The other day I was looking for something to read—something to hold in my hands rather than read from a screen. I wanted to touch the pages and feel the words on paper.
I wanted an old-fashioned book.
Do you ever miss the feel of holding a writer’s creativity in your very hands, knowing as a writer the sweat, heart and angst that the author pours into his/her craft? And the smell! Especially if the book is older and the edges of the pages are going yellow-to-sepia; it’s in its mustiest, old-library glory.
Dog-eared corners, ink-smudged words, the anonymous fingerprint—a bonus.
I chose a favorite old book from the shelf and fanned its pages. Why do people do that, anyway? Perhaps, like me, they are trying to catch that magical whiff. Either way, between the pages and close to the middle of the book were the crumbled remnants of a daisy.
This week for Song Lyric Sunday, Jim has chosen a wedding theme, songs that include the word/s Wedding/Marry/Diamond/Ring/Cake. I’ve chosen Band of Gold, by Freda Payne.
There is some mystery to this song. Some people think it is about an impotent man, while others think it is about a frigid woman. In a Songfacts interview with Lamont Dozier, who co-wrote the song, he explained: “The story was, the girl found out this guy was not all there. He had his own feelings about giving his all. He wanted to love this girl, he married the girl, but he couldn’t perform on his wedding night due to issues with his sexuality.
It was about this guy that was basically gay, and he couldn’t perform. He loved her, but he couldn’t do what he was supposed to do as a groom, as her new husband.”
This was released on Invictus Records, which Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland formed after they left Motown in 1968. Holland-Dozier-Holland produced the track and wrote it with their collaborator Ron Dunbar, but because of their dispute with Motown, the H-D-H trio couldn’t put their names on the label and credited themselves as “Edythe Wayne.” Members of the Motown house band The Funk Brothers played on the track.
Because of the subject matter, Freda Payne did not want to record this at first. She thought the song was about a woman who was a virgin or sexually naïve, and felt it was more suitable for a teenager.
When Payne objected to this song, Ron Dunbar (co-writer of the song) said to her, “Don’t worry. You don’t have to like them! Just sing it,” and she did. Little did she know that this song would become her biggest hit and her first gold record.
In 1986, Belinda Carlisle did a cover of this song for her debut album Belinda. Carlisle’s remake of this song is one of three to have entered the Hot Dance Club Play chart. The former Go-Go’s vocalist’s cover peaked at #26 on a chart run in 1986-87; disco act Sylvester reached #18 with his version, while American Idol finalist Kimberley Locke went all the way to the top of the Club Play chart in 2008 with her update.
Gloria awakened that morning with an erroneous smile on her face. Slowly, reality set-in as she came to accept the fact that Sunday was gone and Monday had taken its place.
Monday meant school.
School meant mean kids and bullies.
Mean kids and bullies meant angry tears that led to more stuttering, which of course, delighted the mean kids to no end. It was exactly what they wanted: ammunition to intensify the fear that had come to define Gloria’s life.
“B-b-b-bloody h-hell…” Gloria mumbled; flinging off the sheet and blankets.
She shuffled to the bus stop, dreading the inevitable. From a block away, she could see them standing in their usual circle, discussing their respective weekends and comparing notes. Normally she gave the bullies the wide berth they deserved, but today this was not an option.
Gloria wished a giant sinkhole would suddenly appear and swallow her up, right then & there. Albeit unpleasant, death by sinkhole was certainly preferable to waiting for the stupid school bus with a bunch of über-thugs.
Jimmy Swanson saw her first: “H-h-hey, G-g-g-gloria!” Jimmy taunted. “H-h-how’s it g-g-going?”
Predictably, the rest of the gang followed suit and a cacophony of pseudo-stammering peppered with cheerleader-giggling commenced.
Gloria didn’t even bother retaliating. What was the point? She was outnumbered, ill-equipped and browbeaten. Instead, she stared down at her scuffed penny loafers through a familiar blur of tears.
Their teasing roared like a train about to derail, but Gloria refused to acknowledge it. She clenched her jaw and jammed her trembling hands in the pockets of her red windbreaker. In the right pocket, wrapped in her grandmother’s handkerchief and secured with a rubber band from The Arlington Gazette, were two quarters, a nickel and a dime—lunch money that would likely be stolen within the next few minutes. Gloria clutched it; rubbing the coins together repeatedly between her thumb and index finger while the other hand was balled into a tight and tiny fist—so tight that her fingernails left crescent moon imprints on the heel of her palm.
Motionless, hyperventilating, and numb, Gloria prayed for the school bus to pull up, for the taunting to stop, for a meteorite to fall from the sky and squash them all like cockroaches beneath somebody’s boot.
She prayed, and waited for something, anything, to change.
And then, something did.
An unfamiliar silhouette appeared on the horizon and the teasing came to a screeching halt. It was a boy of approximately twelve — the same age as Gloria and her poopy-assed peers. He struggled toward the bus stop; both arms full of textbooks, spiral notebooks — and a tell-tale pencil case.
Clearly, this was a new kid.
A new kid.
Gloria could not believe her luck! According to The Mean Kids’ Guide to Bullying, the arrival of a new kid trumps a speech impediment any day of the week.
True to form and without missing a beat, the mean kids turned their attention from Gloria and set-upon the newcomer, knocking his books from his arms and then booting him in the rear as he tried to pick them up.
Having been the receptacle of mean-kid-terror for years, Gloria watched in anguish, accurately predicting each sequential move.
Finally, it became too much. She couldn’t take it anymore.
“S-sss-stop it! L-l-l-leave h-him a-l-lone!” Gloria roared, and rushed to the new kid’s aid.
Shocked, aghast, and put in its place, the band of bullies deferred. Gloria helped the boy collect his books. “A-a-are y-you okay?”
Without looking at her, the new kid nodded his appreciation.
This week’s prompt for Mindlovemosery’s Menagerie First Line Friday is:
They congregated up in the hills, far away from judging eyes.
They congregated up in the hills, far away from judging eyes.
Who could blame them? Had the narrow-minded townsfolk gotten wind of what those boys (who are now men) were up to, well, they probably would have ended up in a mental health facility. Or at least grounded.
It all started with Show & Tell Day in the third grade. One of their classmates, a cute girl named Farrah, (not Fawcett) brought her Suzy Homemaker ironing board and iron.
The girls in the class appeared perplexed over Farrah’s demonstration, while most of the boys yawned and kept glancing at the clock. The three boys who didn’t yawn are the heroes of this story.
Gary, Don and Jim were intrigued. Of course they’d seen their mothers iron, but certainly not like Farrah. Not even close. Farrah’s innovative technique was to prop the ironing board against the wall and iron vertically rather than the usual horizontal way. It was a little dangerous, for sure, but that was the attraction.
The boys made plans for the coming weekend: Gary would swipe his dad’s generator while Don offered to dig out his mother’s old ironing board from the basement. Jim promised to bring an iron and some old rags on which to practice.
Early that Saturday morning, the trio met at McTucker Hill which no one frequented since it was rumored to be haunted. They started out slow, taking turns ironing against tree trunks and boulders. As the weeks passed and they became more adept, the boys tried more dangerous ironing positions: hanging upside down from tree limbs, ironing in a pond on an inflatable raft, and one time (and one time only) on the roof of a decrepit outhouse.
Today, some 40 years later, Gary, Don and Jim are still into Extreme Ironing (EI), which has become one of the latest danger sports. According to the Extreme Ironing Bureau it “…combines the thrills of an extreme outdoor activity with the satisfaction of a well-pressed shirt.”
Ergo, the Ogre 