Today is Leap Blog Day ~ hooray! I have invited the very funny and very lovely Kelly from Southern Fried Children to leap from her blog to mine. So, after you read her guest post, click on over and give her blog some love. And, without further ado, please welcome Kelly!
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(Thank you, Rissa – for allowing me to guest on your blog. One of my favorite things about you is your passion for music. So I knew I had to write something musical for you. I took it old school!)
There became a pattern to my afternoons: Off the school bus, rush down the block, stop abruptly at the end of the driveway, tear open the mailbox. Stare dejectedly. It hadn’t come.
Days went by and if I asked my mother once I asked her a thousand times, “When do you think it will be here?”
I had seen the advertisement during Saturday morning cartoons. I was already in a musical mood, rocking out to Josie & the Pussycats, and when the commercial came on, the sound stopped me dead in my tracks.
Donna Summer.
If ever a white bread, seven year old Southern kid could will herself into the super glam, mega-afro’d, stunning Queen of Disco, it was me. Only twenty years and unfortunate genetics separated who I was on the outside, and who I longed to be on the inside.
I ran all the way to the kitchen, repeating the number.
800-555-7878
800-555-7878
Digging through the junk drawer, looking for a pencil. There’s never a pencil in here! And finally, scribbling the number on an envelope with the tiny stub of a purple crayon.
800-555-7878
“Mom! Please can I order it? Please? I saved money from my birthday and I’ll do extra chores and wash your car! Anything you want! Please?”
My mother was not a fan of disco. She had been, at one time, until my father made her trade in her Bee Gee albums and platforms for George Jones and a giant belt buckle. The final straw had been an incident involving a too-tight feathered headband and momentary loss of consciousness. Still, she acquiesced.
I don’t know that I have ever before or ever since anticipated something as much as the arrival of that 12 x 12 inch cardboard sleeve full of vinyl magic.
Finally, it arrived.
It was a Saturday morning when the mailman came to the door and I heard the words – “C.O.D.” I ran to my room and carefully opened my jewelry box and extracted the $12.99 plus shipping and handling, and ran back to the door. I handed over the cash, sweaty from my palms, and took delivery of the package.
It was the first piece of mail I’d ever received with just my name on it.
It was the first album I had ever purchased with my own money.
I don’t know how long I stared at the cover. I would revisit it time and again, wondering – what did it mean? Looking at those static bodies, all big boobs and leisure suits, knowing that if I stared long enough, they’d start moving. How can you look like that and not move your body? How can you listen to something by a band called ‘Natural Juices’ and not want to shake it?
I pulled the album from the sleeve and blew gently across the surface. I was careful to hold it only on the sides, like my dad had shown me. Onto the record player, the switch flipped, and it began to spin. Slowly, carefully, tentatively, with a wildly beating heart and shaking hands, I lowered the needle.
FRIDAY! Ba da da dum, da dum! – thank God it’s FRIDAY!
It was amazing, it was perfect, it was disco.
