where did they go?

Where did they all go, it's like they just packed up and left over night in some cases.  All I know is so many of them are just....poof...gone!

Remember that song that you LIVED for back in the ----'s?  Whatever decade, whomever you are there was a song, most likely per year (probably more than one) that really touched you.  Whether the song made you dance, cry, identify with, cut straight to your soul......there was a song.  Those songs gave voice to our deepest desires, strongest feelings, deep fears, secret dreams..the things we dared not feel, think, say, or do.

I dreamed of the day I would one day dance to ABBA or the BeeGee's in a discotheque. (never happened)  I did however dance with some great friends to Madonna's Vogue in a gay bar.  I dreamed of the day the highschool love of my life would take me to prom for magic moments, we would gaze deep into each other's eyes as Up Where We Belong played on, or Forever Young by Alphaville played on (never happened) but some good friends and I did act like morons at prom, we slow danced comically and had a good time.  I dreamed of making out in a car to some fabulous, daring, make out song.  My done perfectly, my trendy shirt tucked in my trendy jeans with my trendy hair done oh so trendy, and my make up "just so".  Nary an awkward moment, only tender, deep heartfelt love...oh and total respect!!  (never happened)  My first make out happened during the movie Fletch.  The rest were all just kisses, no songs that I recall.  I also discovered that no matter how hard I tried, how much I wanted it...I couldn't make myself be happy in pastels, I couldn't find a boyfriend anywhere.  I strongly began to suspect there was something wrong with me.  I terrified guys apparently.  Maybe it was just all of me.  I was not what the songs said I should be.

When I got together with my husband at the ripe age of 19, the soundtrack of our love was Vain's cassette No Respect.  There really was none.  We were teenagers doing what teenagers did..that was each of us selling out parts of who we were to meet what the other wanted.  I forced him to listen to some punk, he dragged me through heavy metal.  As a result 22 years later we are attending our second concerts this year of our melded tastes.  Alice Cooper and Ace Frehley, Morrissey and Kristeen Young, Iron Maiden and Alice Cooper, Morrissey and Kristeen Young.  All in the course of a melded 12 month period.  Melded, just like our lives in the most unlikely of hook ups ever musically and in life!  He was the song that NEVER stopped playing in my head through all those years from 1982-1990.  Well that and Jack and Diane...I mean totally classic!!

Lately I've been going through the mental storage vault with a friend.  I have insomnia, he knows of this miracle I missed  "I Love The 80's"  and apparently "I Love The 70's".  Watching with him has dusted off so many layers of the years...oops another song...Holding Back the Years.  What a great song!  I hear them in the background of the videos, all those melodies that dominated my life, held me glued to the boom box, left me in tears, filled me with hope, the songs I prayed would be on the radio, Solid Gold, or I would hear as someone drove by.

The soundtracks of my life changed as the music changed.  Today's favorite song would give way to tomorrow's favorite...all lost along with yesterday's favorite song as they years march on.  When I hear a snippet I wonder HOW how how how could I have possibly forgotten that song??  It was the love of my life for that week the radio played it!  When did that song stop being played?

I sit here and wonder...where did they all go?  The songs, the plans, the images, the wonder, the timidity?  Music does something to me, to most of us.  It causes us to feel, joy, lightness, darkness, pain, love, loss, pure lust, hunger, fulfillment, lifted, a desire for something I could never reach, or be...a rock singer!!  I am music and I write the songs.....heck yeah!

Then like the worm in the apple...sometimes the dreaded brain melt when a song sucks so much you want to turn it off, but you can't turn it off because it's such a train-wreck you have to keep listening, jsut to see if there is ANY redemption whatsoever in the song.  I have songs locked in my brain that I detest so much I feel like screaming when I hear them...ugh...make it go away!!!  What were they thinking when they sung it, wrote it, recorded it and WHY did no one say..."ummmm this totally sucks"  Is it possible that people actually liked those hideous songs???  Were THEY someone's dream come true in music?  Did those songs fuel desires, hopes, longing, all those good feelings?  Did they touch in someone those deep emotions.  Is it possible that not everyone agrees with my musical taste?

