedroom and Two Guys, both music majors too but hated enemies of BB, lived in the other bedroom. I never quite understood the dynamic of living in a house with people you didn't like. I guess the rent was cheap and it was better than living in the dorm. They seemed to be able to avoid one another so it worked for them.

I liked the two guys a lot and hung out with them more than I ever hung out with BB. That right there should tell you something about BB.

Anyway, Two Guys graduated and Barracuda, the little sister of one of them, moved in to their old room. I really liked her too. Since Band Boy and Barracuda couldn't really afford the rent split two ways, they let a freshman move into what was the breakfast nook. It was maybe 6'x6' and had no heat and no door, but they charged him a full 1/3 rent anyway. Freshmen music majors aren't the sharpest tacks in the box. Once again, I guess it was better than the dorm.

The old house had hardwood floors but no subfloor. The hardwood was nailed directly to the joists. That meant about 3/4" of wood separated the occupants from the Great Underneath. During a toga conga line BB crashed through the dining room floor and squashed his manparts on the floor joist. They covered up the hole with a rug. Manparts got ice. I laughed and pointed.

The bathroom had an old clawfoot bathtub with a homemade wooden surround to turn it into a shower. It wasn't waterproof so water got on the floor underneath the tub and eventually the two back legs fell through the floor. The belly of the tub was sitting on a joist thank god or the whole thing would have gone under the house.

A two inch crack opened up between the tub rim and the trim, letting in an earthy smell from parts below. On warm mornings the tub was full of garden slugs swimming around and crawling up the shower curtain. Ewwwww. I don't know how those guys lived like that. It didn't bother them in the least. Men are such pigs. I felt sorry for Barracuda having to shower in that nastiness.

On Sunday mornings after a party the place was littered with bodies. We would all eventually come to (as opposed to wake up) and watch old black and white episodes of The Lone Ranger and The Cisco Kid. "Ohhhhhh Ciscooooo (smirk from Pancho), Ohhhhhh Panchoooooo (smirk from Cisco)" The Cisco Kid was not a very PC show come to think of it.

TV time ended around noon and we would load up en masse and go to Andy's for breakfast/lunch. We all stunk of old beer and cigarette smoke, and had smeared makeup (the girls did) and uncombed hair. My eight-hour-only contacts I had slept in were sticking to my eyeballs.

We would lurch into Andy's, get our food, and purposefully sit right next to the dressed up church people fresh out of church. We loudly discussed every nasty detail of the previous night's events and planned the next weekend's nasty festivities. Glaring looks from the church people.

I eventually broke up with Band Boy at the end of my sophomore year. Barracuda said, "Dang girl, what took you so long???? He's such an a**hole" I was just marking time until I found me a blue-eyed sweetie. Then Band Boy was toast.

Geez I had a lot of fun in college. I'm too old now to wake up in a nasty house reeking of old beer. But I sure miss those times. And I would like to see one more episode of The Cisco Kid.

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PHOTO GALLERY

Band Boy and I in the Summer of 1980



OMG! Lookit that tube top and mane of permed hair. All I needed was a Marlboro Red hanging off my lower lip and a dubblewide trailer in the background.

I realized not too long after this that I really don't like blondes who use more grooming products than me. I prefer my menfolk dark headed and naturally tousled.

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Barracuda and I in the Fall of 1982 at a western themed frat party. Whew! Ditched that permed hair look right after Band Boy.



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The Waiter Brought A Tray

I had a kitchen pass this past weekend because Hubby went off to play with his brothers. I love these weekends alone because I can stay up all night and do whatever I want with all the lights on and the music up loud. Somewhere around 3:00 a.m. I end up surfing through my YouTube collection of songs from the sixties.

I eventually hit upon Procol Harum's "Whiter Shade of Pale." The lyrics have always made my brain twitch in an I-can't-quit-reconcile-it kind of way. I can imagine a bunch of hippies stoned out on acid in some swank gentleman's club. Slouched in deep leather club chairs, they trip away with little mushrooms and flowers floating above their musty, uncombed hair.

After the ceiling flies away to reveal a sky filled with stars, Jeeves the waiter, immaculately turned out in tux and tails, calmly brings them a martini as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. With a snobby British, "Sir, your drink" he proffers the glass.

The dichotomy of the hippie versus the waiter has always held a fascination for me. Would the waiter think it odd that there was a skanky hippie in his club? Would he chaff at having to serve him? Would he sneer? Was he the one who decided that the drink should be a martini? Is that all they serve at this club?

