Found Photo

Kris’ Aunt Jenefer and Uncle Bob are in town for the weekend, spending time in beautiful metropolitan Canby. We’ve eaten a lot, and shared a lot of family history. Tomorrow we’ll drive up to the Columbia Gorge to visit Bob’s mother.

Today we spent the afternoon in Aurora, shopping for antiques. In the large store, our favorite, there was a white baby grand piano for sale for $2500. At one point, a young woman (in a pink knit cap) sat at the piano and rolled off five minutes of beautiful classical music. The sound was rich and warm, and it moved me. I sat on a bench and watched the snow fall outside (our third snowfall of the season!), listening to the piano.

Kris walked to where I was sitting. “Do you like this music?” she asked, and I nodded. “I’d like it if you learned to play the piano,” she said. “Then I could sing while you played.”

I’ve always wanted to play the piano. I’ve admired my friends — Kristin, Kim, etc.) — that know how. During my freshman year of college, I took piano lessons for a semester. They went well, but I had trouble because just before the semester started, I broke the ring finger on my right hand while playing touch football at Kim’s house.

(I didn’t know the finger was broken for several days. I was making boxes, and it hurt to flip the sheets of corrugated while we slotted the boxes, so I went to the doctor. I had a fracture. It’s the only broken bone I’ve ever had.)

Despite my broken finger, I persevered and finished the class, but I never took further lessons. I regret that. I love music, but I cannot sing, so I ought to play an instrument.

Maybe someday I’ll take lessons again. I wonder how well adults learn to play. I wonder where I’d find someone to teach me…

In one of the antique shops, I idly picked up a photograph of a dour looking couple. I flipped it over and saw that the photograph was of Sam and Hannah Nofziger. I furrowed my brow and frowned, then put the photo back. Sam and Hannah Kauffman. Why were those names familiar?

When we got home from shopping, I checked my genealogical program; sure enough: Hannah Roth was my grandfather’s aunt (my great-great aunt?). I rushed back to the antique store and bought the photograph.

This couple is actually key to our family history, especially to my brother Jeff’s family history. Hannah, as I mentioned, was our great-great aunt. Jeff is married to Stephanie Nofziger. The Samuel Nofziger in this photo was the brother of Stephanie’s great grandfather. In other words, he bears the same relationship to Stephanie as Hannah does to Jeff. This couple tied the two families together; three generations later, Jeff and Steph tied it together again. Fun stuff!

Jeff recently brought me this photograph, given to him by a woman at church:

This photo shows four young Mennonite boys in front of an unidentified house. From left-to-right, the boys are Daris Eash (spelling?), Ben Kauffman, and the twins Joel Roth and Noah Roth. Noah Roth was our grandfather, the nephew of Hannah in the previous photo.

Here’s a detail of the above photo:

My grandfather, on the right, looks very much like my father did, and like I did when I was younger (and skinnier). It’s uncanny.

Jenefer has given Kris a pedigree chart showing family history on the Gates side back to the 1600s. I’ll have to get that data entered into my program. I think it’s fun that once again, as the winter sets in, I’m getting interested in family history. This is the third consecutive year I’ve had the bug to dig into my family roots.

Comments

On 22 November 2003 (05:36 PM),
Tammy said:

I don’t know how to feel,Jd. Sometimes I almost feel like crying when I look at old photographs. The people were actually living vibrant people; just as alive as I am today. And yet now they are dead. Stone dead. Cold dead. It’s just so sad! Someday will someone find an old picture of me in an antique store and rush to buy it? Probably not. People are losing that sort of thing. What am I trying to say? It’s just that nothing seems to mean much to the generation that comes after us. They are too far removed from the ties that bind us to our history. There’s been so many changes in the world in the last 20 years what with the advances of technology and stuff it just seems that nobody cares anymore. Now it’s all hi tech. I better quit . I don’t think I’m getting across what I’m trying to say. I feel very nostalgic tonight. Nice pictures.

On 22 November 2003 (09:04 PM),
Ron said:

JD
Is Ben Kauffman a grandpa’s cousin?

On 22 November 2003 (09:15 PM),
mac said:

Kelly Kurth teaches piano lessons, J.D.

On 24 November 2003 (08:44 AM),
Drew said:

You need a stage piano like the Roland RD-700. Conveniently, I have one that I could let go at a better than fair price. :)

On 24 November 2003 (09:33 AM),
Denise said:

What’s up with that bowl-cut? I realize that all decades seem to have the crazy haircut that everyone likes, for example, the 80’s had the mullet. But I have to ask, what made men think that shaving off their hair an inch (or more)above their ears while leaving the top long actually looked attractive? It’s like an inverse donut cut – how scary is that?

On 24 November 2003 (09:40 AM),
J.D. said:

You need a stage piano like the Roland RD-700.

Right, Drew, because you know I just happen to have $2000 budgeted for a piano…

On 26 November 2003 (01:18 PM),
pril said:

Adults can learn, and learn well. I started playing bass when i was 26. I’d taken piano when i was younger (and was terrible at it), as well as French horn in middle school (again, i was terrible). Learning as a kid and sticking with it is like learning a language and sticking with it. But adults have something they may not have had when they were kids trying to learn- patience and the ability to attack problems from different angles than the obvious ones.

So, i’ve been playing bass for seven years, and also taught myself some guitar, some piano, some drums, some violin, and on the violin i retuned it a couple of different ways to work on aspects of the different, non-fretted strings like cello.

Basically what i’m saying is that is you have a yen to learn the piano, or any other instrument, don’t let anything stop you. An added, positive side effect to learning an instrument is that your singing will improve. 10 years ago no one would have expected in a million years that i would get on a stage, let alone play an instrument, or even sing a song, but i do all three now. And i make a bit of moolah here and there at it, too. ;)

I did take some courses at the local college, too, for playing. So if you have a community college with a music program, look into taking a couple of classes. A beginning theory class in conjunction with piano does wonders.

By Any Other Name…

Denise writes:

If I remember correctly, you used to spell J.D. as Jay Dee. In fact, on your senior picture you signed your name Jay Dee. I found this interesting because I always thought is should be JD, as your name is John David.

So when did you make the switch from Jay Dee to J.D.?

When I as an infant, I was Bug.

When I was a young boy, I was David. (I still am David to my extended family, including Virginia and Tammy, and to friends who knew me only in grade school.)

During grades one through three, I was David at home and John David at school. There were multiple Johns in my classes (John Galen, John Kern, John Kyllo) and multiple Davids (David Sumpter, and another David whose last name I’ve forgotten). I became John David, and that suited me fine.

I was a squirrelly kid — no surprise there. One day in fourth grade I was squirreling away, not paying attention, and Mr. Zagyva was trying to get my attention.

“John David,” he said, but I didn’t hear.

“John David!” he said, but I didn’t hear.

Finally, he yelled, “J.D.!” and I heard, and I knew he was talking to me. From then on I was J.D. at school. I was still David at home for many years, but by high school I was J.D.

Signing my eighth grade yearbook at the end of the year, Mary Sanderson called me Jay Dee. I liked it. I adopted it, but slowly.

During high school, I called myself J.D. or Jay Dee, depending on with whom I was communicating. With Denise, and many of the other girls with which I was twitterpated, I called myself Jay Dee. I don’t know why, I just did. The Jay Dee thing died with graduation, though. It was just something I was trying on to see how it fit.

On the high school soccer team, I was Argyle, because I wore argyle socks to practice. It was my schtick.

In college, I was alternately J.D. and John, depending on the situation. I was J.D. to my friends and in informal situations, but I was often John with my professors and with the administration.

Today, I am J.D. to those who have any sort of relationship with me, whether it’s a business relationship, a friendship, or a family tie. (Even Tammy and Virginia have begun to come around, I think, though it makes me all warm inside when they call me David — they can call me whatever they want, actually.)

On official communications, or situations in which I don’t have a personal relationship with the people around me, I’m always John. I like the name. It’s simple and strong: John Roth. If I ever publish, it’s going to be as John Roth.

There are occasional instances of confusion. Andrew Parker calls me John, which bothered me at first. Now, I like it. Andrew can call me John. It feels odd, but right. Tom, the guy I work with at Quickstop Photo, calls me John, but we’re moving toward J.D., thanks in part, I think, to Mac.

Kris is Kris except when I am angry with her; then she becomes Kristina. When she was a girl, she was Tina. But, then, she didn’t really want you to know that�

Comments

On 25 October 2003 (11:30 AM),
Mom (Sue) said:

Twitterpated . . . now there’s an expression I haven’t heard in quite a while! :-) You’re working at Quick Stop Photo? Is this for Computer Resources or as a regular employee of theirs?

On 25 October 2003 (11:32 AM),
Mom (Sue) said:

BTW, you were named for a professor Steve had and admired at Goshen College. I have always really liked your name, as well as the names of my other sons.

On 25 October 2003 (11:36 AM),
Aimee Rose said:

J.D. …

During those long winter evenings, ages ago, Joel and I pondered, weak and weary, “What does J.D. stand for?” We’d known you almost a year, but did not know the significance of the initals [Something I’d always regretted, as I am overly sensitive about the spelling and pronounciation of my own name – Like Anne, I too can tell when my name is said with a “y” (Ew, the cursed, nasal “y”) – I was always ‘touched’ (not exactly the word that I’m looking for) that you remembered and called me by first two names, spelled correctly, of course. But, I digress …]. Naturally, Joel concluded that the initals must stand for Jackal Death, and of course, in our innermost hearts, each time we say J.D., we are secretly, affectionately saying “Fine afternoon isn’t it, Jackal Death?” and “I’ve enjoyed this Proust utterly, Jackal Death!” and “What say you to a game of Magic, Jackal Death?”

