Old stories

[fbhjr]

I’m not quite sure how this song crossed my path after decades, but I did hear someone doing a version at one of the faires we were at recently and went to look it up:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(song)

I remember it from almost 50 years ago. My father had an original copy of the 78RPM version and both he and I thought the song very funny and listened to it a lot. There were very few songs we both knew all the lyrics to and could sing along with. (Pistol Packing Mama being the other I can remember…)
The original Star Wars movie had just come out and I listened to the soundtrack for that a lot.
So, I was 13 or 14 at the most at the time.

The record player at the time was a folk up kind that we kept on the floor of the living room and my father and I had a pile of records next to it behind a chair to be out of the way.

One of the photos my aunt gave me this spring shows the record player, still in the same position, a few years later. The records, fewer in number, stacked on top to keep them out of the way. You can see my tastes in music had not changed as now it was the second Star Wars movie on top.


I remember coming home from school one day and finding both my favorite records smashed. My mother explained how when she was vacuuming, with her floor canister vacuum, her hand had slipped and she had dropped the canister onto the pile of records and since the two I played the most were on top, they both broke.

The 78 was made of hard plastic and shattered. The Star Wars one just had a big chunk taken out of it. I tried to glue them back together, but they were unplayable.

I suggested that since my mother dropped the vacuum cleaner on them, perhaps she could replace at the the Star Wars one, as it was still in the stores. The 78 was gone and I knew it.
She informed me that as I had chosen to keep the records on the floor it was completely my fault and I would need to replace them myself.
And of course, there was not even an apology. Why should there be? It was all my own fault.

There was, of course, no feasible way that my mother could have accidentally dropped the vacuum on the records and all of us knew it.
The canister part was fairly heavy and if she wanted it lifted she usually had me or my brother do it. So, the idea she was lifting it by herself behind chairs was not even remotely believable.

It was rare, but not unknown, of her to break something of my father’s. And, there was never a chance he’d call her out on it. He’d have eaten those broken record shards before ever questioning her story, at least to her face.
And, it’s not like I was overly happy with him. This was not long after he “lost” my dog.

This was about the time that I stopped letting my mother hit me with things. I don’t know if the two are tied together or not. It could be my stopping her and telling her I wasn’t going to put up with that any more led to this other type of punishment. Maybe that would make it “my fault”.
I have to admit, I don’t remember the exact time that happened. But, it was about the time I started high school, and Star Wars came out the summer before I started.

I try not to be like my parents.
I can’t deny that I can also get angry and be mean.

I do have both “The Thing” and the Star Wars soundtrack down loaded on my phone, have some nice Bluetooth speakers, but do not go to the nursing home where my mother resides no longer able to speak and play some music from the old days for her.
But, I did think about it…

Comments

[taz_39]

What GEMS you had for parents.

I'm sorry for the negative impact that they had on your life.

[threemeninaboat]

I had to replace all my records my dad "lost" too. Michael Jackson's Thriller, The Blues Brother's Rubber Biscuit.

I still have not found one about riding a bicycle.

[fbhjr]

I looked through used record stores for a long time for my lost one.
But, just found it is available for download these days.
It does sound different than that old 78 did 50 years ago. Or, I think it does…

[brickhousewench]

Some of your stories about your mother really make me wonder WTF was wrong with her.

[meowmensteen]

That's a shit move on her part. I'm sorry that happened to you.

My mom pulled some crap on me that wasn't quite as bad as that. We got robbed while we were out camping. When we came home and discovered what had happened, my mother quickly hid Casio piano and told me the robber took that too. I found it years later in her closet.