Day 25: Rolling on the River

 The first time I remember seeing Tina Turner sing was on a variety show (can’t remember which one). It was about 1971 and I was 16. Instead of starting to sing, however, Tina Turner came up to the mike and began to speak. At the same time, Ike Turner began strumming chords on his guitar. I recognized it right away and was dismayed. My favorite band at the time was Creedence Clearwater Revival, and this was their song.

But Tina’s voice compelled my attention. Sometimes, she said, she liked to sing a song nice and easy. Sometimes she liked to sing it rough. She stated she was going to sing the first part nice and easy, but then she was going to sing it nice and rough. She began to sing “Proud Mary.”

I liked her voice. She had feelings even though it was “nice and easy.” Yeah, I thought, but she’s not the Fogartys. Nice cover, I thought, but …

And then the music picked up and so did she. I could feel myself moving with this new, rocking beat. She was dancing too, and she was magnificent.

When the song was over, I thought it is her song now.

She had a secret similar to the secret I carried, yet it was different. I lived in a house with domestic violence but hadn’t been a victim of it in years. It left its scars though. She was a direct victim of DV. It was a shock. I never would have suspected it. But that’s a skill we learn early: how to hide that it’s happening. I am sure it left scars on her too.

She came back, though, and in such a strong way that she’s called the Queen of Rock and Roll. She is a strong role model for all females from 5 to 105.  She had so many hit songs over the next years, and each one seemed better than the other. And oh my, her energy! I saw film clips of her in concert in her later years. She was in heels, not losing her balance and tripping, and dancing as well and as energetically as the kids around her. I watched her onstage doing an across-the-stage line dance with these young women and I couldn’t tell one from the other.

Dan Rather wrote a very nice piece about Tina Turner and, in it, he shared three of her clips. Visit and watch those videos. They’ll get you up and moving.

I love all of Tina Turner’s songs. This one is a favorite that Mr. Rather didn’t include. She was in a movie with Mel Gibson way back when called Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. I am so moved by her rendition of “We Don’t Need Another Hero.” 

Another favorite is “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” 

And because 3 is my lucky number, I’m sharing a new favorite video. It’s beautiful.   I can almost hear them doing this duet together in Rock and Roll Heaven. God bless, Tina Turner. I’ll miss you, but I’ll always have your music to listen to.

I am participating in the American Cancer Society’s challenge to write for thirty minutes each day in May. I do a lot of writing and I can meet this challenge. I plan to make a blog entry each day with what I’ve written.

I wanted to participate in memory of loved ones who fought cancer bravely but succumbed:

My brother-in-law Jeff

My sister-in-law Ann

My dear friend Kay

My Uncle Bob

My Uncle John

 

I also wanted to help raise money to support research and a cure for those currently fighting this vicious disease.

My Facebook to the fundraiser is here. 

Thank you to all who wish to support the American Cancer Society this month.

Feline Friday

 In my ongoing attempt to avoid the increasingly nasty news this season, I continue to turn my thoughts to more pleasant memories and delusions.

And here we have two different personalities practicing kindness and togetherness.

Thanks for the nice pillow, Bootsie!

Our feline family members love to help us write a blog update, pay a bill, tweet or send an email.

Thanks, guys!

But mostly, on Fridays--especially rainy yucky days, they engage in their favorite activity:

Best wishes for a super happy Fri-Yay!

My favorite holiday song of the day isn't especially a holiday song but I love it anyway. When we are troubled, don't we all really want a Mom figure?

https://youtu.be/x9uYu4R2nk8

"How Can They Dance If They Can't Hear the Music?"

 

How Can They Dance If They Can’t Hear The Music?

This was one of the few “How Can They” questions I didn’t get growing up.  After I got my wedding (first marriage, 1985) proofs, I proudly showed them around. Some people who knew my parents were Deaf but weren’t really close with me would see the picture of my father and me dancing to “Daddy’s Little Girl” and ask, “How can they dance if they can’t hear the music?”

When I was a koda (kid of Deaf Adults), I would inwardly roll my eyes. Dumb question. As an adult, though, I realized the question wasn’t dumb, but the asker was ignorant about being Deaf. Here was an opportunity to provide useful information.

Some Deaf people, like my mother, can’t hear a thing. They “hear” music with vibrations, either using their hands on a stereo or musical instrument, or through their feet when a loud band is playing.  Deaf people have rhythm too and can pick up the beat through the vibrations and dance. My mom was never a fan of music if she had to “hear” it through hand touch on a stereo player. She did love to dance with my dad when a band was playing.

My dad had some residual hearing. He wasn’t profoundly Deaf; his was a severe loss. He could detect a call for him if the name “Pete” or “Peter” was sung out loudly. He could hear a few words over the phone: yes, no, and OK. A conversation might go like this:

Dad: Did you get home safely?

Me: Yes

Dad: Good. How is the cat?