Yours,

On 25 October 2003 (11:59 AM),
Mom (Sue) said:

My son John David just let me know that what he meant by his saying he was working with Quick Photo was that he was interacting with them, as in having develop his photos. (I just lost the e-mail as I tried to look at it again in my in-box to see exactly what he said, but that’s basically the meaning.) In the defense of my odd leap to the conclusion I came to, it seems that my sons are always involved in other work endeavors in addition to Custom Box Service, including J.D.’s work with Computer Resources, so that was where I went with it. Have photos developed at Quick Stop Photo? Why would anyone do that? -G- Seriously, I like Fred Meyer’s photo processing much better. But I do check Quick Stop photo now and again for scrapbooking supplies. :-)

On 25 October 2003 (03:02 PM),
tammy said:

For years I barely saw or knew my Uncle Steves boys. Now my Uncle Normans kids I knew very well. I’m sure this was due in part by the fact that Norms kids were my age. David, Jeff, and Tony were little kids who played with my little brothers.

I remember when David was just a young boy I went down to Canby and worked as a hired girl for Aunt Sue. I think it was only like a week or two. I’m sure Mom or Sue remember better.

All I remember of it is that the trailer was so hot. It was summer time. I also remember how picky Jeff was with his food and how all the boys rolled and tumbled around on the carpet in spite of the heat. It seemed like everyday David and his brothers would get in some sort of wrestling contest. I remember the orangish drapes that were always pulled against the heat.

Years later when we were all grown up somebody said something to me about jd. I had absolutely no idea who jd was.

As long as we were all kids at home we stayed in contact at least for Christmas. It was when we grew up and each went into the world to seek our fame and fortune that we all lost track of each other.

Now that we are aging, family has become as important to us as it was to our parents. It’s funny how you seemingly go through a time in life that relation and family really don’t matter so much. But let old age show it’s ugly face and we all start turning to our roots. Suddenly we find something lasting and comforting about knowing we all came from the same long line of descendants of Roths and Sharps.

We go to reunions that once we hated. Now we are the fat middle aged couples sitting around telling stories and trying frantically to preserve our heritage. We feel a rushing of time and with that rush comes the realization that we are writing history.

The last couple of years the Noah Roth cousins have begun to get together again between Thanksgiving and Christmas. And the last couple of years we have breathed new life into the dying Roth reunion at Zion Mennonite Church. The day has come to make our mark in the halls of time.

Today we are proud to be cousins. We give a nod of recognition to old age and in that nod we find David has become a middle aged man named jd.

Long live the Roths!!

On 25 October 2003 (04:15 PM),
Tiffany said:

I have had a few nick names over the years, but nothing ever stuck. Only a few friends even call me ‘Tiff’. I have always disliked my name, too formal, too blond cheer-leader, to stuck-up. I have often wondered what that means, when a person does not have a nick-name.

On 25 October 2003 (04:17 PM),
Nikchick said:

Unlike the rest of you, I never gave a thought about asking J.D. why he was J.D., but I do remember him getting testy with me when I wrote JD and not J.D. back in ’83 or ’84.

I honestly thought the Jay Dee (and jay dee) thing was just part of his e e cummings phase, where he was writing a lot of poetry without punctuation or capital letters. :)

On 25 October 2003 (11:28 PM),
Virginia said:

“David” it shall be.

Independence Day

This photo seems like a run-of-the mill snapshot, doesn’t it?

Not to me.

To me, this photograph is loaded with meaning, so much meaning I don’t even know where to begin (though I know where to end).

This is a photograph, taken late in the afternoon of Independence Day 1995, showing Jeff and me playing croquet. Dad is walking over to sit on the porch. He has only seventeen more days to live.

Notable elements in this photograph:

The house: This is the house in which my father was raised (and Aunt Virginia, too). It is Grandma’s House (or, less often, Grandpa’s House). My grandparents moved here in the late 1940s, and every picture I have of my father as a child shows him someplace on this property. The house is just a quarter mile from Custom Box Service, which itself is housed in the trailer house where I was raised. This is the house where we’d meet all our cousins, ride on Grandpa’s tractor, tromp back to the woods, pick corn and blueberries and flowers. This is the house where I learned to play Scrabble, where I used Bible tracts to learn to read. This is the house with the big chest freezer on the back porch, stocked with Popsicles. This is the house where the pantry was filled with canned fruit, the pantry which smelled rich and thick and musty. This is the house where we gathered and sang as Grandma died. This is Grandma’s House. I grew up here.
The tree: Between the house and the croquet players stands a flowering plum. When I was a child, this was my favorite tree. Every other tree I knew had green leaves, but this tree’s leaves were red. It was also a relatively young tree, and though its branches were tightly bunched at the trunk, it was easy for me to climb. It’s the first tree I ever climbed. Later, when I was a bit taller, the oak tree in the back yard became my tree of choice. It was stouter, with more room to maneuver. In the uncropped version of this photo, the oak peers over the rooftop in the upper left corner.
The barn (and outbuildings): Also in the ucropped version of this photo, one can see the barn looming in the upper right corner. In the photo as shown, only the woodshed is visible, behind me (and my lovely plaid Costco shirt), to the right of the house. I don’t know if Grandpa built these outbuildings (Virginia, do you know?). Regardless, they were the playhouses of my youth. In the barn, we’d torment the cows, play with the tools, or climb to the hay loft where we’d burrow in the bales or walk across the strange slatted floor. We’d help Grandpa split firewood from the woodshed or, across the wall, we’d watch the indicator for the electric fence buzz on and off. Bzzzt. Bzzzt. One of the outbuildings we actually called a playhouse, and it was furnished with a little table and chairs and plates and glasses, etc. (Only recently did I learn that it was a good thing we didn’t play with everything in the playhouse — Grandpa stored his blasting equipment there!)
The Geo Storm: Just to Jeff’s right my Geo Storm is visible. I had a love-hate relationship with that vehicle. It drove well, it’s true, and it took a tremendous amount of abuse. But the seat made my back sore, and the car was always dirty, no matter how hard I tried to clean it. The back seat was uncomfortable for passengers. When the Storm was totaled in December 2000, I wasn’t sad for long; the joy of my new Ford Focus masked any sorrow. Now, though, I miss the blue beast, especially its manual transmission. Oh, how I hate automatics…
Jeff and J.D.: There we are: playing croquet. I’m kicking Jeff’s ass! We both look rather chunky; we each weigh over two hundred pounds. Three years later I will have dropped forty pounds. Five years later, Jeff will have done the same. Today, in 2003, we’re both back up over two hundred pounds.
Snickers: Behind us, stretched on the lawn, is an orange and white cat named Snickers. Snickers and my cat, Toto, are littermates, though Snickers is possessed of a much sweeter temperament. Snickers is just over a year old in this photograph, and not yet Mom’s devoted baby. They’d bond later…
Dad: This was Dad’s last Independence Day. The last year of his life. The last month. This was one of his bad days. He didn’t feel well. He couldn’t eat much. The cancer inside of him had won the battle and was now overwhelming his last defenses. He’d once weighed 240, but when this photograph was taken he probably weighed 180. Maybe 160. (His weight-loss is due both to the cancer and to the macrobiotic diet.) Here he’s walked from the back of the house to sit on the front steps and watch us play croquet. He won’t say much. He’ll simply spend twenty minutes watching his sons hit balls with mallets. It’s the last time in his life he’ll do anything of that sort. Over the next seventeen days, he’ll spend a lot of time in the hospital, undergoing various cancer treatments. He’ll also sleep a lot. Two weeks from this day, on the eighteenth, he’ll sit with me in his office and without a hint of hope for the future he’ll outline those things that he absolutely wants me to know above all others about the business (he’s especially worried about collecting on past-due accounts, doesn’t think any of us are ready to do that). All animosity between us is gone. We’re free of it. Three days after that meeting, seventeen days after this photograph was taken, he’ll be dead. I’ll be making sales calls in Salem and Tash will call and tell me to come back to the shop immediately: Dad’s in trouble. I drive fast, but when I get to the office, things seem better. Mom and Dad are at the hospital and he’s under observation. Jeff and I get together with Joel and Sabino and Roger to play games, the first of a planned series of game nights. I make fajitas for dinner. The fajitas are sizzling on the stove when Mom calls, crying, and tells me that we’d better get to the hospital right now. It’s rush hour. Jeff drives from Canby to North Portland as quicky as possible, but when we get there, he’s gone. It’s 6:00 p.m. on 21 July 1995, just ten days before his fiftieth birthday.

This is the last photograph I have of Dad before his death. It may not look like much, but it’s packed with meaning.

Comments

On 03 July 2003 (01:02 PM),
Dana said:

The back seat was uncomfortable for passengers

That’s an understatement. But hey, if Harlan Ellison will pitch for a car company, they can’t be all bad, right? :)

On 03 July 2003 (03:56 PM),
Nikchick said:

Maybe it’s just the stress of the last couple of weeks catching up with me, but this entry made me cry.

I’m so sorry about your dad, J.D. We were out of touch for the entirety of his illness and he died years before we got back in contact. I’ve always been sentimental about your dad, I was star-struck as a kid: he was an *inventor* (which in my mind was a cool as if someone told me they’d taken the game Mouse Trap and made it their job for real).

I guess I’m not entirely used to the idea of him not being out there somewhere.

On 03 July 2003 (03:57 PM),
jeremyw said:

jd, thanks for explaining all the hidden meaning and memories. makes me want to dig out some of my old photos and explore the past.

On 03 July 2003 (04:12 PM),
Tiffany said:

Hi Jd,
That was wonderful.
I often wish that Kris and I had one house to grow up in so that we felt that connection to a place. I used to feel that way about my Grandparents� houses.
I made the mistake of driving past me Grandpa�s house (Mom�s Dad) when I learned to drive, some 4 years after his death. It ruined some of the memories, the house was no longer yellow and the morning glories had been removed from the front fence. Some of my best memories are watching Road Runner cartoon on Saturdays before anyone else woke up while smelling those flowers.
My dad and aunts are in the processes of cleaning out me Grandma�s house (Dad�s Mom). If I can avoid it I will never go back to her house, I do not want to see the changes. The giant cactus has been removed from the front because it was to close to the driveway. The downstairs bathroom has been repainted. This is the bathroom that had huge flowered wallpaper with gold foil my whole life. The front bedroom that was a bright Kelly green has also been repainted. I always thought both were ugly, but do not want to see it any other way.
If you or brothers can help it, never let go of that house.

