When I was a
youngster I used to see my mother doing the housework to good old rock n roll
music. By the time I was a teenager I
was enlisted as Mom’s DJ and would stack the record player with her favorite songs
while she went at her daily chores. She
loved Elvis but she also liked some more edgy songs of the day such as “The
Night Chicago Died”, “Another Saturday Night” and “Magnet
and Steel”. We edged her into the
BeeGees, Donna Summers, ABBA, The Guess Who and even the Rolling Stones.
Reflecting back on those days I realize
that our house was always full of sound, whether it was with talk or with music
or the louder voices of kids fighting. Yet
it wasn’t filled with tension or stress, despite the noise it was still a very
tranquil household. The might sound a
little odd, that there could be tranquility in the midst of noise but it’s
actually true. There were 8 of us in the
house, there was music, television, younger kids playing and running around, my
mother working away in the kitchen, setting the table and cooking supper. When Dad got home there was always a lot of
kids running to greet him and with his big voice filling the house there was
little silence until he settled down to his newspaper. The house seemed to have a certain tempo.
Nostalgia? Selective memory? Perhaps, but I can say this with
certainty. Never in all my growing up
did I hear my parents’ quarrel. Never did
I hear them discuss money or financial concerns. We were sheltered from that type of
insecurity. Any stress we experienced
was of our own making. We were very blessed.
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