Music Pill Angst Reliever

When I think of threading the needle, and because I’m a guy, my mind shifts to football and basketball, not so much the beautiful fluffy works of sewing various cloths together. Regardless of genre, threading the needle requires perfection in moving something through a difficult obstacle and coming out neatly on the other side. The internet calls “to thread the needle” a verb, to find harmony or strike a balance between conflicting forces, interests, etc., and normally is used to indicate difficulty of doing so; also, sarcastically, for a failed attempt.

In basketball, from years of personal observations and experiences, to pass the ball to a teammate, through the outstretched arms and legs of the opponents, for a score brings the most uplifting feeling of joy. The harder and longer the pass, through many more arms and legs, only hyperdrives the high.

As in Frank Sinatra’s version of “It Was a Very Good Year” when you’re a teen, there were “small town girls” and “soft summer nights”. For me there was one girl, but she left as the Cascades so eloquently and truly put it, “along with her, she took my heart” (https://youtu.be/0UkWcOwj7Ak ) in the summer of 1963. She left to live with an aunt, in Michigan, a long way from the small town of West Bridgewater, Massachusetts, my heart was broken, and the only thing I could do, to lessen the pain, was to play basketball.

At age 16, beyond family, my life revolved around two things; basketball and basketball. The girl, I had dreams of marrying, gone from my life weeks ago, the sting of her departure still controlling my heart was briefly consoled by listening to my little blue Japanese made transistor radio under my pillow. Whatever answers I needed were in the music, I was sure of it. “Our day will come ( https://youtu.be/qw9RVjEN9OI) , if we just wait a while, no tears for us, think love and wear a smile.” Too, rest for my aching muscles and throbbing painful Plantar wart on the ball of my right foot and some peace for my daytime very unsure soul.

Looking back on that segment of my life, my heartache and pains intertwined with all manner of universal changes in the world, time passed, even in little West Bridgewater, Massachusetts. “In dreams you’re mine all of the time” ( https://youtu.be/-8Jz3VW7rYk ) , mixed with being on the “Eve of destruction” ( https://youtu.be/MdWGp3HQVjU ), “Walk on by” (https://youtu.be/AO073fekFfA ) , “Dancing in the streets” (https://youtu.be/CdvITn5cAVc ), all piled into the flower adorned bus of my mind, along with the threats of bra burning and, even better, their complete removal. Still no girlfriend, but no one noticed, as basketball was the only “courting” I was intimate with in those days. Being the best at round-ball meant holding, passing, dribbling, threading and shooting a dimple faced circular leather sphere named Spalding or Rawlings and occasionally Wilson. She was 29.5” round and held up to 8.5 pounds of air and showed some wear, but she was my girl, and unlike my first love, always found her way back to me. She literally leaped through hoops for me, whether at school or at the 361 Spring Street net, hung from our barely standing garage. In winter, I would shovel the driveway enough to shoot from as many angles as possible, often sliding off to my left into a foot or so of snow. Mama would yell out the door her obligatory “you’re going to catch pneumonia”, and I’d yell back, “I’m OK” ma. Sneakers, white sox, a sweatshirt, usually gray, and light tan colored chino work pants, like Papa wore, were all I needed to survive. My gloveless hands would prune as, for many hours, I’d shoot and shoot, never missing, in my mind. As if on a quest for my Holy Grail, I would continue until the fingers began to crack and bleed and darkness obscured the hoop. Going in, I let my love go free, and she’d bounce around a bit and bump Missy, our dog, in the bum, Missy looked up, gave a little moan then resumed her head on paws slumber. Off to plunge my now aching hands into warmer water and, “oh boy”, homework, dinner and bed, big game tomorrow. Under my pillow, the radio plays “When the truth is found, to be lies, and all the joy within you dies”, as every other night, yes Lord, I do want somebody to love ( https://youtu.be/Lg3Xk-FE0G0 ).

God, sent me somebody to love and after we finished high school and during my attempts at college, we were married, and we copied ourselves four times, a boy, a girl, a girl, and a boy to be exact, a string of loves that last to this day. “Penny Lane” by (The Beatles) March 21st of 1967 ( https://youtu.be/S-rB0pHI9fU ) and “Love is Blue” by (Paul Mauriat) February 24th of 1968 ( https://youtu.be/rjsNNcsUNzE ) skip a year, then “ABC” by (The Jackson 5) May 5th 1970 ( https://youtu.be/yGw11doFasU ) lastly, ( https://youtu.be/3GXSHRJYxTQ ) “Smiling Faces Sometimes, by (The Undisputed Truth) September 22, 1971.