On 03 July 2003 (09:24 PM),
Virginia said:

Sometime either the 2nd or 3rd of July, Stan and I were at Steve’s place for a back yard BBQ. I can still see him out under the oak tree in the back yard fixing sliced onions on the grill. AT dark we also watched a coon come out and eat dog food out of the wood shed. When we first got to his place that night there was a note on the door. He had gone to the hospital to get a IV of platelets. He would be home in a little while. I marvel at how brave he was.

The oak tree in the back yard was one mom had planted. She found it in a clump of flowers she had bought at a nursery. It was only about 3″ high. She planted it and watered it with loving care but us kids always new the secret of its fast and hardy growth. She planted it right on the spot where the out house had stood. The tree is about 43 years old.

The old play house and other buildings were on the place when Dad bought it. Dad bought 2 places together. The Riecer place and the Gates place.
Custom Box Service is on the Gates Place and Grandpa’s house is on the Riecer place. There used to be a house and barn where CBS is now but we burnt the house down a few years later, and years later the barn. It was years because Stan and I used to park in front of that barn.

I remember the night we burned the house Norm would have been about 11 or 12, old enough that he thought it was big stuff to be able to help light the house on fire and he wouldn’t get out of the house right away. He finally stepped out the front door and off the porch and just a few minutes later the porch roof collapsed.

I remember a little room off of the dinning room of the Gates house. There was an old man living there and he would sit at a writting desk in that little room. I often wished I had little room with a writting desk, I would sit and write lots of stories. (But I guess I’ll let Tammy be the story writer)

My brothers and I were close. I remember going with Norman on his first date with Janice. She was my very good friend and he was nervous, so he wanted me with him. He took her home from churh (Sweet Home) and we stopped at the Dairy Queen. She must have been nervous too, because she hung onto my hand very tightly on the way home.

I had the greatest brothers!!!!!!

On 03 July 2003 (10:46 PM),
Tammy said:

Oh my goodness JD. It’s enough to make one weep! I remember sitting in the hospital roon after your dad died but thats really all I remember. I remeber Nick being there but for some reason I don’t remember you boys.

And that smell in Grandmas fruit room. Who can forget it. Every once in a while I will get a smell of it in my shed in the fall when all the apples are ripe. And many times my front hall smells like the Zion church. I think it’s all the wood in there. It has to be because theres nothing else in there; wood closet doors, outside door, and pocket door.

And those Bible tracts grandma always had. How scarey were they? Everybody ended up going to hell in them, until you turned the last page and then someone had listened to the preachers revival sermon and made it to heaven. Maybe this helped foster your love of cartoons too. Remember how they were all written like cartoons?

And the zapping of those lights in Grandpas shop! how fascinating was that? I can’t tell you the times I got shocked on grandpas fences! You’d think I’d have learned from one time to the next!

But try as I will I do not remember pop cycles in the chest freezer. She must have saved all those for when you boys came to visit! I do remember the eclair cookies! Every time I spent the night she stocked up on those! I could eat the entire pack without blinking an eye. To this day I love htose cookies but you can hardly find them. The nearestthing to them are pinwheels and they’re not nearly as soft a marshmellow as the eclair ones were.

Your entry reminds me of part of a poem I memorized as a girl. It comes from a very old book calledThe Rosary. It goes like this:

“Oh memories that bless and burn; Oh barren gain and bitter loss! I count each bead until the end, and there – a cross!

On 04 July 2003 (12:30 PM),
tony said:

as sad as some of it was, that was really great. thanks for sharing all of that with us, because youre right, at first glance the average guy doesnt see anything in that picture but just a lush backyard.

On 04 July 2003 (06:51 PM),
Tammy said:

Actually thats the front yard. :) (Not that it matters)

On 05 July 2003 (12:31 PM),
Aimee said:

Perhaps it’s already been said: Beautiful, JD. Thank you.

On 06 July 2003 (07:18 PM),
Scott said:

I have always been a fan of your writing, from “California” (I still like the rooftop scene) to the poem about a sawbuck, ionesco and hemingway, and then today’s entry. I’d really like to see you create “your” novel. The one hidden deep. But then again, maybe your weblog is your novel.

Please Please Please

In so very many ways I was a typical angst-filled teenager of the mid-1980s. I sulked and pouted, pierced my ears, shaved my head (but only half of it), wrote black poetry, etc. The angst-rock of the era was the soundtrack of my life: New Order, The Cure (their 1985 album, The Head on the Door, was a fixture in my tape deck), Tears For Fears.

I never bought all the way in, though: I didn’t like The Smiths. I didn’t hate The Smiths, but I couldn’t understand why my fellow sulksters worshipped them. The Smiths took whininess and depression to depths that I couldn’t fathom.

I liked one song by The Smiths. One song. (Presented in lower-case as a tribute to those angst-filled years…)

how soon is now
by the smiths

i am the son and the heir

of a shyness that is criminally vulgar
i am the son and the heir
of nothing in particular

you shut your mouth
how can you say
i go about things the wrong way
i am human and i need to be loved
just like everybody else does

there’s a club if you’d like to go
you could meet somebody who really loves you
so you go, and you stand on your own
and you leave on your own
and you go home, and you cry
and you want to die

when you say it’s gonna happen “now”
well, when exactly do you mean?

see i’ve already waited too long
and all my hope is gone

you shut your mouth
how can you say
i go about things the wrong way
i am human and i need to be loved
just like everybody else doesAdmittedly, I liked the song a lot, but it was just one song.

During these adolescent years, there was only a portion of me which was riddled by angst. It was a large part of my personality, indeed, but the whole time that part of me stood permanently beneath a black cloud, other parts of me were loving live, building friendships that last til this day.

Gradually, the angst-rock which had been a central part of my life faded into something of an accent, something that I listened to only now and then.

For a time I was a DJ at KWU, the college radio station. I found one song in the heavy rotation bin that I loved to play: Morrisey’s Every Day is Like Sunday. It took me a while to recollect that he was the lead singer for The Smiths.

every day is like sunday
by morrisey

trudging slowly over wet sand

back to the bench where your clothes were stolen
this is the coastal town
that they forgot to close down
armageddon – come armageddon!
come, armageddon! come!

every day is like sunday
every day is silent and grey

hide on the promenade

etch a postcard :
“how i dearly wish i was not here”
in the seaside town
that they forgot to bomb
come, come, come nuclear bomb

every day is like sunday
every day is silent and grey

trudging back over pebbles and sand

and a strange dust lands on your hands
(and on your face…)
(on your face …)
(on your face …)
(on your face …)

every day is like Sunday
“win yourself a cheap tray”
share some greased tea with me

every day is silent and greyJust as dark and depressing as always, but I loved it. And, a few years later, Morrisey produced this absolute gem:

the more you ignore me, the closer i get
by morrisey

the more you ignore me, the closer i get
you’re wasting your time
the more you ignore me, the closer i get
you’re wasting your time

i will be the in the bar with my head on the bar
i am now a central part of your mind’s landscape
whether you care or do not
yeah, I’ve made up your mind

the more you ignore me, the closer i get
you’re wasting your time
the more you ignore me, the closer i get
you’re wasting your time

beware! i bear more grudges than lonely high court judges
when you sleep i will creep into your thoughts
like a bad debt that you can’t pay
take the easy way and give in

yeah, and let me in
oh, let me in

it’s war, it’s war, it’s war

it’s war, it’s war, war war war war

oh, let me in As much as I like these three songs from Morrisey, I find that I prefer his music when it’s covered by other artists. For example, both The Pretenders and 10,000 Maniacs have covered “Every Day is Like Sunday”, and I find their versions superior to the original. More recently, the Russian lesbian duo (how strange does that sound?) t.A.T.u. have produced an outstanding cover of “How Soon is Now”, a cover that even Morrisey likes. This version rocks. I love it. It’s the most-played track on my iPod right now. Here’s a funny snippet from an interview with Morrisey (pilfered from a great t.A.T.u. fan site:

Morissey, former singer of The Smiths, who originally wrote and performed the song “How Soon Is Now?” in 1984 had this to say about t.A.T.u. in the U.K.’s Word Magazine:

Word: Did you hear t.A.T.u.’s version of “How Soon Is Now?”
Morissey: Yes, it was magnificent. Absolutely. Again, I don’t know much about them.
Word: They are teenage Russian lesbians.
Morissey: Well, aren’t we all?

And a bit from The Beat magazine:

“Morrissey and myself were far more fanatical about the band than even the most fanatical Smiths’ obsessive.” says guitarist and founder of The Smiths, Johnny Marr with surprising enthusiasm of the finest British band of the past two decades. “We were our biggest fans and everything that the band was about we really loved. It was a really, really amazing time. It wasn’t just kind of a bunch of young guys goofing around and the stuff that happened to us didn’t happen by accident. It was borne out of complete passion and ridiculous intensity and that’s why we sounded the way we did.”

Unfortunately, I just couldn’t identify with their complete passion and ridiculous intensity. I just wasn’t that angst-filled.

Comments

On 19 June 2003 (08:32 AM),
J.D. said:

Okay. Four songs. (How could I have forgotten this one, since my entry’s title is taken from it?)

please please please let me get what i want
by the smiths

good times for a change
see, the luck i’ve had
can make a good man
turn bad

so please please please

let me, let me, let me
let me get what i want
this time

haven’t had a dream in a long time
see, the life i’ve had
can make a good man bad
so for once in my life
let me get what i want

lord knows, it would be the first time
lord knows, it would be the first time

Four songs.

On 19 June 2003 (10:02 AM),
Joelah said:

“Girlfriend in a coma” always gives me a chuckle.

On 19 June 2003 (12:15 PM),
Dave said:

As does Mojo Nixon’s cover of “Girlfriend in a Coma”

On 19 June 2003 (12:20 PM),
Paul said:

I appreciate the smiths arrangements. The guitar by Johnny Marr was up beat and fun while Morisseys sweet voice oozed the angst you highlighted here. The cure on the other hand used their arrangements many times to highlight the dark emotions they were protraying through their music. In the end, synthpop was fun regardless of the lyrics and continues to brighten my day when it comes on.

