Picker's Progress - Part 1: Portrait of the Picker as a Young Man

(Timeline: 1977 - 1990)

Before getting started, let me make a disclaimer:

A. This is the past as I remember it. Other people might remember
things differently.

B. My own remembrances are obviously clouded by 20-20 hindsight
and the perspective of a 32-year-old adult.

But that's the beauty, and indeed the very essence, of historical
"memory"; no two "memories" are the same, and no person's
"memory" remains intact throughout their life.

(If all of this sounds rather academic, it is. Can't help it; I'm in grad
school.)

I don't remember music in the womb. That's not to say that my
mother never sang while she was pregnant with me; she might
have. But I don't remember it.

Neither Mom nor Dad are big music people, at least not in the same
sense that I am. They both appreciate music, but that's about the
limit of it. Neither one of them plays any instruments today (Mom
played piano at one point).

When I was born (1977), 8-tracks were still "in", and my parents
owned a few. One was the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever.
The reason I know this is because when I was young, while waiting
in the car in some parking lot for Mom to come back out of the
store*, I watched the plastic cover for this 8-track start to bend and
warp in the summer heat.

Regular cassette tapes were rarely seen. Mostly my folks listened to
33-rpm vinyl records. Dad built a slide-out turntable tray below the
entertainment center cabinets in the living room. The turntable slid
out, the vinyl records went on, the arm came down, and out of the
speakers the music came forth.

Particular records that I remember were Jim Croce's You Don't
Mess Around With Jim, I Got A Name and Life and Times; Paul
Simon's Greatest Hits (his solo 70's hits, not his S & G hits); a
record by Harry Nillson that featured Ringo Starr; some record
by Cat Stevens; and several records by 2nd Chapter of Acts, a
fairly popular 1970's Contemporary Christian band.

About the age of 6 I was "dragooned" into church choir. This
would be a lasting committment, one that I would honor (usually
against my will) for the next 16 years.

The Picker in the kids' choir at First United Methodist Church of Marietta, 1988 (from a church member directory).

Sometime between the ages of 6 and 10 I got my first
record player. It was plastic, with a tan base and tan
flip-up cover, an orange needle arm, a white top, and a
dark brown record platform. Because of its small size it
could only play 45-rpm records, which I discovered when I
tried to play a 33 rpm on it. I remember it took quite a few
tries before I realized that the larger record wouldn't fit.
Most kids, eyeballing the record and the record player,
probably would have picked up on that fact and not even
bothered to play the 33 rpm. I must have been "slow".

This was the era of "play-along records". Remember those?
They were booklets with 45-rpms in the back-flaps that
contained narration. "You will know it is time to turn the
page when you hear (fill in the blank) like this (fill in the
sound)." My play-along record collection included all three
of the Star Wars films, several Indiana Jones films, and a
lot of Disney films. They might still be buried somwhere
in my folks' attic. I ought to find them; with a little
blowtorch action, they might be useful as snack bowls.

My older, cooler sister had already advanced beyond such
child's play. She had real 45 rpms, including the undisputed
gem of 1983, Styx's "Mr. Roboto". When she was in a
humorous mood (which I welcomed, because it meant that
she might not beat me up that day), she would let me listen
to it normally, and then at 33 rpm speed. I was much
amused.

My first musical instruction was about the same time,
between the ages 6 and 10. Mom tried to teach me piano; it
didn't take. Now, that's the simple, sanitized version. The
truth is a whole lot uglier, one of the most unpleasant
memories of my life, and I'd rather not discuss it in detail
(especially since I brought it up once to Mom and she
asked me when I was going to forgive her for past
offenses). Please don't ever ask me about it, either.

One of the piano books from this "unpleasant" time period.

At Birney Elementary School I took music class, which
was taught by the same teacher who taught art class. I
think her name was Mrs. Brown. Initially we got along
fine; later on we had some kind of falling out. Eventually
it got to the point where I hated going to either music
or art class, mostly because I didn't like Mrs. Brown.

We learned the usual patriotic airs ("My Country 'Tis
of Thee", "America the Beautiful", "God Bless America")
and some other really strange songs. One that stuck out
was an old folk song in a minor key, on a record that we
sang along to. The song was about a man who died from
choking on a chicken bone in his chicken soup. Even
today, I can remember that section of the lyrics:

A little bone, a bitty thing / No bigger than my pinky,
He swallowed hot, from out that pot / And quicker
than a wink-ee,
He swallowed that soup, let out a whoop / And fell
down choking on his stoop,
And he choked! And he sagged! / And he smothered!
And he gagged!
And he let out a scream! "Aaaghh"! / And he let
out a moan! "Ooohhh."
And he cried, 'cause he died / from choking on
a bone
On such an ordinary day / like today.**

Absolutely macabre. People would have a field
day with that kind of crap if we played it today in
elementary schools full of impressionable young
minds.

For my part, I wouldn't eat anything for almost a
week after hearing that song. I was afraid I would
choke on it!

A full band came to our school once and performed,
to show us what different band instruments sounded
like. Afterwards we took a spelling test, to show that
we could spell some of the instruments' names. I got
every one right except "percussion". I had spelled it
"percution". For this, I blame The Electric Company.
One of their songs was about the suffix -tion, and that
song went:

T-I-O-N! / Shun-shun-shun-shun-shun!
T-I-O-N! / Shun-shun-shun-shun-shun!

I remembered this song, and figured that the "shun"
of percussion was spelled in the same way.

MTV came into being about this time. We didn't
have cable, but my aunt & uncle did. I can remember
actually watching videos on MTV at their house. The
whole matter of MTV finally doing away with its initial
reason for existence could fill countless essays. I've got
my own theories, but I guess in the end, television
networks have to give the people what they want, or
else go out of business. And apparently what the people
want---or at least, what the young people want---are
reality shows.

Up until the time I entered middle-school in 1988
my relationship to music was that of a listener, not
a performer. But in seventh grade, my introduction to a
new, subversive form of music (listened to clandestinely
at the top of indoor gym bleachers while other kids played
kick-ball below) would inspire my first bursts of creativity.

* This was before the days of Public Service Announcements warning of the dangers
of leaving children/pets in locked cars in the heat. I'm surprised my mind didn't bend
and warp as well.

**Update (04/27/09): This song was actually from a 1970's cartoon illustrated by Maurice Sendak (best known as the author/illustrator of Where the Wild things Are), sung by Carole King (who wrote "You're So Far Away", "You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman,", "It's Too Late, Baby", and other radio hits in the '60s and '70s). What would we do without the Internet? Forget everything?