Me: OK

Dad: Ok, bye

Me: OK

Dad could hear music when the sound was turned up. As a teenager, I was the only one listening to 60s-70s rock whose parent would encourage “Turn it up, turn it up!” I remember that Dad especially enjoyed the Scott McKenzie song, “San Francisco”.  He asked if I could write the words for him, and I wrote the lyrics out as best as I could understand them. I knew the song was about hippies, Haight-Asbury, a concert there and wondered what he’d think of that, but he never commented on it.

We had a radio in the living room, and he’d turn on the station I listened to and wait for the song. Many times, I would walk by because I heard the song playing, and I would see him sitting on a chair with his hand cupping one ear and the other hand holding the paper so he could read the lyrics.  I bought a 45 of the song because I knew it wouldn’t play on the radio forever and gave it to him so he could play it whenever he wanted.

I remember one Christmas, my brother wanted a drum set.  He wanted to learn to play the drum solo from the song “Wipe Out”.  He nearly tumbled down the stairs Christmas morning after spotting the drum set. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t get one. He got right on it and began this slow practice, tap tap with one hand and then tap tap with the other.

“That doesn’t sound like ‘Wipeout’,” I teased him.

“You have to learn how to do it first,” he explained.

The following day, I heard the drums going and they sounded awesome considering how slow my brother had been the day before. So, I came downstairs to complement him and nearly rolled down myself. My father was sitting there, playing the drums. I was totally amazed.

“You play drums?”

My father laughed at the expression on my face. “Yes, I play in high school,” he told me. He added he played in the band! Not the drums, though, he played the French horn.

And I found myself asking the dumb question. “But how?”

“I can hear little,” he explained. He added the band teacher acted as a sort of metronome for the band members, showing the beat and when the sound was supposed to be louder or faster.  Most of the band members had some residual hearing so they were able to enjoy making music. How cool, I thought. Dad also went on to explain how it was that Deaf people enjoyed dancing.

As he aged, Dad lost most of his residual hearing. He couldn’t hear us on the phone anymore but, by then, we all had TDDs (telecommunication devices for the Deaf) and could have nice long conversations with each other. He never lost his appreciation for music and had a few noise complaint visits from the police because he’d turned the music up so loud.

I think he’s got normal hearing in Heaven. Either that, or there’s a vast Deaf community of angels up there playing electrified loud harps.

December 8, 1980

 

On the early morning of December 9, my cousin Anne and I were up early, getting ready for work. I was happy. I’d moved states away from my dysfunctional parents and was living in my grandma’s cottage until it was sold. Anne, who was also looking for more independence, had moved in with me the previous June.  I was working as a high school interpreter/tutor for Deaf students at Cleary School for the Deaf.

A news announcer broke into the music with what had happened the night before: a “fan” had shot and killed John Lennon in front of his residence in New York City. John and his wife Yoko Ono were returning from a recording session. Earlier, John stopped to autograph an album this “fan” brought with him.

Anne and I were shocked to the core, frozen to our spots.  We’d grown up with the Beatles. In fact, John was my favorite Beatle. I was a bit unhappy with him when the group broke up but afterwards, I admired the work he was doing. I was impressed with his demonstrations against the war in Viet Nam.  For some years, we hadn’t heard from him, and I later learned he’d stopped recording to be a house father, raising his young son, Sean. Recently, we’d been enjoying new music he’d just begun releasing that year.

Shot by a fan? Whoever heard of such a thing? Why would a fan shoot John Lennon, of all people?

Later we learned more about the assassin, Mark David Chapman. The man waited for the police to arrive, reading his copy of Catcher in the Rye. We also learned that he was a rather conservative Christian who took umbrage with an old statement Lennon made while with the Beatles.  Joking or not, Lennon said the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. Chapman also didn’t like things Lennon had done, like having a nude bed sit-in against the war. But all of that was years and years before. He’d been holding a grudge that long? That’s not the behavior of a true Christian., which is to be forgiving and loving.

Against the advice of his attorneys, Chapman pled guilty to murdering Lennon. He said it was “the will of God”, not mental illness.

Fans all around the world grieved.  Part of Central Park’s grounds is called Strawberry Fields, in honor of Lennon.

Anne and I grieved, unable to wrap our minds around such a heinous act. Of course, that was followed the following year by John Hinckley’s attempt to kill then President Ronald Reagan.  Apparently, he was trying to impress actress Jodie Foster, with whom he had an obsession. And to top it off, two months later, a terrorist shot Pope John Paul in a failed assassination attempt.

These were all shocking events then. Now, they seem to happen so often they’re like “the new normal.” I won’t accept that and won’t become numb to the acts of foreign and domestic terrorism, even though not detaching hurts my heart.  I always used to detach myself from my feelings during a traumatic event to avoid pain temporarily. The pain still comes anyway so I am learning to process it as it happens.