On 19 June 2003 (12:44 PM),
Dana said:

My favorite Cure song is one (if not the only) of their peppy songs, Friday I’m in Love. I’m generally not a fan of the angsty-er stuff from the 80s. I like quirky and upbeat more, like TMBG. Never really got into either the Smiths or Cure, although of course you couldn’t really get away from them, either. I didn’t really start being a consumer of music until College, though. Didn’t listen to (or own) records or listen to the radio much till then.

On 19 June 2003 (03:14 PM),
Rich said:

i know that it is physically possible to like both morrisey’s “Every Day is Like Sunday” and 10,000 maniacs’ cover of the song, but you have to admit it is difficult. natalie’s singing is so light and happy that it almost mocks morrisey’s angst, don’t you think? i never took that cover as sincere.

speaking of cover songs – my favorite cover song of all time is prince’s “raspberry beret” done by the hindu love gods (warren zevon singing with REM — minus michael stipe — playing the music). kicks ass.

On 19 June 2003 (03:21 PM),
Dana said:

My favorite cover of all time is probably an obscure acapella group, Four Shadow, doing an acapella version of DMB‘s “Ants Marching”. Very fun.

On 19 June 2003 (07:57 PM),
Eryk said:

You were a teenager JD? Get out. =]

On 19 June 2003 (08:10 PM),
dowingba said:

I’d like to know more about this half-shaven head phenomenon.

On 28 October 2003 (01:34 PM),
Silver said:

oh man do i love Morrissey, The Smiths, and The Cure… its crazy how i like the same music as some of my teachers (who were teenagers in the 80s) … i relate to the lyrics so much, and its crazy to know that morrissey old enough to be my father… haha. But its cool that their music is alive and well in todays teens

On 04 November 2003 (01:28 PM),
Chris said:

In the 80’s I preferred alternative rock because it was obviously more sincere than the manufactured pop listened to by my high school peers. I also loved the angst, the unexpected lyrics, the minor chords, and the unusual instrumental sounds (achieved electronically) and irregular rythmns with which these bands experimented. My ultimate favorites were the Smiths, New Order, Depeche Mode and the Cure. I also loved a number of songs by Erasure, the Psychedelic Furs, U2, INXS and, of course, REM. I’m almost embarressed to admit this, but I still listen almost exclusively to New Order and the Smiths when I’m in my car without the kids. My husband hates the alternative music I loved. (He’s a tad homophobic I’m afraid.) However, we both agree on Sting, Sarah McLaughlin, and Enya. This music takes me back to times when I felt I was on the cusp of greatness, when I thought I had so much potential. Perhaps I still listen to it because I cling to the idea that someday I’ll continue where I left off and finally acheive my dreams. I’d bet that many people stubbornly cling to the music they loved in their teens and early 20’s for similar reasons.

On 17 March 2004 (11:31 AM),
Ben said:

I noticed that you like Dave Matthews acapella. You should check out mine.

www.pezshow.com/music.html

On 17 March 2004 (11:31 AM),
Ben said:

I noticed that you like Dave Matthews acapella. You should check out mine.

www.pezshow.com/music.html

The Big Tree

When I was a kid, I lived for the hot days of summer.

After school (we had year-round school back then), Jeff and I would hop on our bikes and ride over to the housing development to play with the Lams, the Zimmers, the Piersons, and the other kids on the street.

We’d meet on our bikes, all of us oblivious to the sun. With our shirts off we’d race from the Barnhardts’ to the Big Tree. We’d play in the fields: dirt-clod wars that only ended when someone was hurt such that we had to seek medical attention from an adult (and, inevitably, endure the adult’s reprimands). Sometimes when Shawn Carlson was allowed to play, his father would let us go see the wrecking yard. We’d tell horrible stories about the neighbors. Somtimes we’d even talk about girls.

Once or twice each summer we’d venture all the way down to Gribble Creek where we’d look for bugs (plenty) and fish (none) or play with twigs and branches. One time we found an old rowboat, and I nearly drowned while trying to climb inside.

Other times we’d traipse back to Grandpa’s woods to play hide and seek, or to climb the trees, or to build forts, or to look at the pond. The Lams’ woods, too, were fun to play in, if the undergrowth less dense, less exciting. Torey and Brent had a genuine tree fort ideal for dirt-clod wars or, when we were older and stupider, BB-gun wars.

We’d pick blackberries from the ever-present vines. We’d pop tar bubbles on the pavement. We’d hunt for pop cans on the side of the road, hoping to find enough to buy a drink of our own at Charlie’s Grocery. When we’d find pop bottles, though, we’d break them, hold them over our heads and shatter them on the asphalt.

We’d play wiffle ball on our front lawn, and soccer, and football, all of them in the heat of summer. On the hottest days, we’d play inside at someone’s house: games on the Atari or the Commodore 64. We’d watch Pink Floyd’s The Wall, and when we were older, we’d listen to Led Zepplin and ELO and Styx.

When we’d had our fill of games and fun, we’d gather beneath the Big Tree, an oak at the bend in the road midway between our trailerhouse and the housing development. Its branches were huge and gnarled, its root structure contorted to create enticing nooks and crannies. We’d climb the tree, and hide in the root system, but mostly we’d just recline against the trunk, soaking in the coolness of the shade after our day of adventure. Often we’d each have a bottle of pop.

One summer we discovered a paper sack at the base of the tree. We couldn’t believe what the sack contained: girlie magazines and lots of them! Playboy! Hustler! Others we’d never heard of! Manna from heaven — we were ten, twelve, eight, six. To us, this stuff was gold.

That summer, the Big Tree was the most popular destination in the neighborhood. Those magazines were sacred; none of us took them home. They were safe where they were, a communal treasure, to be treated with respect and awe. From these magazines, I learned a lot about anatomy, about sex, but it’d be years before I could apply the knowledge. (Surprisingly, the magazines were still there the following summer, albeit much worse for wear after a winter of rain and wind.)

This summer, though, I’ve been enjoying the heat for the first time in many years.

Comments

On 17 June 2003 (05:06 PM),
Nikchick said:

My husband also tells a fond story of playing in the wild, undeveloped area around his house with the neigbor boys, and of occasionally finding girlie magazines out near the industrial park.

After I found my divorced 20-something dad’s girlie magazines, he switched to reading those all-story magazines (Penthouse Stories?). Like he thought I couldn’t read or something.

On 02 January 2005 (04:02 PM),
Torey Lam said:

Wow J.D…what a memory. There was a lot that was so thick with blackberries that someone cut a tunnel system through it. It was a cool hang out in the summer.

Twenty-Two Year Reflection

One night, when I was twelve, I stayed up late to watch the ten o’clock news with Dad. It was the day of the first space shuttle launch, and we wanted to see the footage of the shuttle on the launch pad, the shuttle in flight, the shuttle lifting into space. (Dad possessed a strong conviction that manned spaceflight is important to our future as a species, and he imparted that conviction to me.)

We watched the entire newscast, including the end credits, which featured slow-motion images of the shuttle launch set to ethereal new age music. Dad was enthralled. The music, especially, captivated him.

He called the television station in the morning and learned that the song on the end credits was from the soundtrack to the Carl Sagan television series Cosmos. The song was called Heaven and Hell, Part 1 by someone named Vangelis. (Vangelis’ Chariots of Fire soundtrack would become popular several months later, making him a household name; his Blade Runner work was still a year away).

Dad went out that day and bought the record album.

He played it repeatedly, and we kids even played it when he wasn’t around. I liked Vangelis’ Alpha and Tomita‘s The Sea Named Solaris. But Dad — Dad played the entire album, loudly, whenever he could.

Though Dad bought the record for Heaven and Hell, the track he loved most was the Bulgarian Shepherdess Song. We hated it, and we told him so: the bagpipe-like instruments, the indecipherable lyrics, the strange shrieking of the woman’s voice all grated on our nerves.

But Dad loved it, and he listened to the song again and again.

One morning I woke, in darkness, to the Bulgarian shepherdess wailing from the living room. In our 1000-square foot trailer, sound carried well, and in this case, the volume was set quite high. I tried to go back to sleep, but it was impossible with that woman wailing.

I got out of bed and walked down the hall, through the kitchen, to the living room. I looked in at Dad. He was sitting, alone, on the edge of the couch, staring out the window at the still-black dawn. He was dressed for work, in his business suit; his wild curly hair almost looked neat.

“Dad, I’m trying to sleep,” I said.

He didn’t seem to hear me.

“Dad,” I said.

“Go back to sleep, bug,” he said, but he didn’t look at me. His expression didn’t change. He stared out into the blackness.

“But Dad…” I said.

“I said ‘go back to bed’, bug,” and though his appearance was unaltered, something about his voice told me it was best not to disobey.

I crawled back in bed and lay in the dark, listening to the Bulgarian shepherdess again and again and again, wondering what it was Dad was doing, sitting alone, staring into the darkness.

A while later I heard the front door open and close, heard Dad clip-clop clip-clop down the walk to his car. Skrp, skrp. He scraped the ice from the windows of the Datsun 310GX. The car door slammed. As he pulled away, the Bulgarian shepherdess continued to wail from the living room.

I’m older now, but I still listen to the Cosmos soundtrack; it’s a great album. In fact, I own it on vinyl, cassette tape, and compact disc, and at the end of March I purchased the deluxe expanded edition of the album (which is better than the original in some ways, worse in others — I like both).

I find myself drawn to that song which I hated in my youth, the Bulgarian Shepherdess Song. I still don’t understand the lyrics, but I think, perhaps, I understand their meaning. I understand what Dad heard, I understand what he was doing that morning, staring out at the darkness, listening to the shepherdess sing.

He was thirty-five. I am thirty-four.

Comments

On 20 May 2003 (04:53 PM),
Dana said:

Shall I hazard a guess? Is someone feeling the inexorable march of time wearing away at the strands of his life? Has the Christmas (or Birthday, or whatever) sweater become threadworn and shabby, with inexpert patches at the elbows and loose threads dangling from the edges, ready to pull the whole thing to bits?

Or am I projecting?

