Thread by @imaracingmom

Today's Thread:
The Road to Happy Memories
Today is a very special day!
Warning: I have lots of music stories to share, these are but a few. This will be a long thread!

(Threading is the new Blogging)

I've always been drawn to music. Almost all kinds of music. The first instrument I played was the antique organ we had in our basement. It was a beautiful, ornate, Victorian looking thing. It had cutouts with red velvet behind them.

2 pedals by the floor you pumped to make it work, 2 pedals under the keyboard your worked with your knees and a row of knobs above the keyboard to pull out to change the sound. I was too little to reach the pedals, so Mom would put me on her lap and pump the pedals while she...

...taught me how to read music and play the organ.

Mom played a lot of instruments. Was gifted musically and it pleased her that I shared her interest. Over the years, she collected many instruments and taught herself how to play them.

I also learned to play several of them. Concertina, accordion, guitar, and banjo. After I moved away from home, she bought a fiddle, which I gave to my granddaughter after Mom passed away.

I started playing the saxophone in the 5th grade band. I'll never forget the trip to Park Music. Mom had a deal with me. She'd buy me an instrument, but I had to pay her back for half of it. Back then, my only income was babysitting for 50 cents an hour.

It took a long time to pay back my half! The guy at the music store tried to talk me into the flute. When that didn't work, he tried the clarinet. I was drawn to the alto sax. He told me girls don't play the sax.

Being a bit of a rebel, that sealed the deal and I went home with a shiny new alto sax. Band was boring because while everyone else was learning how to read music and learn scales and all that basic stuff, I had been doing those things for years and was already playing piano...

organ, and guitar at church. I was not a happy camper having to start with playing things like "Mary Had a Little Lamb". So, Mom signed me up for music lessons so I could progress at a faster pace.

I spent a lot of babysitting money buying song books at the music store. I hadn't caught on to playing by ear very well yet. My family had a log cabin on a lake. My Great-Grandpa built it in 1924. I have the fondest memories of Mom and I, sitting on the beach.

She played the accordion and I played the sax. People would come by in their boats and sit on the water and listen. Some even shouted out requests. There was a 3 legged racoon that used to come sit by the edge of the woods and listen to us.

Mom had a boyfriend named Swede. Short scrappy guy. He came and went because he was a sailor and was up in Duluth a lot, working on shipping boats. He got me a beautiful tenor sax. It was older, with a georgous patina and the richest sound. I was pretty short still, ...

and people used to joke my sax was almost as tall as me.

By Jr. High, I was competing at state music competitions and competed every year through 11th grade. Starting in 10th grade, I played in bands that performed in bars, at weddings, and other events.

. In 10th grade, I got put in the 12th grade band, and auditioned for 1st chair, which I earned. Some of the seniors weren't too happy with me. 12th grade band was the concert band. 11th grade band was the varsity (marching) band. Our marching band was so bad, ...

they took all the 1st chairs from the concert band and formed a "booster band" ". We stood on the sidelines at games and played along with the marching band to help them sound better. I'll never forget the year Homecoming fell on my Birthday ...

and the football team carried me out to center field for a ceremonial birthday spanking. That night was the only time in my life the jocks asked me to party with them after the dance. It's with great pride I tell you I drank the whole team under the table. LOL

I also played in my schools jazz band.

Mom came to all my band concerts and her eyes would glow with pride. I always had stage fright really bad, and she'd wave so I knew where she was and wanting to please her was such a strong force, it'd get me past the fright.

At the end of 11th grade, she said she wasn't going to go to the school band concerts anymore. Devastated, I didn't sign up for band for 12th grade. I'll never forget how mad Mr. Ruud, the band director was. He called me into his office and chewed my butt.

He said if I quit band, I'd end up not graduating from high school, on drugs, and pregnant before I was married. Yeah right, what did he know? I was an honor student, who the hell was he to tell me I won't graduate just because I didn't take his band class????