With larger family, came a better job as I changed from Teamster union work to inside office work. I still managed to play basketball several times a week, and again, whatever issues, if any, would be lost in the playing. The job change allowed for added pounds to my belly and a shift to other sports like tennis and golf which exacerbated the lingering pain of my right Achilles heel.

We moved from the free-flowing psychedelic “Summer of Love” era and the “Hey now, what’s that sound? of Buffalo Springfield ( https://youtu.be/gp5JCrSXkJY ) to the years of “Disco” music and dancing punctuated by several Bee Gees songs from the disco era hit movie “Saturday Night Fever” ( https://youtu.be/SkypZuY6ZvA ). On the outside, these times were less psychedelic, and far more motivated by the motion of the music and the dance of the spotlights, and while “Get Down Tonight” with KC and The Sunshine Band seemed to play all night long ( https://youtu.be/L7RRLC5slLo), others were snorting free flowing white stuff, from counters and tops of toilet tanks, seemingly everywhere nightlife was taking place. With four growing fast and impressionable children at home, I stayed with sports as my way to blow off steam.

The 80’s brought a divorce, and some time of unrest in my mind and heart, and I adjusted to a new kind of life, which found me often isolated, but never lonely. Songs like “Every Breath You Take” ( https://youtu.be/OMOGaugKpzs ) by the Police, ( https://youtu.be/lcOxhH8N3Bo ) “Total Eclipse of the Heart” by Bonnie Tyer, ( https://youtu.be/ltrMfT4Qz5Y ) and “Footloose” by Kenny Loggins kept my mind still and my feet moving. I was living in the south (Marietta, Georgia) so when in Rome, I was introduced to “Country” music. Traditional yes, but mostly songs and bands that could also be called pop, maybe crossover as a better description. Not so much Hank Williams (Jr. or Sr.), but more Juice Newton ( https://youtu.be/zJ3CFAU8rTk ) and “Angel of the Morning”, and Ronnie Milsap ( https://youtu.be/Zj6_CpSGPoE ) “Smokey Mountain Rain” and others “(There’s) No getting’ Over Me” and his “Lost in the Fifties Tonight (In the Still of the Night). Alabama had me in “High Cotton”, and I was never going to play in Texas, and at times I was guilty of “Love in the First Degree”, but there surely was an “Old Flame” ( https://youtu.be/bn3QEB4kbVc ) and it would be a while before I’d think of “The Closer You Get” ( https://youtu.be/WbR7mvOe1xs ) as a possibility for me. My radio played a mix of both and I worked with piped in (mostly country) music.

Though I didn’t have my children with me, my time in Georgia was full. I roomed with a couple of guys (Lionel Galindo) and (Bud "Bubba" Mathews) (is that 1 “T” or 2)? By day we all worked for Sysco Metro Foodservice, and by night, I’d watch TV with them or retire to listen to my radio and write, mostly poetry, but letters home too. It relaxed me after long days in the office. I became friends with one Karen Landrum, through her sister, Kathy, who also worked in the Sysco office. Karen was friends with a local pair of singers, Randall & CC, and we went very often to hear them play and sing. They covered songs and wrote much of what I came to love, and it was a way to put away, for a while, thoughts of loneliness from my kids and New England family. I thought Randall & CC delivered a rich and rewarding experience every performance, and they had quite an Atlanta following. With songs like “We have so much in common”, and “Danger Zone” (not the Kenny Loggins one), “Kangaroo”, and their own closing song “Carolina” (not that one), but “you’re in my heart wherever I go, please take good care of the people that I love, ooh ooh I love them so”, Randall and Carolyn will forever occupy the music room of my heart. At a time when my soul needed help, the Landrum’s, Sam and Kathy and Betty and Karen and mom and dad, gave me real southern hospitality and real southern fried chicken. I was treated and loved like family and made them mine and gave my love as well, I may add, as a “Yankee”, whether they wanted it or not (ooh ooh I still love them so).

Tides and time brought me back to Massachusetts, and a resumption and connection with my children and family. Then, the era of doing more with less at my job, prompted moves back to Georgia, then to Fort Myers, Florida, where I retired and started writing on Facebook. I returned to West Bridgewater, MA and now reside in Maine with my sister.

“But now the days are short, I’m in the autumn of the year, and now I think of myself as vintage wine, from fine old kegs, from the brim to the dregs, and it poured sweet and clear, it was a very good year.” ( https://youtu.be/ydcUaTpiHgQ )

“Like a tapestry well woven, spins the fabric of our lives” is a line from our Alma Mater, at West Bridgewater High School, and has stayed with me all my life. Beside my belief in God, it has been and will continue to be “music” that steadies and calms the tapestry of my life, and magnifies the beauty and love of all I’ve known.