On 20 May 2003 (07:55 PM),
J.D. said:

Nah, I was just feeling a bit melancholy after hearing the song, and I started to think about Dad.

Although, if you substitute body for sweater, perhaps your analogy is apt. :)

On 20 May 2003 (08:11 PM),
Dana said:

Not analogy, metaphor. At least, that’s what I was aiming for. Ah, well.

Are you ready for surgery?

On 20 May 2003 (10:13 PM),
Dave said:

I think that there comes a time for every man (I can’t speak to the woman side of the coin, of course) at which we realize that despite our promises as youths, despite our best intentions, and most of all despite our best efforts to be someone or do something different than that which we see around us, we take stock and realize that our youth is gone and that we have become that which we feared most- our fathers. Sometimes that’s not a good thing. Sometimes it is. Most off all I think that we just feel very keenly the loss of the illusion that we could have changed and that we had a choice in the matter coupled with the sudden shock of being confronted with a reality that we thought we had a lot more time to change.

In the course of my practice I’ve seen men handle this transition in many different ways. Count yourself lucky, JD, that at the end of the day your father came back home. Many don’t.

Ok, I’m done being maudlin for the evening.

On 20 May 2003 (10:57 PM),
Virginia said:

What can I say? I miss him!! Why was I blessed with a life span of (at this point) 10 more years than my brothers? At this time Steve knew he had cancer. If he was thirty-five it would have been the winter of 1980-1981. Ice generally
comes in Dec. or Jan. Mom, your Grandma, was also dying of cancer. We had just found it out.
She died July 3, 1981. One day when I was down at Steve’s place he had just bought a CD of Enya. He loved the song “How Can I Keep From Singing” That was in the early 90’s. By that time he had resigned himself to his condition. He was a great person.

On 21 May 2003 (08:02 AM),
Nikchick said:

I have two handwritten books of poems that I collected in high school. About half are my own poetry that I thought represented my best efforts at the time. The other half are poems from issues of Patina, or poems that I exchanged with JD, Andrew Parker, and Mitch Sherrard. (Strangely, I also have poems from David Carlson and Darren Misner…)

I also have one poem that Steve wrote and that I find just as touching today as I did when I was an intense, naive, romantic 14 year old. This is it:

Suzanne

If I do not sing,
My music
Will break its bonds
And cause great damage
To my soul
And maybe yours.

My music is love.
My music is freedom.
My music is joy.

My song is for you.

Asia

Before my love affair with U2, I had a fling with Asia.

I mentioned the other day that the first record album I ever owned was Paul McCartney’s Tug of War, which was given to me for Christmas of 1982, when I was thirteen years old.

The first album that I ever bought myself, though, was Asia’s eponymous debut. I didn’t know much about the group, and had only heard bits of “Heat of the Moment” and “Only Time Will Tell”, but I knew I had to have the album. The opening strains of “Only Time Will Tell” touched my thirteen-year-old soul deeply.

Jeff and I pooled our money and, at the Beaverton Fred Meyer, we bought a copy of the album on cassette tape. Mom’s car didn’t have a tape deck, so we had to wait until we got home in order to listen to the album. We went into my bedroom and shut the door and turned up the volume:

Heat of the Moment
by Asia

I never meant to be so bad to you
One thing I said that I would never do
A look from you and I would fall from grace
And it would wipe the smile right from my face

Do you remember when we used to dance
And incidents arose from circumstance
One thing led to another, we were young
And we would scream together songs unsung

It was the heat of the moment
Telling me what my heart meant
The heat of the moment showed in your eyes

And now you find yourself in ’82
The disco hot spots hold no charm for you
You can concern yourself with bigger things
You catch a pearl and ride the dragon’s wings

It was the heat of the moment
Telling me what my heart meant
The heat of the moment showed in your eyes

And when your looks have gone and you’re alone
How many nights you sit beside the phone
What were the things you wanted for yourself
Teenage ambitions you remember well

It was the heat of the moment

Telling me what my heart meant
The heat of the moment showed in your eyes

We listened to the opening strains of “Only Time Will Tell” again and again.

We loved this tape, and within months the track listing on the side of the cassette had been rubbed away from use. Amazingly, the tape itself held up well. (In fact, it’s sitting next to me, in a box filled with tapes, as I type; I’ve not listened to any of these tapes since 1995.)

Dave was an Asia fan, too. We’d sit around his room or my room and we’d do junior high geek things: read comic books, play Dungeons and Dragons, browse the yearbook rating the girls (on a continuum that ran from “dog” to “okay” to “fox” to “fox!!!!!!!!!”). Dave had the album on vinyl, and I loved to look at the gorgeous, detailed cover art, a dragon rising from the sea. All of us liked to draw the Asia logo: the pyramidal As, the Z-like S, the triangle over the band’s name.

Back in the olden days, we didn’t have the internet to keep us abreast of coming album releases. Teenaged boys who relied on their mothers for transportation were lucky to spot a new release in the department store. Such was the case with Asia’s second album, Alpha, which was released in the summer of 1983 or 1984. (I think it must have been 1983, because Dave and I were still on speaking terms; I can recall listening to the album with him.)

We didn’t know what to think of Alpha at first. The first album had been straight-ahead rock-and-roll. The second album was more meditative, more contemplative, almost like New Age power rock (if that makes sense). The first single, Don’t Cry, felt unpolished, as if something were missing.

Don’t Cry
by Asia

Hard times you had before you
I knew when I first saw you
You girl you’ve always been mistreated, cheated

So leave it all behind you
It took so long to find you
I know that we can last forever, ever and more, more, oh

Don’t cry now that I’ve found you
Don’ cry take a look around you
Don’t cry it took so long to find you
Do what you want, but little darling please don’t cry

I knew I’d never doubt it

I was so sure about it
Don’t think of all that’s been before

I’ll hear you when you’re calling
I’ll catch you when you’re falling
Don’t worry I will always be there, like never before, or, oh

Don’t cry now that I’ve found you
Don’ cry take a look around you
Don’t cry it took so long to find you

Do what you want, but little darling please don’t cry

This seemed, even then, like Asia’s attempt at a the perfect pop song, but it fell desperately short of the mark. The lyrics were terrible. But I loved it.

I loved the album, too. During the start of my freshman year of high school, I listened to Alpha all the time: at home in my room, in the car, at soccer practice (on the jumbo-sized boomboxes so popular then), in the back of the speech room. I loved the cover art for this album, too, the deep jungles, the mysterious pyramid. The art was even better than that of the first album.

Soon, though, Asia faded from my mind. That fall I was introduced to U2, and all other music took a back seat to my boys from Ireland.

Time passed.

Once I got my drivers license, Paul Carlile and I would make regular trips to Tower Records on 82nd to scope out the import records: the cool U2 singles, the Tears For Fears 12″ singles, the early Thompson Twins albums. The week before Thanksgiving 1985 I was scanning the cassette tapes when I stumbled across a new album from Asia. I bought Astra without knowing anything about it.

I didn’t like Astra at first, and it languished on the floor of the Datsun 310GX. I was more intent on listening to New Order and The Cure. My teen-aged angst was important to me; I had brooding to do, and Asia’s music didn’t lend itself well to sullenness.

With time, though, I emerged from my cocoon of bitterness and rediscovered Astra. I loved it.

During Custom Box’s infancy, we boys were required to work in the shop after school, slotting and gluing boxes for a pittance. We hated it. The only thing which ameliorated the forced labor was that we were allowed to listen to whatever music we chose. Astra was one of my top choices — as were the other two Asia albums — and it joined U2’s War, New Order’s Low Life, The Cure’s Head on the Door, The Dream Academy, and Planet P Project in heavy rotation in the shop.

I went to college and I forgot Asia.

Then, last night, as I was browsing the iTunes Music Store, I stumbled upon an album that collected all of the early Asia that I knew and loved plus B-sides from the singles, songs I’ve never heard. There’s no way that I could resist downloading

Voice of America
by Asia

I heard you on the radio some other time
From some forgotten studio way down the line
So long, so long I’ve waited now to hear you again
That song, that song will still remain, it’s become an old friend
And now, the tears are in my eyes, the sound you can’t disguise
The truth comes back from lies and all I want to hear

Voice of America, ooh, America
Voice of America, ooh, America

And then you came in stereo calling to me
And so I watch the videos across the T.V.
That sound, still ringing in my ears from a decade ago
Around, around my head, the sound from my radio
I thought, that after all these years
The tears, the growing fears
That I would never hear
Never again

Voice of America, ooh, America
Voice of America, ooh, America

Asia never produced great art, but they produced music I loved.

Comments

On 13 May 2003 (07:30 AM),
Amy Jo said:

Have you heard the South Park version of “Heat of the Moment?” If not, and you are a sport, maybe Paul will be kind enough to send it to you.

Amy Jo

On 13 May 2003 (07:37 AM),
J.D. said:

I am a sport!

I’m aware enough to recognize that my affinity for Asia is, shall we say, camp.

I love Asia, I love Abba, I love my old comic books. This is childhood stuff, and measured by objective criteria, most of it isn’t very good. But it sure is fun.

Bring on the South Park parody! :)

On 13 May 2003 (09:01 AM),
Dave said:

I had the sheet music to the Asia album, “Don’t Cry” and Astra. Probably still do somwhere, mouldering away next to the complete works of the Eagles and Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” & “The Final Cut”.

On 14 May 2003 (08:29 AM),
Joelah said:

Tell us more about the infancy of CuBoServ! Did all the bros. work there? How many hours did you work? Were the machines invented back then that you use now? Did working the entry-level jobs back then give you greater insight into management of the current CuBoServ? Or do you not feel that management need understand the actual details of labor? And for fuck’s sake, post some pics of this historical moment. You spend so much time reflecting on the past, yet I’ve never seen a photo from way back then. This is, of course, a demand rather than a suggestion.
(Thanks for your continuing help on playing keeper.)

Mix Tapes

Like a lot of other people my age, I’ve always liked to make my own mix tapes (or, now, mix CDs). In junior high, Jeff and I made primitive mix tapes by taping from the radio. We preferred to tape from KSKD because they didn’t talk over the music. We made some great tapes, filled with early 80s power rock and new wave and disco remnants, but these formative works have vanished. They’re probably buried in a box with a bunch of Neil Diamond LPs and Mannheim Steamroller cassettes, waiting to be discovered twenty years from now.