Just as I miss Harry Chapin, I also miss John Lennon. He contributed so much to music, and I hope he never becomes a distant memory.

Still Wild About Harry

 

Still Wild About Harry

When I was a young adult (early 70s) I became a big fan of Harry Chapin. I think he’s absolutely the best singer songwriter ever. He was born on this day, December 7, 1942. If he’d lived, he would be 80 years old today.

 

His hits, Taxi and WOLD, drew me to his albums. The first one I purchased was his third released, Verities and Balderdash. All his songs tell a story and even though almost all are sad, they are so realistic.  I connected quickly with the lyrics. The stories were of ordinary people living ordinary lives. I related well to them.

From that album, I really connected with “What Made America Famous”. It still resonates with me today. Back then, there was still residual unrest and protests between liberals (like hippies) and conservatives (older generations). The song is about a small town with the usual businesses and fire station. There’s also a run-down decrepit building run by a slumlord and housed people of color and hippies.  The hippies were in constant conflict with the police and “the establishment”. 

I remembered all I’d learned about racial and social injustice from independent reading and understood where the hippies came from. However, I didn’t agree with their tactics. They painted a swastika on the firehouse door, and I thought that was the wrong thing to do. It inspired possible retaliatory revenge in that a fire broke out in that overcrowded unsafe building.

The fire went out of control.  People on the upper floors crawled out their windows and onto the outside ledges.  One of the lines goes “me and my girl and a couple of kids were clinging like bats to the edge.”  The town plumber was a volunteer fireman and he rushed to the station with the others, crying out “Come on, let’s go!” But the other volunteers saw the building that was burning, remembered the swastika incident, and told the plumber they didn’t need to rush.

The plumber, though, jumped into the fire truck and went by himself to rescue the people on the ledge. He raised the ladder so that the residents, hippies, and all, could climb down to safety.  The last lyrics went like this:

I never thought that a fat man's face
Would ever look so sweet

I shook his hand in the scene that made America famous
And a smile from the heart that made America great
We spent the rest of that night in the home of this man
That we'd never known before
It's funny when you get that close, it's kind of hard to hate

I went to sleep with the hope that made America famous
I had the kind of a dream that maybe they're still trying to teach in school
Of the America that made America famous...
And of the people who just might understand
That how together yes we can
Create a country better than
The one we have made of this land
We have the choice to make each man
Who dares to dream, reaching out his hand
A prophet or just a crazy, damn dreamer of a fool Yes a crazy fool

And something burnin' somewhere
Does anybody care?
Is anybody there?
Is anybody there?

 

So, wow.  I thought to myself: even though I mostly side with the hippies, I want to be like that plumber.  His was an act of humanity and it didn’t matter that he was saving disruptive hippies and people of color.  I want to be like him. I try to be like him.

That’s just one of Harry Chapin’s songs that resonates with me. Almost every one of them has meaning to me. The one I identify with most nowadays is called “Dreams Go By”. It begins with two teenagers dreaming about what they want to be. They marry and don’t follow their dreams because they’re busy with building their lives and having children.  Now they are older, retired and enjoying visits with their grandchildren.  Yes, their dreams went by the wayside and that’s sad, but they are happily married and content with their lives.

Harry Chapin came from a musical family. When he performed, two of his brothers joined him and other band members became close friends.  Their anthem was called “Circle”.

In addition to being a storyteller singer, Harry was a huge humanitarian. He founded Long Island Cares which provides food and necessities to people in need. The Harry Foundation expands to partner with other organizations to help fight hunger. He said, “When in doubt, do something.” He did a lot of somethings. A third to half of his concerts’ profits went to charities.

Harry Chapin was scheduled to perform a benefit concert at Eisenhower Park in East Meadow on July 16, 1981. At that time, I was sharing an apartment with my cousin Anne. We’d discussed going to the concert if we could. Traffic could be very heavy on Long Island and East Meadow was about an hour away from our apartment.

I’d finished working as an interpreter for a deaf client attending a vocational technical school around 3 p.m. and was driving home on the Northern Parkway when the music was interrupted to announce that Harry Chapin had been killed in an accident on the Long Island Expressway. I nearly went off the road. The news triggered a panic attack and I had to pull off the parkway to calm myself. I thought no no no no, it can’t be. Not Harry.

But it was true. Details were never clear. Did he have a medical emergency? Whatever the reason he began slowing down and changing lanes, he collided with a big truck and ran off the expressway. His little car burst into flames and good Samaritans who stopped to help pulled him from the car. He was unconscious. A helicopter flew him to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.

In 1987, he was posthumously awarded a Congressional Gold Medal for his philanthropic work. His widow, Sandy Chapin, has taken charge of the Harry Chapin Foundation.  He co-founded Why Hunger and that work continues today too.

I loved his music and what he stood for.

I still miss him.

Except for during the Christmas season, I listen to some of his music every day.