I am sitting here wondering, over the next years how many of my cherished songs are going to disappear from my mind to make room for new cherished songs.  I thought all the good songs had been written by 1988 and I was only 18 then.  Now I think all the best songs must surely have been written by now...then I turn on the radio and hear another song I know I can't live without.  I LOVE music :)

Save some for later....

Save some for later, you never know when you might need it!

Don't eat it all in one setting.

Always have enough for company.

These are all sides to the same coin...perhaps a chaos theory 3 sided coin??

My grandma was born in 1915. She was born into hardworking coalmining stock. Times were hard. She quit school in 8^th grade so her sisters could finish. Her Mother passed her off as a sister so she could remarry, and my Grandma’s Dad called her “Pete” her name had not a single P in it so….no clue there! I’m sure my Mother can enlighten me. She was a trained nurse and was proud of it. She met my Grand Dad working in the local Scott store. The local news paper carried a story that”….popular with the boys, got married” What MY Grandma?? No clue on that, she was the most “proper” person I’ve EVER met. I learned from Mama…save some for later….

Onionteen (unguentine)- my Grandma died when I was 15…in ALL the years I lived with her…we had the same tube, we could only use it in dire emergencies because…”you don’t want you use it all you may need some later”

Baby Powder- “don’t use it all leave some for later” thus we had at least 5 partial containers when my Mom came to visit…holymotherofheaven!!! My Mom cleaned up the powder by combining it. I was certain we were all going to get sucked into the abyss…I had NEVER seen anything combined before!

Suntan lotion- “that’s expensive it came from Avon, save it for when you need it” We had 3 things of suntan goo…coppertone in the tub, we had to save that for when we were really going to be out. The orange, we had to save it because it was an orange shaped container, but we couldn’t save it empty…that would be wasteful. We also had some QT tan accelerator but we didn’t use that.

Perfume- we had the same bottle forever because Daddy gave it to her before he died…this I understand.

Blackberries- they moved from KY to FL. They were the last blackberries my Daddy (grand daddy) picked for her before he died…I understood it for a time, but she kept them 5 years. They got tossed out the year my Mom visited and combined the powder. Nearly killed my Grandma that year. Funny thing the blackberries grew across the road and it’s like Daddy was freed to live again (ok maudlin)

Soda- always offer someone the last of the soda….To this day I am forever offering someone the last sip of hot flat soda or beer. My husband would love this to stop. He assures me it isn’t hospitable at all, but rather rude.

Food-NEVER take the last OR the first of the food on a plate, table, tray, buffet…etc.

Dry goods- never finish the last of the cereal, flour, oatmeal, cornmeal etc…always save it until you go grocery shopping again even if it’s just a table spoon or two, because then you are never out!

Mercurochrome- “don’t use it except when you really need it! It’s hard to find!” It was literally ALL over in the 70’s and 80’s. Like the unguentine this too was similar to the oil in the lamp…it never ended! We had the same mercurochrome until the day she died. I have no idea how because once I painted a Barbie doll with it.

From all these caveats about saving for later…I never let a person leave hungry if I can help it. I don’t eat in front of people unless I have enough to share. I will offer the last sip of hot flat soda, but I don’t mean to be rude.

I have infected my husband with this odd behavior….I have partial bottles of spices that are as old as our marriage. I have soup mixes from years ago. We had our “emergency meat” lurking in the back of the freezer for YEARS, even after power outages. Sadly it didn’t sprout and grow a cow when we finally disposed of it. Oddly not even the starving strays in the neighborhood would touch it, kind of makes me glad we never had to use it. She taught me to hold on to things…I’m not as much of a pack rat as she was…I tend to hold on to people, places, memories….not so much meat anymore.

What did you learn from your Mama?

Mama said what???