Eventually we began to buy records and tapes. (My first record, a Christmas gift, was Paul McCartney’s Tug of War; Jeff’s first record, also a Christmas Gift, was Men at Work’s eponymous debut album.) The first tape that I can remember us buying (jointly, I believe, though Jeff will surely correct me if I’m wrong) was Asia’s first album. We sat together in my bedroom, cranked the sound, and played the opening strains of “Only Time Will Tell” again and again. I’m sure this was one of the first signs for my parents that we were lost to them, we were entering young adulthood and would never be their babies again.

I don’t remember when I made my first actual mix tape. It wasn’t my freshman year of high school, and it may not even have been my sophomore year. Around this time, though, I came up with the brilliantly original idea — or so I thought — of constructing a tape which collected only my very favorite songs. I had too many favorite songs; I had to make two mix tapes.

Those first two mixes are lost, probably loaned to some high school girlfriend and never to be recovered again. The oldest mix tape I still have is Mix #3: English Mix, a tape filled with the likes of Vitamin Z (“Burning Flame”), Thompson Twins (“Lies”), Alphaville (“Forever Young”), Tears For Fears (“Madworld”) and Duran Duran (“Hungry Like the Wolf”).

My first good mix was Mix #4: Soda Pop Music, a tape that I put together soon after New Order’s Brotherhood was released in September of 1986 — I placed two songs from that album on the mix. I played this soda pop mix over and over. I wore out the tape and had to dub a new one (which, of course, caused the sound quality to suffer, but I didn’t care). The new tape eventually broke and I had to splice it together with scotch tape. (How many of you can remember splicing your favorite cassette tapes back together with scotch tape? Sometimes one had to actually unscrew the case of the cassette to fish out the other end of the tape. It was a maddening process, but sometimes it was worth it.) I still have that tape somewhere, but a couple of years ago I converted the mix to CD. The tape held 90 minutes of music, and a CD only holds 80 minutes, so I was forced to remove three songs, but I think that only made the mix stronger.

Mix #4: Soda Pop Music
(a mix by jdroth — November 1986)

Don’t Change (INXS)

Chipmunks Are Go! (Madness)

One Step Beyond (Madness)

Poison Arrow (ABC)

Look of Love (ABC)

I Melt With You (Modern English)

President Am I (Slow Children)

Genetic Engineering (OMD)

Goddess of Love (OMD)

Red Skies at Night (The Fixx)

Radio Free Europe (REM)

If I Was (Midge Ure)

Every Little Counts (New Order)

Chequered Love (Kim Wilde)

Hungry Like the Wolf (Duran Duran)

Close to Me (The Cure)

Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream) (The Icicle Works)

Catch Me I’m Falling (Real Life)

Original Sin (INXS)

This one mix opened the floodgates and suddenly I was making mixes for friends and family every couple of weeks. I made Mix #8: Checkerboard Mix, Mix #11: Summer Nights (and Mix #12: Summer Nights, part two), Mix #14: Voices in My Head, and Mix #25: Soda Pop Music II. None of them were as good as my first soda pop music mix.

I went to college and was pleased to find that Willamette had outstanding audio equipment available for personal use in the library. During my freshman year I’d borrow records and tapes from my friends and I’d trundle across campus to the library where I’d set up a regular duplicating studio: while I was recording a record to tape in one room, I’d be dubbing tapes in two separate rooms. And what did I do with all of this newfound music? I made more mixes of course!

I made mixes for Amy (Mix #31: A Dinner for Two and then, after she left for Germany, Mix #38: Holding Back the Years). And I made mixes for Kris:

Mix #44: Music for the Anatomy
(a mix by jdroth — 28 March 1989)

Side One: Music for Your Legs (and Hips)

Our Lips are Sealed (Go-Gos)

Rock Me Tonight (Billy Squier)

Devil Inside (INXS)

Beds are Burning (Midnight Oil)

Satisfaction (The Rolling Stones)

Great Balls of Fire (Jerry Lee Lewis)

Heard it Through the Grapevine (Marvin Gaye)

Crocodile Rock (Elton John)

I Want Your Hands On Me (Sinead O’Connor)

Destroyer (The Kinks)

Hello, I Love You (Adam Ant)

Grown Man Cry (The Rolling Stones)

Talking Loud and Clear (OMD)

Side Two: Music for Your Arms (and Lips)

You’re My Home (Billy Joel)

Crazy Love (Helen Reddy)

Gypsy (Suzanne Vega)

Without Your Love (Roger Daltry)

Baby Mine (Bonnie Raitt)

On Your Shore (Enya)

Every Breath You Take (The Police)

Verdi Cries (10,000 Maniacs)

Natural Woman (Aretha Franklin)

Lover Man (Communards)

Sea of Love (The Honeydrippers)

I Just Want to Make Love to You (Muddy Waters)

Of course I wasn’t the only one making mix tapes. Jim Osmer gave me an advocacy tape filled with his favorite bands (fIREHOSE, Screaming Trees, The Pixies, They Might Be Giants, Husker Du, Red Hot Chili Peppers), and another tape he called The Blues According to Jim packed with Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, B.B. King, and more Muddy Waters. Amy sent me a tape from Germany. Heather Butler sent me a tape for my birthday; she called it the pink album. Since Heather and I have become estranged, this is one of my prized possessions of our former friendship.

the pink album: I was nineteen, now I am twenty
(a mix by Heather Bulter — March 1989)

Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go? (The Harvard Din and Tonics)

Miss Italiel (Plastic Bertrand)

Can You Feel It (Jane Fonda and the Jacksons)

Bridge Over Troubled Water (Willie Nelson)

Jungle Love (The Time)

One (A Chorus Line soundtrack)

Symphony No. 25 in G minor, K. 183, first movement (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)

Something’s Coming (Barbra Streisand)

And She Was (Talking Heads)

Heart and Soul (Huey Lewis and the News)

Something’s Coming (West Side Story soundtrack)

America (West Side Story soundtrack)

In a Big Country (Big Country)

One (reprise) (A Chorus Line soundtrack)

During my junior year I made my second great mix, Woman Unchained, a mix comprising only songs by women (and one song by Tears For Fears). I’ll post the track list later.

The summer after I graduated from college, I worked in the A/V room at Tokyo International University of America (a story for another time). I had access to many fun toys, including a sound system connected to two VCRs and a laserdisc player. Well. What fun it was to make mixes incorporating songs from my favorite movies! I’m still quite fond of my single-sided When Harry Met Sally mix, which features songs from Singing in the Rain. If only I could have come up with a second side…

I continued to make mix tapes throughout the nineties, though I lost track of my numbering system somewhere in the 120s.

The year I bought my first CD-burner was a revelation: I could rip all of my CDs to mp3s on my hard drive! And then came Napster: I could download difficult-to-find songs! And then came mp3-manipulation software: I could create seamless segues between music tracks! My favorite technology, though, was my soundcard and its ability to record from external audio sources. Suddenly my old scratchy vinyl records could be converted to digital music (complete with pops and clicks). I spent several weeks converting hundreds of songs from vinyl albums and 45s to mp3. I’ve made three mixes from these vinyl tracks, the best of which was the first:

Clinging to Vinyl
(a mix by jdroth — 05 May 2000)

Heading for the Moon (Cyndi Lauper)

Mirror Man (The Human League)

Talk About the Passion (R.E.M.)

Europa and the Pirate Twins (Thomas Dolby)

Going Down to Liverpool (Katrina and the Waves)

If You Were Here (Thompson Twins)

Johnson’s Aeroplane (INXS)

Stand or Fall (The Fixx)

October (U2)

Don’t Change (INXS)

Love of the Common People (Paul Young)

Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream) (The Icicle Works)

Madworld (Tears For Fears)

Left of Center (Suzanne Vega)

Pop Goes the World (Men Without Hats)

Chequered Love (Kim Wilde)

Space Age Love Song (A Flock of Seagulls)

Haunted When the Minutes Drag (Love and Rockets)

Modigliani (Book of Love)

I Don’t Mind at All (Bourgeois Tagg)

I Need You (The Eurythmics)

Notice any similarities between that mix and my very first mixes?

I have a special file in my desk which contains lists (and partial lists) of songs for future mixes. Scattered across my hard drive are dozens of Winamp playlists featuring mixes-in-progress. I have an uncompleted bluegrass mix, a still-to-be-finished “Best Damn Abba Songs Ever” mix, a half-finished mix of a cappella covers of U2 songs, somewhere there’s a nascent heavy metal mix, and I still haven’t finished the science fiction mix you all helped with earlier.

The best thing of all? Kris likes to make mixes, too. When we go on long trips, we take turns listening to each other’s mixes. She has a penchant for bitter women. I tend to like repetitive synthpop. It’s great!

Here’s a list of previous entries featuring mixes I’ve made:

Music I Paid For mix, in response to the iTunes Music Store
Happy Sunshine Mix, a pile of summertime fun
a mix that never got named and which is floating around my pile of CDs, unlabelled
The Thinner the Air, an outstanding mix of world-beat/dance/ambient/funk — great stuff
another unnamed mix that I listen to all the time

Maybe I’ll make a new mix tonight…

Comments

On 09 May 2003 (09:40 AM),
J.D. said:

Here’s a mix that I love but Kris hates. The segues between the tracks are s-m-o-o-t-h and the music gets me jumpin’:

Funk Is Its Own Reward
(a mix by jdroth — 15 November 2002)

It’s Just Beginning (Jummy Castor Bunch)
In the Hand of the Inevitable (James Taylor Quartet)
Funky Music (White Boy) (George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic)
Theme from S.W.A.T. (Rhythm Heritage)
You Sexy Thing (Barry White)
Mr. Big Stuff (Jean Knight)
Monkey Drop (New Jersey Kings)
Get Down On It (The Gap Band)
We Want the Funk (George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic)
Lady Marmalade (Patti Labelle)
Green Onions (Booker T and the MGs)
Light Years (Jamiroquai)
Brick House (The Commodores)
Pick up the Pieces (Average White Band)
I Like Girls (Fatback)
I Think It’s Better (Jill Scott)
Love is Rare (Morcheeba !?!?! — yup, Morcheeba)
Theme From Shaft (Isaac Hayes)
Sex Machine (James Brown)
Rock Wit U (Alicia Keyes)
Take the L Train (Brooklyn Funk Essentials)

This is quite the funky mix, and plenty of good listenin’.