Would the hippie think it strange to be offered a martini by a waiter in a tux? Would he flip out thinking he had gotten some bad acid? Would he be paranoid that he was high in a fancy gentleman's club? Wouldn't red wine go better with acid?

I wonder about the secret lives of my imaginary characters. What do they think? What makes them tick? Are they stuck in an endless loop of my imaginary fantasies while I sleep at night?

Who stole my Xanax?

Anyway, as I was listening to the song I was inspired to draw this scribble of the waiter. It has swirled around in my brain every time I've heard the song over the last four decades.

Now that he's been drawn (read: pooped out of my head), perhaps the immaculate Jeeves will be excused from any further Procol Harum fantasies and can finally get out of that tux and get comfortable.

He would probably appreciate that after 40 years of service.

Friday Flashback - The Ladybug Picnic

This tune has been swimming around in my brain for a couple of days now so I had to go find it on Youtube. It's amazing what one remembers from childhood. Sesame Street had some very, very talented people.

A delight for both the young and the young-at-heart:

The Ladybug Picnic



Brought to you by the letter T and the number 12!

I Hear The Noise of Wings

My friend's momma passed away this week and we attended the funeral. It was held at a little country church in the backwoods of Hot Spring County; Harmony Primitive Baptist in Donaldson, Arkansas.

The service started with congregational singing. The song leader stood and announced the hymn number (but not the title) and lauched into the first verse before I could find the correct page. I recognized the hymn as Blessed Be The Tie That Binds and could get through the first verse by memory. However, by the second line I realized the congregation was singing a cappella in four-part harmony. This was Sacred Harp singing; or shape-note singing, a rarity in today's America of mega-churches and praise bands.

It was beautiful. Simply magnificent, even with the screeching soprano in the back, the tenor who was a little sharp, and the lady behind us who was in a monotone drone. Their deviation made it all the more beautiful.

I wept openly at the stunning simplicity. It touched me somewhere deep inside; deep in my Southern Arkansas roots. My great-great-great grandmother sang it this way, as did all my ancestors before me, just a few miles down the road in another little country church in Clark County. I was transported back in time 200 years and my DNA helixes were vibrating in harmony with the sound.

During Amazing Grace and O Come, Angel Band I fell completely apart. Tears were streaming down my cheeks it was so moving. It was a good thing I was at a funeral and not a wedding or Sunday church service where my tears would not be so appropriate. I had never heard these hymns sung like this live-and-in-person, only in recordings or on video.

Angel Band is one of the best funeral songs ever and is on the soundtrack of the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou?.

1.) My latest sun is sinking fast, my race is nearly run,
My strongest trials now are past, my triumph is begun!

CHORUS:
O come Angel Band, come and around me stand,
O bear me away on your snowy wings to my immortal home,
O bear me away on your snowy wings to my immortal home.

2.) I know I'm nearing holy ranks of friends and kindred dear,
I brush the dew of Jordan's banks, the crossing must be near,

3.) I've almost gained my heav'nly home, my spirit loudly sings;
The holy ones, behold they come! I hear the noise of wings,

4.) O bear my longing heart to Him who bled and died for me;
Whose blood now cleanses from all sin, and gives me victory.

Harmony Primitive Baptist isn't so primitive after all. They have a web site and a podcast of the entire funeral. Blessed Be and Amazing Grace are at the beginning. Angel Band is about 75% of the way down the slide. Of course the recordings don't do the songs any justice. They were much more beautiful live.

More recordings of congregational singing are on the HPB Sermon Podcasts page at the bottom of the right-hand sidebar.

I love my Methodist pipe organ, but when it comes to singing, the Primitive Baptists have got it goin' on.

God Lives in the Pipe Organ

Lately I've been reading a couple of blogs written by members of the Church of Christ. I don't know much about Churchachristers except instrumental music in their worship services is a big no-no. They can sing beautiful four-part harmony, but the devil apparently lives in the pi-anny and the pipe organ.

I grew up in the Methodist church ("a heathen Methodist" for any CofC readers) and was fortunate enough to sing along every Sunday with a grand old High Church pipe organ. It has two manuals, eleven ranks, and was built by the Reuter Organ Company of Lawrence, Kansas in 1947. It is a glorious beast of an organ, filling the wall behind the choir loft with a gazillion pipes.

When I was little bitty, I thought God lived in the pipe organ. After all, the pipe organ produced the loudest sound I had ever heard in my young life and I figured God's voice had to be pretty loud, so there He was.

