She had every scrap of vinyl the Fab Four ever released, both in LP and 45. She kept them in a special box, in a special corner of her closet. Once or twice a year, she'd sit down with a stiff drink or something a little more herbal, take the records out, look at them, and play them one by one.
When I was five or six, just prior to the beginning of school, I decided I wanted to figure out what the big deal with all of these records was. I somehow got into her closet and dragged the box out to the porch. I took each of the albums and 45's out and looked at the jacket art. Most were interesting, although I remember thinking that the white one was pretty boring looking. I wanted to see if there was anything else interesting inside the album covers, so I took each of the records out and set them on their respective covers. And I sat there and looked at the liner art for a long time. I couldn't read, but I recognized some of the words, and looked over all of the lyrics and liner notes.
Did I mention that this was in the summer just before school started, during a hot, sunny, North Dakota afternoon? And I had those vinyl records out for a long, long time in direct sunlight. At the time, I thought it was really cool how the vinyl changed shape over time.
My mother came out of the house looking for me, and found me with her prized possession slowly warping its way to oblivion. It is a testament to her self control at the time that I was not beaten to death right there on the spot. I did, however, receive the worst spanking I ever had, and was sent to my room for the rest of the day while she tried to salvage her collection and have a good cry.
I did a lot of really bad things as a kid and teenager, but nothing seemed to upset her as bad as the day when, in the innocence of a child, I destroyed her Beatles records.
In tribute to my love of the Beatles, and my grown-up understanding of why she was so upset, I submit this, courtesy of GraphJam:
2 comments:
Poor Mom! AWESOME graph though. I love that song...hell, I love most of their songs.
Irish Woman say I was born twenty years too late. I'm probably the most conservative hippie you ever met. I listen to all of the '60's music, a little of the '70's, and of course the '80's and '90's stuff that I listened to as a teenager and 20-something.
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