On 09 May 2003 (09:49 AM),
J.D. said:

Last fall, Paul Carlile came up and we spent a day together, mostly huddled around the computer listening to music. He and I both love ethereal electronica type stuff, trip-hop, etc. This awesome driving mix was the outcome of that session:

Passengers: A Driving Mix
(a mix by jdroth — 15 October 2002)

Announcement (Arling & Cameron)
Voulez-Vous (Arling & Cameron)
Lebanese Blonde (Thievery Corporation)
Hell is Around the Corner (Tricky)
Nights Interlude (Nightmares on Wax)
Breathe (Telepopmusik)
Intermezzo (Arling & Cameron)
Gorecki (Lamb)
Days Go By (Dirty Vegas)
Signs of Love (Moby)
Battersea (Hooverphonic)
Sea People (Emiliana Torrini)
Slug (Passengers)
Your Blue Room (Passengers)
Always Forever Now (Passengers)
Different Kind of Blue (Passengers)
Beach Sequence (Passengers)
Miss Sarajevo (Passengers)
Tears in Rain (Vangelis, from Blade Runner)

For those who are unaware, Passengers == U2 and Brian Eno, sounding very much like The Unforgettable Fire. This is a great mix, perfect for long night-time trips. It’ll put you in a high-mental-state trance and make the miles melt away.

On 09 May 2003 (10:53 AM),
Tiffany said:

It is funny. I have more music in common with you then with Rich! He loves to make mixes, but never labels the stupid CDs so; he can never fine the CD that he wants when he wants it. I have made a few mixes, but am not that committed.

My first music buying experience was unpleasant. In 4th grade I wanted �Michael Jackson Thriller�, yes, I am ashamed to admit that now. So, I saved up my allowance and headed for the BX (military Wal-mart). There were two album covers at the store, so I picked the photo I liked better. Only to find out that I pick up the extended single album and not the whole album. I was devastated, cried to Mom, who went and bought the right one for me. J

As a side note, Rich has a whole box of records that we keep moving around. We do not even have a record player to listen to them on!

On 09 May 2003 (01:29 PM),
tammy said:

Heyyyyy! What do ya mean, “how many of you remember splicing your cassette tapes with scotch tape”. Like nobody does that anymore . We just taped a cassette tape with scotch tape a couple weks ago. Are you implying we’re way behind the times!?

On 09 May 2003 (05:26 PM),
Lisa said:

J.D., I recently realized that you provide a forum for vaporing on at the world, and I thought I’d give it a whirl.

A friend of a friend has become famous for his annual CD mixes. (I think he may give them at Christmas.) Each year he puts together a variety of songs that have been interesting or meaningful to him. His name is Jay, and the mixes are called DJay 2002, and so on.

As onlookers (onlisteners?), Craig and I love going to Kaylene and Matt’s, where DJay is often the choice in the CD player.

Sooo… If you’re affirming your dedication of mixes, perhaps it’s time to create retrospective of the music that you’ve enjoyed over the year, fiscal quarter, lunar month, or whatever.

The first album I bought (bicycled to Grand Central before it was purchased by Fred Meyer) was Tears for Fears: Songs from the Big Chair when I was about 14. Fine album.

On 10 August 2003 (04:42 PM),
Brenna said:

How nice to see that someone else besides me remembers and appreciates Bourgeouis Tagg! I’ve also made my share of mixes, and used to fill the last 1-2 minutes on each side with random stuff off the radio (pause the record function, find a radio station, unpause, record 5-10 seconds, pause again, find new station, and so on). Quite enjoyable, and the results were pretty funny at times.

On 14 August 2003 (11:18 PM),
Korrie said:

Hey, I have an interesting situation that you might be able to help me with. My boyfriend is a 19 year old Marine that lives in Cali and I’m a 16 year old high school student that lives in Kansas. We talk for hours every night and we are truly in love. A few days ago, he asked me to marry him. (Don’t worry, we are going to wait until we are both through college until we actually do) I was wanting to make him a mix tape as one of my ways of saying yes. Think you can help me with the details? If anyone has ideas or wants to help, my e-mail is massiveconfusion@cx.net

MRI Results

I went to see Dr. Comic Book Guy yesterday to get the results of my MRI. They’re written in Doctorspeak:

Reason for Exam
Patient had an injury of his knee while playing soccer last fall. He reinjured his knee on April 6; now has pain and swelling.

MRI of the Right Knee
A large joint effusion is present. There is no evidence of a Baker cyst. A complex tear is present in the posterior horn of the medial meniscus. The anterior horn and mid portion are intact. There is no tear of the lateral meniscus. High signal intensity is present in the anterior cruciate ligament near its attachment on the lateral femoral condyle. The posterior cruciate and collateral ligaments are intact without abnormal signal intensity. There is no abnormality of the distal quadriceps or the patellar tendon. There are multiple areas of increased signal intensity within the bone marrow consistent with bone bruising. Small areas are present in the medial aspect of the medial tibial plateau. Larger areas of abnormal signal intensity are present in the lateral femoral condyle and in the lateral tibial plateau. No definite fracture line is identified. There is no evidence of chondromalacia.

Impression

Large joint effusion.

Complex tear of the posterior horn of the medial meniscus.

There appears to be at least a partial tear of the anterior cruciate ligament, although a complete tear cannot be excluded.

Multiple areas of bone bruising. No definite discrete fracture line is seen.

So, basically, I need arthroscopic knee surgery.

I’ve got an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon on Friday morning, and I’ll know more then.

Toto has been uncharacteristically affectionate since recovering from her cold. In the two days since we returned from Bend, she’s been purring almost non-stop, smothering us with kitty kisses.

Yesterday afternoon she was sitting on the library table, looking out the window, cackling, cackling, cackling that little cat chatter that means “I see you, bird, and I’m going to get you.” Only she was much more excited than normal. I looked out the window to see eight little birds hopping across the lawn, pecking at tasty morsels. Toto wanted a tasty morsel of her own, but all she could do was crouch on the table and cackle, and remember past adventures:

Comments

On 30 April 2003 (01:28 PM),
mac said:

get that knee healthy

On 30 April 2003 (02:06 PM),
Paul said:

J.D.

I’ve been planning to take some pinhole pictures last Sunday for “Worldwide Pinhole Day”–didn’t happen. Lame. For anyone interested, check it out, go to pinholevision.com or pinholeresource.com for a link. There are over 900 pinhole photos from around the world from last years effort.

On 30 April 2003 (02:42 PM),
Dana said:

Well, I hope it goes well. What’s the prognosis? Is it only a looksee, or is it we’ve got to go in and fix that?

My translation of the doctor speak is — swollen, torn or pulled ligaments, torn meniscus, and bone bruises.

Sounds like they’ll have to at least repair or remove bits of the meniscus, which might lead to arthritis later. You know, you change the oil on your car religiously. Sounds like you don’t keep your body in as good a shape as your car. :/ (Not that I can talk, mind you.)

Hope it’s feeling better! Fill us in on the surgery!

On 30 April 2003 (02:55 PM),
Tammy said:

Yikes hope all goes well with that knee.

Ya know I hate cats and Toto is a good example of why.

They are bird killing evil creatures!

Down kitty kitty!

Fly away bird!

On 30 April 2003 (03:05 PM),
Tiffany said:

Hi Bro,
If you have any questions about the knee surgury, call cousin Liz. She has had this twice and looks to need another!
Porter talks so loud to our bids that people on the phone have asked “what is that noise?”

On 30 April 2003 (03:16 PM),
J.D. said:

Hm.

I’ll have to reseach posting images in comments. I suspect some of you technically savvy types might want to do this sometime.

Cats enjoy nice juicy birds now and then…

On 30 April 2003 (03:32 PM),
Drew said:

i hope your PT includes backpacking through an old growth forest.

On 30 April 2003 (03:49 PM),
J.D. said:

Dana, they need to go in and fix it. It hurts. And it’s fucked up. Fortuntately, nearly every person I’ve talked to who has experience with this surgery says that it’s only a minor inconvenience, that the pain relief is almost immediate, and that the recovery takes only a few days at the longest.

Awesome.

So, yes, Andrew, I still intend to go hiking. That’d be great physical therapy!

As for soccer: well, I want to return, but my better half, who is usually (read: always) right, is strongly opposed to this. I’ll speak with the doctor on Friday to see what he has to say.

On 30 April 2003 (06:10 PM),
Drew said:

JDuh,
Listen to your wife.
Duhrew

On 30 April 2003 (07:14 PM),
Tammy said:

Oh mercy, now where did hubby put that BB gun?

Menagerie

I grew up around animals.

Two dogs, the names of which I do not remember

When we first moved into the trailer house, we had two dogs, possibly labs. Perhaps their names were Prince and Lady? In any event, Dad shot them for some reason before I was very old. Mom cried.

Chickens, which had no names

When I was young, before the age of five, we kept chickens. We had chicken coops and roosters and collected eggs, etc. Then one day, Uncle Norman’s family came over and they tore the heads off the chickens and plucked them and we had chicken to eat for some time thereafter. (One of Dad’s favorite stories to tell, even up until the month he died, was how the butchering of the chickens caused me to wail and wail. When he came to comfort me I sobbed, “Daddy, you’re not going to tear off my head, are you?”) (Also: I remember Dad bringing home the baby chicks. Jeff and I greeted him at the front door of the trailer house and he showed us the box full of chicks. Jeff loved them. He wanted to hold one, but when he did, he nearly squeezed the thing to death (did he kill it?). He cried and cried, and Mom said, “What do you expect? He’s only two years old.”)