I was still playing in bands outside of school, making good money. Everything he predicted came true. A couple of years later, I got my G.E.D. instead of the diploma I should have gotten in 1977.

I was playing in a band called T.A.T. That stood for Tits Ass and Tamborines. (We didn't worry about political correctness back then.) It was an all female band. We took off the summer of '77 and headed to LA, where we were sure we'd make it big in the music scene.

Life in California is very different than Minnesota, and I was glad to come home

(Next comes @lmstroud89's favorite story)

Prince was born the same year as me. There were times our paths would cross. We hung at some of the same clubs and knew some of the same musicians. He was a unique individual, and some of us were assholes and made fun of him in our private conversations.

I'll never forget being drunk and bragging that in a few years, he'd be a bussboy at Perkins and I'd be a rock star. By 1982, HE was the rock star, making bank off of "1999" and I was the Diningroom Manager at a Perkins. This is Karma for saying bad things about someone.

Mom never came to a bar to hear me play, but we continued to play on the beach at the cabin. In 1980 I was living with the abusive boyfriend I've talked about in other threads. After an explosive episode of abuse, that ended in a miscarriage...

I finally figured out that I needed to get the hell out of there or I would die. My boss at Perkins got me a transfer to the Perkins in Brainerd. I loaded what I could in my 1969 Chevelle and moved in with my grandparents at the cabin. I left all my instruments behind.

I didn't tell friends where I went, only my family knew. That is how I kept safe. I never performed again. I told Mom to sell my instruments, I had no use for them. I went into hiding and wasn't discovered until some biker friends of mine from back home stopped at my work to eat.

Fast forward to many years later when Mom passed away. There was lots to deal with as far as her estate went. In the later years of her life, she became a hoarder. She still had several instruments, including the guitar and the banjo I learned to play on as a kid, and ...

she had given me when I was in highschool. With lots of expenses to deal with, I sold her instruments to a local musician. A nice old guy who knew my Mom. I cried when he came to pick them up.

Yesterday, he tracked me down via some musician friends of mine who work at the music store. He's 90 now and has cancer. He's getting ready to take that final walk on this side of life. He asked me if I'd like my Mom's guitar and banjo back!!!! I offered to pay for them, ...

but he refuses to take any money for them. So, in a few hours, I will be hugging my old guitar.

Funny how this all works out. Not too long ago, I decided that I missed music. I don't miss performing, I miss playing. Jamming on what ever I want off in a corner by myself.

I had been looking for a guitar, and a friend borrowed me one of his. I really suck at it, I haven't played since 1980, but I love it. I usually play it every morning before I open the shop.

Tonight, I'll return his guitar to him. Tomorrow, I'll play my old guitar. Each note will make me feel close to my Mom. My cool Mom of my youth. In her later years, her mental illness took her away from me. It was like she died and a stranger took possession of her body.

Too often, I'm honed in on the painful things from her battles with mental illness. That's the lady I dread ever seeing looking back at me when I look in the mirror.

I imagine playing that old guitar will feel like a hug from Heaven. Mom and I playing together again.

Maybe this further step in the healing process will bring me back to the type of person I'd be proud to be, and that's the Mom of my youth. The woman how held a little girl on her lap and taught to play the organ. The woman who could go to any child laying on the ...

ground with a skinned knee and make them laugh. The woman who divorced my abusive Dad and supported us kids by upholstering people's furniture in our living room. The woman who put herself through school and became a mechanical drafts person.

The woman who could belt out Kitty Wells and Patsy Cline with as much gusto as they had. The woman who could take a package of hotdogs and feed her kids with it for a week. The woman who could figure out how to fix her own car.

The woman who never let her kids know how dirt poor we were. The woman who's eyes glowed at her daughter's band concert. I'd be damned proud to look in the mirror and see that I had become that woman.

RIP Mom! Your Birthday is on the 13th and I promise I will try to play a couple of your favorite songs that day. I love you and I miss you.

Pictures of Mom...

~The End