Daddy assured me that God did NOT live in the pipe organ down at the Methodist church. "God lives in Heaven honey. Don't you remember? We say it every Sunday, 'Our Father, who art in Heaven..' " I was pretty sure he was yanking my chain on that one, because my father was right there in front of me and most assuredly was not in Heaven. But I was only three years old, what did I know?

So I get a little older and learn to read. Oh, I get it now.

Now gray-haired and bi-focaled, I'm realizing my childish wisdom was not that far off the mark. When I go back home and the pipe organ winds up into an old standard, I get all teary-eyed and choked with emotion. I usually can't sing the first verse of the song. I am once again reassured that God does indeed live in the pipe organ. The notes are His voice and it's a language that can only be heard with the heart, not the ears.

When the organ is at full bellow with all the stops out on Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring", I want to stand up on the pew, close my eyes, throw back my head and fling my arms open wide. I want to take it all in with every fiber of my body and let it wash over me, granting me and all who will listen total and complete absolution. There on a bright Easter morning with the sunshine streaming in through the stained glass windows, God will be speaking.

I think the Churchachristers are missing out.

Funeral Singin'

The funeral program said, "How Great Thou Art" - solo. When she stood and went to the podium, I thought to myself, "Uh oh, this is gonna be BAD."

I was attending my uncle's funeral, packed into the funeral parlor chapel with 14 cousins, their spouses and offspring, and 200 other fine citizens of my hometown. There was standing room only even with the folding chairs down the aisles. It was shaping up to be the funeral of the year.

Miz Ima Jean Witherspoon rose to sing her solo. Miz Ima Jean looks to be about 109 1/2. Everybody knows a Miz Ima Jean, there's one in every church in Arkansas. She is the Queen Mother of the first soprano section of the church choir, never misses church or a Wednesday night choir practice. She should have been demoted to alto decades ago since she hasn't been able to hit a high C since 1967, but she is oblivious to the fact and no one has the courage to tell her. Her lipstick is applied just beyond the edges of the lips God gave her and she smells like flowerdy old lady perfume with overtones of mothballs. Yes, you know who I'm talkin' about.

Miz Ima Jean was decked out in her best Sunday-Go-To-Meetin' dress and a "bad lid", a matching royal blue hat bought especially for the occasion. She teetered to the podium and the pianist started. The audience drew its collective breath because they, like me, knew, "This is gonna be bad."

She started in on the first verse and we were not disappointed. I was trying not to giggle but it was a struggle. As she crackled along I studied my fingernails, the toe of my shoe, the fibers of the carpet. I dared not make eye contact with any of my cousins because that would be the end of us.

Miz Ima Jean sang with all her heart, pouring forth her praise to God as His humble servant and in memory of my recently departed uncle. Even though her voice was not quite up to the task, her heart and soul were giving it all she had. After a minute or two I decided it wasn't as bad as I had anticipated, but then realized she had sung the first and second verses back to back without the chorus. As she finished the second verse and started in on the chorus the audience rustled uneasily. Here it comes....



"How Great Thou Arrrrrrt (crack!)... How Greaaat (crack!) Thou Arrrrrt."

Cousin Tommy was poking Cousin Brandi. Brandi's shoulders were quivering as she intently studied the hem of her jacket. She didn't dare look up at him. Over in the pallbearer section Cousin Tommy Darrell was making big google eyes at no one in particular. Beside me my sister was doing a little mouth breathing trying to maintain some composure. I was squinching up my toes, clenching my teeth and giving my fingernails a microscopic examination. We were all on the edge of mutiny. One look cut across the room, one instant of eye contact, one snicker and the whole place would have exploded.

By the second chorus little beads of sweat were forming on my brow. Cousin Ashley, sitting in front of me on the front row, was beginning to squirm. She was the only adult in the front row and was riding herd on a gaggle of nieces and nephews. I could see the kids giving Ashley puzzled looks. I can only imagine the look on Ashley's face as she tried to be a good role model right there under Miz Ima Jean's nose. I was busy in silent prayer, "Please God, do not let there be another verse; Please God, do NOT let there be another verse."

God must have been listening because the piano player was banging out the big finale, "How Great Thou Art (crack!)...How Greaaaat (crack!) Thou Arrrrrrt (crack!)" The amens from the amen pew were especially fervent, not only because of Miz Ima Jean's anthem, but because it was finally over. The audience breathed a sigh of relief.

Two hundred people gathered in attendance had managed to maintain their composure with nary a snicker and Miz Ima Jean's grace and dignity were preserved. For that, let us all give Thanks.

Note to self: No soloist at my funeral doings.