Rabbits, which did have names that I do not remember

The chicken coops became rabbit hutches. Dad bought several rabbits and he entrusted their care to two young boys, barely in grade school. This worked fine during the fall, but when winter came, the boys’ diligence waned. The rabbits, hungry, gnawed free of the cages and subsequently froze to death, starving, in the fields near the house. We received no end of grief for this, though I’ll bet that in some measure Dad’s anger was self-reproachment for not having cared for the rabbits himself.

A goat (Billy?)

We had a goat. Jeff does not remember it, and I remember very little. What I do remember is this: it scared the shit out of me. I must have been five years old, and the goat was bigger than I was, and terribly aggressive. If I was in back, in the goat’s territory, it would charge me and butt me with its head. Hell: it would butt me with its head no matter where I was. I remember standing on the back steps, screaming, unable to open the door because the damn goat was butting me, butting me, butting me. I hated that thing.

Wilma the Pig

After the chickens, after the rabbits, after the goat, we raised Wilma the Pig. She was a good pig, I guess, as far as pigs go. She started small but got bigger. She was always noisy and stinky and ornery. Did we eat her or did we sell her? I don’t recall.

Kitty

Uncle Norman had too many cats, thus we ended up with Kitty. We must have been very young still when we got her because:

We named her Kitty, and
I remember Mom and Dad scolding us for not behaving well around her.

Kitty was a great cat and she bore many kittens. Here descendants roam the countryside to this day. Even Toto may be related to her.

Batman, Wonderman, Batgirl, et. al.

Kitty’s progeny. Our cats suffered through a series of unfortunate names, as might be expected when the naming is being done by small boys during the 1970s.

Charlie

Charlie was a big, slobbery, shambling mound of a dog, a Saint Bernard, Jeff’s closest friend. Jeff was five or six when we got Charlie, and the two formed a close bond. I can remember a night in what must have been the Winter of 1978-1979, snow falling fast and furious, playing soccer with Jeff and Charlie in several inches of snow on the ground. Batman and Charlie were best friends: Charlie would curl up on the front porch, and the cat would snuggle on top of him and they would sleep together for hours on end. Charlie developed arthritis and had to be put down.

Husky

When Charlie had to be put down, Jeff was broken up. Charlie was his friend. To console him, my parents brought home Husky. Husky was but a puppy, and not even that for very long. I was in the car with Mom, and we were backing out of the driveway, when we ran over what seemed to be a log. A log that yelped. Though I didn’t know it at the time, this was an early introduction to natural selection.

Flint

Flint didn’t have a problem with cars. He was just a jerk. I don’t remember much else about him except for after we got…

Smokey

Smokey was a black lab. He was a bouncing bundle of enthusiasm, not a bad dog for kids in fourth or fifth grade. However, he and Flint could not agree on who was boss. They fought. When they fought, Jeff cried. Flint was a jerk, but he loved him. Once he tried to break up a fight, which made Dad furious with him. Ultimately, Flint left and Smokey stayed.

Indiana, Marion, Robert, and friends

When I was in sixth grade, we got a batch of kittens from someplace. They lived in the wood shed and they scrabbled around, climbing the woodpiles, doing kittenish things. They were cute. We loved them. Unfortunately, Smokey loved them, too. One by one, he loved them to death. Over the course of several weeks, we found each of them, covered with slobber, heads torn off. To this day I’m traumatized by the memory of Smokey tossing snow-white Robert into the air over and over and over again while I begged him to stop until it no longer mattered. (Robert, by the way, was named for a character in General Hospital. I was a huge General Hospital fan when I was in the sixth grade.)

Amanda

Amanda was my dog, a loving medium-sized animal that I named after a character in The Bad News Bears. She wasn’t a great dog. She barked and barked and barked. In the country, the barking doesn’t bother the neighbors, it bothers you. Eventually I sold her to my father for five dollars (which I probably used to buy comic books) and he took her away. He never let me live that down: selling something that I ostensibly loved for a mere five dollars. What can I say? The Fantastic Four and the X-Men were more important to me in 1983 than a stupid barking dog. Come to think of it, they still are today.

Fuzzy

We had Charlie for several years, but then we went through a rapid succession of dogs until we got Fuzzy. Fuzzy was a smallish mongrel, very cute, eager and playful. Did we have him when I was in junior high? I don’t recall. We loved him equally, I think, and he loved us. One Sunday, Tony had Ron Kropf over. The rest of us were gone someplace, so when Tony and Ron found the keys to the car, they decided to practice driving around and around the driveway. Fuzzy did not survive the experience.

Hairy

After Fuzzy’s death, we got another small dog. Hairy, a smelly Shih Tzu, was more sedate than Fuzzy, but no less loving. He stunk, though, no matter what we did to try to help him. Jeff and Hairy had a close bond. During the early 90s, Custom Box Service employed a chubby Hispanic worker named George. He liked Hairy, so we gave him the dog when George’s time with us was over. Some time after, we heard that George and Hairy were still together.

Freddy

Freddy was the first bird Dad bought during his bird-obsession phase. Freddy was a yellow-naped macaw, and vicious. I hated that fucking bird. His bite was painful. Jeff liked him, though, and they formed a bond. (In retrospect, it seems that Jeff was always forming bonds with the animals.) Also, for a bird, Freddy was stupid. I have nothing good to say about him, though Jeff might be able to relate a few stories in his favor.

Sammy

Sammy, however, was a fine bird. He was a yellow-breasted Amazon parrot, and he was quite young when he came to live with us. I took it upon myself to improve his vocabulary. When I was finished with him, he could say “Superman!”, “I can talk, can you fly?”, “I’m a pretty chicken”, and many other such gems. We once counted his vocabulary at about one hundred words. (Dad’s favorite was when Sammy would shout, imitating us whiny kids: “Mom! Mom!”) My favorite Sammy story: There’s a huge window extending across one end of the trailer house upon which the curtains were usually down. One day, for some reason, the curtains were up. Sammy was at the other end of the trailer house, in this very room, I believe, when decided to go for a fly. He flew down the hallway, through the kitchen, into the living room, and smack into the window, falling like a stone to the ground (behind the couch). We were sure he was dead. We rushed to the couch and we looked behind and there was Sammy, stunned, struggling to his feet. He cocked his head and he looked at us and he said, “Hello.” “Hello.” “Hello.” As I’ve mentioned before, we traded Sammy to the local barber for one hundred haircuts, a not-inconsequential sum.

Gandalf

Gandalf was my bird, a parakeet, and the only animal I can ever remember loving as a child. Toto, my current cat, is Gandalf’s twin in temperament: petulant, opinionated, strong-willed. Gandalf took no shit from anyone. In fact, he and Freddy used to get in squawking and strutting matches for dominance. A tiny parakeet vying for dominance with a big, mean macaw? I tried to teach Gandalf to talk, but he never showed any interest. One day somebody left the window open in Mom and Dad’s bedroom and Gandalf flew away. I was heartbroken. Some time later (days? weeks?) I was outside and I swore to myself that I heard Gandalf’s chirp. I followed the noise to the Big Tree (a tree a few hundred yards from the house) and there was Gandalf, sitting on a branch with some finches. I don’t remember who managed to catch Gandalf, me or Dad, but he came back to live with us, but only for a short while. He developed a cold, and within two weeks I found him dead on the bottom of his cage.

There were other animals, of course—cats, dogs, and birds with names and personalities that I’ve long since forgotten. Mom had a cockatiel for a while. Gandalf had a little friend. We had a Basset Hound that we sold to Darren Misner’s family. Billy Cat, one of Kitty’s descendants, was one of our first shop cats, and Nick’s pal. Bandit was a cat that I wanted to love me, but which refused my overtures despite the fact that I spent many hours with hot dogs and bologna, trying to convince him of my charms.

And these are just the animals I knew before college!

Comments

On 20 March 2003 (02:25 PM),
Mom said:

No, the goat wasn’t named Billy, it was Jason. I can’t remember the reason right now. I can’t remember exactly when we got him but it would have been within the first year or two that we were in the trailer. (1972-3?) You would have been 3 or 4. He was such a stinker — I would leave the back door open on a hot day and he would run up inside the house and stand there in the hallway looking at me. I would chase him back out and he would run away, then as soon as I got busy doing something, would run back in again. I wasn’t getting much done chasing that goat out of the house! He was a nuisance in that sense but one day you were up on a bit of decking out behind the old woodshed that Steve had built up off the ground and he got up there and butted you off, and that’s when we decided we couldn’t have him around any more. We sold him to the Wrights in Needy, who had goats.

The dogs you are remembering were Sarah and Abraham, which we had at about the same time. We got them through an ad in the paper, I believe, and they were nice dogs except that they were so rambunctious that they were knocking you and Jeff down a lot, so we decided we couldn’t keep them. Rather than try to give them away, Uncle Norman talked Steve into killing them (which is what he did with dogs he didn’t want), with his assistance. They took Sarah and Abraham up here to Grandpa’s, out in the field, and Steve almost chickened out but since Uncle Norm was there, he felt he had to go ahead. He said it took all he had in him to shoot them, and that he would never do that again!

On 20 March 2003 (03:52 PM),
Scott said:

JD, Scott Smith here. You once told me you remember staying at my house for a short period while your parents were away. Do you remember the menagerie my father kept? When our families had contact through the Mormon Church, my father restricted his activities to St. Bernard dogs (about 20 at all times, he bred and showed the dogs all over the country) chickens and parrots (at one time we were up to about 30 including cockatoos, cockatils, mccaws, amazon greys, etc.) (this collection was later expanded into jungle cats (cougar, ocelot and others) rex rabbits, suffock sheep, arabian horses, ostrichs, emus and even a few goats). I wonder if our fathers ever went in on purchases or traded animals? I don’t know, but I will ask my father.

On 20 March 2003 (06:43 PM),
Mom said:

It’s interesting that Scott would mention his parents’ animals. We got Sammy from Scott’s father, Byron. We got him as a baby and I hand-fed him until he was big enough for regular bird seed.

On 21 March 2003 (08:44 AM),
Jeff said:

I have fuzzy memories of sitting on the floor in Scott’s kitchen eating iced graham crackers.