My Grandmother raised me. My Grandmother was from rural Kentucky. Kentuckians or at least my Grandma, have their own special language. For years I truly believed if I went outside in a storm, especially one with lightning, or if I sat in (not near or by..always in... even though it was in a chair near) a window during a storm, that I would die instantly. How would this occur you may ask...simple. I would be lexicuted. I also knew that I would die if I touched a cat during a thunderstorm (they always had to be put outside during storms) , used scissors, or sewed. How would this happen one wonders and why did the cats have to be outside? It would draw lightning to you; and of course lightning lexicutes you!

I would always be kittled, if you rode in a car over nails you got a flat tar.

In elementary school (moved to FL also noted for dialect issues) I would always be made fun of when I said certain words because the Kentucky accent never really left. Words pronounced Grandma style like home, phone, bone, tone had a slightly different inflection and a drawn out "eau" sound...kind of like, but not quite like, the word faux. Hauxm, Fauxn,Bauxn, Tauxn...just something you have to hear to believe. Also the fireman did not put out the fire. No sirree Bob! The farman put out the far on the far side of the mountain. It took me a while to understand dee and day. Examples of how this can happen you ask? Sure thing! It's Mondee, but we write it Monday; Sairdee, but we write it Saturday! So the days of the week are really....Mondee, T-yewsdee, Winsdee, Thursdee, Fridee, Sairdee and Sundee. All this was going on in my poor rattled elementary school-aged head. It was YEARS before I fully comprehended that lexicuting was electrocuting. I could spell electrocuting though! I wasn't really sure why we spelled the days of the week differently than we pronounced them either.

As far as countries go...Italy was Itlee, Mexico was MexEco, I'm sure there were other fun country pronunciations but I can't remember now.

Food was pretty normal...biscuits, gravy, cookies, puhtaytah (potato) chips, soda pop, tail toters (we didn't eat those) pulley bones, ribby back, little back, hoe cakes, johnny cake, corn pones, fried potatoes, sweet milk, light bread, oleemargerine, store bought cake, rashers of bacon, searal (cereal), pot liquor, pink gravy, red eye gravy, city ham, country ham, swish cheese, rocafort dressing, we had boh-wuhld aigs (boiled eggs)...we could never drink milk while eating fish cheese grits were even suspect....if you need an interpretation just ask; but not about the fish because I don't remember why. The ban was uneasily lifted when I kept coming home from school alive after eating fish sticks with cheese grits and drinking milk.

Dressing was always fun...When I was very young my shoes were brogans! I didn't wear jeans I wore blue jeans (no matter the color). There were pinafores, pants or britches, dickeys, T-shirt dresses, gauchos, culottes, saddle oxfords, sandals (with socks of course!) pantyhose, sup hose, petticoats, half slips, full slips, paten leather shoes (patent), high heeled shoes, tennis shoes or sneakers, moon boots, chukka boots, house shoes, pajahmas, night gowns, Sundee best, play clothes, school clothes, they were brassieres and never bras. We had anklets (ankle socks), knee socks or tube socks. We had drawers not panties.

For beauty and cleanliness there was rouge, face powder, cologne, sweet oil (ear cleaning olive oil), oil of olay (oh-wuhl is how you pronounce oil) toe nail polish, lip stick, Sairdee night baths and spit baths.

I miss mama! She put onion-teen ointmunt (unguentine ointment) on my burns, vicks salve on my chest, muhcureahcrome (mercurochrome) on my cuts, she festered out stickers with egg shell lining, drew pus sores to a head with a hot wash rag, and all colds were cured with hot toddies. When I was cold I had goose bumps, and if my skin was splotchy purple with cold it was pidey or all pidey lookin. (no clue!!)

I acted growney up, or sassy, or too big for my britches.

We had lighting bugs, we cut the grass, there were piss ants, sugar ants, far ants...ants were ants but our Aunts were aints. Aint Sally, Aint Lil (leah...again no clue)

We got to it dreckly (directly) things were over yonder, way over yonder, way way over yonder or not far. God was in heaven, the Devil was in hell and I had no idea who Satan was.

I still say things funny!!!

But I am alive because I was never lexicuted, not even once even though our cats stay inside!

spelling....hands...you know